THE PRESS ASSOCIATION.

Hastings Standard, Issue 96, 17 August 1896, Page 2

THE PRESS ASSOCIATION.

To show the unfairness of the charge made by the Press Association for entrance-fee for the Standaud, we would point out that never in the history of the colony has anything like the sum demanded from us been asked. The Wairarapa Star, published in a town larger than Hastings, where another Association paper was in existence, was offered similar privileges for £SO. The Brunner News, started within a radius of seven miles from Grcymouth, was admitted for £'lso. The Greymouth Evening Star paid £250, while £IOO was deemed sufficient for the Pahiatua Herald. In Nelson, the last evening paper was admitted to membership for £IOO less than that asked from The Hastings Standard, while the Napier News, which joined when Mr E. W. Knowles was not Chairman of Directors, received its membership ticket for £BSO. We might run through a long list of newspapers, and show the glaring anomaly in its true colors. Perhaps it will be sufficient to add that the Napier Telegraph, run by the present Chairman of Directors of the Press Association, was admitted without the fiai/nn'nt <>f <>iw jtenmj. And then a politician of the Social Purity stamp stands up in the House and says it would be unfair to look into the affairs of a private company. Bunkum.