The Nelson Evening Mail. FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 22, 1867.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume II, Issue 277, 22 November 1867, Page 2

The Nelson Evening Mail. FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 22, 1867.

Our contemporary the Colonist, whilst offeriug a rather lame apology to its readers this morning for its appropriation of the telegram of news received by the Suez Mail which appeared in our issue of yesterday, complains most unjustifiably that we had returned to the old arrangement with the Government with regard to the supply of the mail telegrams, without auy previous intimation to our contemporaries of our iuteuticn to that effect, and evidently desires that the public should imagine that we had been guilty of a gross breach of good faith in this regard. The Colouist or any other journal is quite welcome to appropriate and republish in its col urn us any telegram for which we may have paid, but we shall not permit those who so coolly avail themselves of this convenience to 'add insult to injury,' and accuse us of "dishonorable conduct without satisfying the public of the uatruthfulness and want of candor which such treatment exhibits. We shall therefore lay before our readers a brief narrative of the circumstances, and leave them to judge whether or uot the course which we have adopted is open to any such censure. On the 31st of August, some time after the failure of the joint negotiations on the part of the three local journals for the supply by the Government of the English telegrams, which have been already detailed iv these columns, the proprietoreditor of the Colouist called at our office aud informed us that he. iv conjunction with the propiietor of tlie Examiner, was about to propose au arrangement with a Wellington journal with a view to obtain the heads of English news as soon as they were published in that cit)\ The proprietor of the Examiner also called a few hours afterwards, inquiring whether the proprietors of thi3 journal were disposed to join the Examiner and Colonist in such an arrangement. For reasons to which it is unnecessary to refer more explicitly, we declined to acquiesce in [his proposal, and the proprietor of the Examiner concluded the interview by saying, ' Then I may understand that we are at liberty to make our c'u arraugements.' To this we replied, ' Yes, and we will do the same.' Having thus learned that some arrangement of this nature was in contemplation by our contemporaries, and being ever anxious to furnish our readers with any available information, we again applied to the Government, offering various propositions for the supply of the telegrams in. a form more suited to the present size of this journal, which were in each instance declined. But fueling that the impossibility of successfully resisting the arbitrary and inequitable regulations of the Government had been sufficiently tested, and that the long intervals .which have of late elapsed so frequently bet, ween the arrival of the mail steamers at the Bluff, and the actual receipt of the mail at Nelson demauded an earlier supply to our readers of the news couveyed by it, we were reluctantly induced at the commencement of the present month to intimate to the Government, through the officer at the head of the Telegraph Department, our wish to receive the lelegra.ns of English news as formerly, and on the 7th instant we received, through the same channel, a reply expressive of the acquiescence of the Q-oyerntnent in. our proposal. As we have already said, we leave it to our readers to determine whether this action on our part was or was not entirely justiiiable aud consistent, both with good faith towards our contemporaries, and with due regard for the interests of qur readers. •-•The question as to what protection the CtOTei'ucaent is disposed to extend to any

journal whose proprietary have thought fit to acquiesce in its terms for the supply of the telegrams of Euglish news, aud who are thereby subjected to a large and exorbitant additional expenditure, now remains to be solved, and we shall watch the result with no less interest and anxiety than our contemporaries.