THE DAILY CABLE

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXII, Issue 7024, 12 January 1910, Page 4

THE DAILY CABLE

Tiro quantity and extent of the overseas cable service to tho Dominion press has frequently been a subject of discussion in. New Zealand, and in consequence the public learned the method followed by newspaper proprietors in securing intelligence from abroad. It is well known that the service is controlled by an Australian combination of interests and; that New Zealand participates by payment of an annual sum, much lower, of course, than would be tho cost of a second service. In a general sense the news published by daily papers is their own affair alone. If the community does not like the tone of what is printed or tho selection offered, it need not read. This is theoretically the case, but in regard to the news cabled from London the position is different. Tho newspapers have to publish it, or leave their readers' unprovided for in tliis respect. The public reads it because it is all that is pffered. The ! situation is altogether unsatisfactory, for the news is often unreliable and inadequate. Tills is particularly so in relation to politics, and wo take this opportunity of expressing regret that at such a time as the present, when one of tho greatest political battles of modern times is being fought in England, tho reports published in New Zealand from day to day should be so unsatisfactory. Of the fine speeches—to become some day historic—delivered by the leaciore of Liberal opinion in England we get practically nothing but an invective-skimming coho. Of the equally momentous deliverances by the Conservative mandarins all that comes to us across tho cable is the venom and a few disjointed sentences. Of the articles contributed to the

really responsible journals we may have an occasional line. Of tho scaremonger’s clap-trap there is a surfeit. Indeed, to judge from the cabled summary of events, it would seem that a quarrel between Kilkenny cats was in progress rather than a great constitutional controversy among the most distinguished public men of the generation. It is surely time the people of New Zealand were rescued from their too-prolonged diet upon this fare, acceptable to those for whom it is primarily intended, no doubt, but quite unacceptable to this country. Tho Now Zealand newspapers aro numerous enough to provide themselves with a cable service, and it is high time they commenced to see about it.