THE EVENING MAIL. THURSDAY, MAY 31, 1877.

Oamaru Mail, Volume I, Issue 344, 31 May 1877, Page 2

THE EVENING MAIL. THURSDAY, MAY 31, 1877.

Me. Stkode lias had the courage to remark, at a meeting of the Otago Lands Board, that it was "extraordinary so few of the people interested read the Board's land advertisements," and the Commissioner added that "it was a pity, then, that so much money was wasted by the Board, which paid £6OO per month for advertising." We are not at all surprised that these two gentlemen have arrived at such conclusions. The wonder is thathese facts were not palpable to every memt ber of the Board long since. The Ota-jo Daily Times secured a monopoly at the beginning of the year of Government adver: aients. by virtue of what would be,

in L.L<i case of any other newspaper, an 1 exceedingly low tender, they having charged, we presume, the true value of advertising in their journal. How it comes about that the Board's account for advertising amounts to the extraordinary sum of £6OO per month is a matter that will, we have no doubt, require a little explanation. The Times' contract was only one shilling per inch for plain matter, and, considering the publicity that paper is in a position to afford the Board's announcements, the charge is, we think, excessive. This is one of the reforms instituted by our exemplary Government, and one by which, we have no doubt, thousands have already been lost to the land reserve. During the existence of provincial institutions, the land sales were advertised in the provincial Government Gazette, and, in every other paper circulating in the district in which the sales were held, and we venture to assert, that under this liberal arrangement, whereby every settler saw the notifications, the cost was small compared to the amount of the Board's monthly advertising account as stated at the last meeting. As the matter stands at present, people must either forego the papers for which they have a preference, and take the Times, or be ignorant of the contents of the Board's advertisements ; and they prefer to do the latter. Such a waste of public money as that which has just been disclosed, is highly to be deprecated, and the sooner the present absurdly inefficient though expensive system of public advertising is dropped the better.