NON-PUBLICATION OF STATEMENT

Southland Times, Issue 23342, 28 October 1937, Page 6

NON-PUBLICATION OF STATEMENT

EDITORIAL ANSWER TO MINISTER’S COMPLAINT (United Press Association) CHRISTCHURCH, October 27. The complaint of the Minister of Labour (the Hon. H. T. Armstrong) in the House of Representatives yesterday about the nonpublication of his unemployment statement is answered editorially in tonight’s Star-Sun. “Such a statement is news only to the daily papers which number not 140 but 56 and most of the daily papers are too small to be able to give space to an official statement published by the city and chief provincial journals,” says the editorial. _ “In the particular instance under notice the fact to be remarked is not that so few journals published the statement but that so many of them were prepared to overlook what appeared to be a piece of pronounced favouritism on the part of the Minister. Although Mr Armstrong stated that copies were posted direct to 140 newspapers on October 15 in such manner as to ensure that they reached a large number simultaneously, the truth is that one Weilington newspaper was given the advantage of 36 hours over all the morning newspapers in the Dominion and 48 hours’ advantage at least over all other evening newspapers. Copies of the statement were despatched from Wellington not on October 15, hut on October 16, after it had been published in the capital city. If Mr Armstrong had followed the usual course m such matters he would either have named a date for simultaneous publication or he would have handed the document to the Press Association which would have made sure that newspapers were treated alike.”