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Timaru Herald, Volume XCVIII, Issue 15120, 14 August 1913, Page 8

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PRESS WORK ABROAD. IMAC-INATIVE WRITERS. CHAT WITH SIR JOSEPH WARD. Sir Joseph Ward, v .-bo has■ provided many hundreds of columns of what pressmen call "g;od eopv," is, to use ins own words, "oif interviewers.." Being cut oi oifce ho <lees not desire to throw much at his political opponents, nor decs lie 'wish to sav anvthir." about h:s -future intentions" privately™ or politically. He. is having a quiet timo alter yours of strenuous work, iad he told a "Herald" rcpre-senta-v. .'. who accompanied him on the soyth-gomg express yc.ste.rdav, that ho Wished ro be regarded bv newspaper men as "off the slate"—for the present at all events. Ever courteous, however, Sir Joseph talked on ono or two matters of a general nature. The conversation first turned to newspaper;,, and incidentally the reporter learned that the cx-Primu Minister of New Zealand had been tho victim, on one occasion, of an imsginat.v;> writer on a Canadian paper. Ho had given 1,0 interview to this paper, but one had been invented and credited to him. The alleged "interview" was of an extraordinary character, and of it he knew nothing until .a copy of the paper which.printed it, was forwarded to him by one of his sor.'s. The "intevview" first appeared in tho Canadian paper referred to, and from this paper it was reprinted by a journal in Manchester, it gave a detailed account of a desperate- encounter which he was supposed to have had with another man. ' It was asserted that he and tho other feillow had b?on sitting at a tabfo orio night in the Wakatipu district, that they had fallen out; "doped'' each ether's l.quor, and tho:i used their revolvers until they both found tiieimoivci under the table. Next morning, when they awoke, his assailant was said to have been prompted by a kindly feeling which ied him to spare his (the. speaker's) life. Sir Joseph laughed heartily over tho little joke, which he quoted as an example of the length to which "some" newspapers would go were hard up for copy. Of course, he .added that ho knew such a thing could not happen in New Zealand. Asked if lie had much bother from interviewers on the other side of tho world, Sir Joseph said no, he never had any trouble at. all. Speaking generally, he ' found pressmen; very goed to* him, and he could only recall two occasions on which he had had reason for serious complaint. Ono was in the case he had just mentioned, and the other was a N-jw York paper published an interview from another, man and credited it to h : m. On tho night ki question he- had been too busy to give an interview, and unkuoVn to him another man gave tho interview in his name, and it was published w : thout his knowledge or consent. His ~ impersonator had done fairly well, lnri/unfortunately ho hael got "astray in some of his figures—a fact which afterwards got lnui (Sir Joseph) into trouble. __ Speaking of the conduct of Home papers generally. Sir Joseph said that tho papers in England do not do so much iivterv'ewing as the New Zealand papers. This lie attributed to tho fact that they had--such-a mass-of world's news "with which to copo that thev had noither the time i:wr -tho. spaeo to deal with interviews. Public hie i at Home, except tho actual leaders when dealing with important mattars of policy, were not reported so fulLv as ~ : it New Zealand. Men who spoko after 11 o'clock at night were se'dom reported, except in the briefest possible way. This was owing to the fact that the newspapers went to press about midnight, and shortly after that hour were beiiia distributed all over the country. Ho noticed' that the Home newspapers were for the most part staffed with young men, a good proportion of whom came from the Universities. They struck him as smart well-inform.ed men. He had mot several New Zealand newspaper men at Home, and they appeared to be quite able to hold their own with the pressmen of the Homeland. The editor of the "Daily Mail" was a New Zealander. Sir Joseph Ward saiel that he met Now Zealanders •■.herever h-s wont at Home, and he had travelled about in'oro this time than ever before, going from Land's End to tho extreme north of England. He had b"en asked to open a fiowor show at Falmouth one day and when doino: so a man in the audience caught his eye, and he at ones recognised him as a New Zealander. The man afterwards informed him that the previnus time tlvey hnd met was in Now Zealand when Sir .Toßonh w:is- rpsninq: the Waihi railway. The ™.m had "ettlod in Cornwall, and was doing well. Asked concerning the condition or affairs at Homo now, socially and financially, the returned statesman said that social conditions showed a slight improvement, though there was still plenty of poverty. As regards moues - . it was rntite a mistake to sup-

poso that there was a scarcity of money in England. There had >een a wonderful improvement in trade all over England, and the shipyards had never before been so busy as during the past five years. ' Between £300,000,000 and £400,000,000 of new money came forward in London for investment every year, and there was ii!) real justification for the present tightness of the money market. The position was that the money-lenders had made the Balkan war an excuse for putting up the rate of interest, and they looked upon such a time as their harvest. Hi: anticipated that in the very near future the cables would inform us that the Bank of England had lowered the rate, and as it practically governed the money market there would then very soon be a freer tone on the money market. ■' Speaking of emigration, Sir Joseph said that some of the older towns at Home were not doing so well on account of the way people were leaving them, and the only consoling feature about this was that these people were hot leaving the Empire, but were merely going to other pa7'ts of it where they considered that they could do better for themselves. Scotland was suffering most in this way. On one day when he was there 3000 people left from the Clyde for Canada, md others left for other parts of the Empire. Many of those who wei-e leaving were the best mechanics, and they were attracted away by the reports of those who had gone before them and prospered in other lands;. Ireland had now less than half the population it had thirty years ago.