TO OUR SUBSCRIBERS.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XIII, Issue 22, 25 September 1885, Page 15

TO OUR SUBSCRIBERS.

We are again obliged reluctantly to remonstrate with a far larger proportion of our subscribers than we care to think of on their very ungenerous and inconsiderate treatment of us. We have thrown ourselves on their generosity and explained to them how impossible we found it to send round a collector in the country districts, owing to the heavy expense incurred, and which consumed much too great a per centage of our profits. But our appeal has been in vain, and we have met with a neglect that is at once humiliating and injurious. Day after day and week after week pass by and we still receive no response to a very large number of the accounts with which our subscribers are furnished. And we ourselves are unable to deal in so cavalier a fashion with our creditors, but must make provision as best we may for the regular discharge of our regularly recurring liabilities. It must be admitted, nevertheless, that it is hard, for example, to keep a mill going witnout any motive power, and money, as is well known, is that, and that alone, by which a newspaper is kept in circulation. We are very averse to harsh measures; we even shrink from such a public remonstrance as we are now making, and should feel much relieved weie the necessity of doing so removed from us, but self-preservation is the first law of nature, and it is in accordance with it that we act. In plain terms, then, we cannot afford to allow the great number of accounts over-due to remain any longer unpaid, and we must once for all request that a settlement may be made of them without further delay. We have desired nothing more than to avoid extreme measures, but, as the old saying is, necessity has no law, and we most proceed wherever it leads us. And, after all, the fault is not ours but that of those who have dealt so unfairly by us.

We would also appeal to our subscribers generally and beg of them to be punctual in their payments ; we are entirely dependent on their support for the continuance and welfare of our paper, and we believe that we may without presumption claim to have deserved their friendly offices.

We again protest that we have made this remonstrance and appeal sor«ly against our will, and compelled to do so bj the necessities of the case, which also fully explain the action otherwise taken by us.