The Globe. THURSDAY, MARCH 4, 1875.

Globe, Volume III, Issue 229, 4 March 1875, Page 2

The Globe. THURSDAY, MARCH 4, 1875.

In our leading article on Monday last we alluded to the remarks which had been made in the Chamber of Commerce on the working of the " Press " Telegraph Agency," and we stated that we had "no wish to contradict " the statements then made ; on the " contrary, we can testify from sad " experience to the blundering of " many of the officers of the agency." In this opinion of the manner in which the Agency is at present managed we are fully borne ont by our morning contemporaries, both in Christchnrch and Dunedin, and it is rare indeed that a week passes by without some blunder or shortcoming of the Agency being exposed in the columns of one or other of the morning journals of this province or Otago. However, the management have always preserved a discreet silence, until Monday last, on which date a letter appeared in both the Lyttelton Times and the Press, in which "J. Holt, for the proprietor," attempted some sort of defence of the institution with which he is connected. Our article appeared the same evening, and now wo call attention to the result. On Tuesday afternoon the Editor received a telegram from Mr Holt, who dated his message from Ashburton, informing him, that " The " Press Agency will supply telegrams " up to the end of the quarter unless " you wish them to be at once discon- " tinued." An answer was at once sent back to Ashburton, but the irate manager had flown. On Wednesday morning a letter was received by the Editor, which is such a curiosity in its way, that we publish it for the benefit of all those who are interested in the supply of daily news which the public require:— Christchnrch, Ist March, 1872. TO THE EDITOR OF THE GLOBE. Sir, —Having learnt from yonr leading article in this evening's issue that you have been obliged to remedy the short comings of the Press Agency by appointing special correspondents in the provincial towns in order to keep the public informed as to what is going on, I beg to inform you that I have this evening telegraphed the manager of the Press Agency at Wellington that you will not require his telegrams any longer, and have requested him to discontinue them accordingly. It is unseemly that the Agency should be subject to such remarks as you have been pleased to publish, and if it does not occur to you that when you think you have ground of complaint, the courteous and proper mode of obtaining redress is by a letter to the manager—not by an abusive par in your paper, the sooner our connection ceases the better. Yours truly, J. HOLT. For the proprietor. Acting, we suppose, upon instructions from the fiery gentleman who composed this precious epistle, the Agency did not send us any telegrams yesterday. We need hardly say that we shall manage to survive the deprivation of those message*, arid, that

arrangements will be at once made, so that the readers of our paper shall receive immediate intelligence of any important event that may take place during the day in auy part of New Zealand. In our article which has caused the wrath of " Holt, for the " proprietor," to fall upon our head, we alluded to the fact that we had been compelled to secure the services of private correspondents in the provincial towns of the colony. These gentlemen send us items of news that we do not receive through the medium of the " Press Agency," and the replacement of the Agency is merely instructing them to supply us with all the available news of the hour, instead of merely sending some few items. "We will take care that our readers do not suffer, and Mr Holt may look around for other journals to annihilate, because they do not choose to have work, which they are paying for, badly done, without remonstrating. Messrs Brogden—we beg pardon, Mr James Brogden, is to be congratulated upon having a manager who is so convinced that there can be no improvement on his system of working the department under his charge, that he will not allow any newspaper to find the smallest fault with the arrangements that he has made for their benefit. Fortunately, however, those connected with the different New Zealand journals are not likely to allow Mr Holt or Mr Anybody-else to dictate to them what is " seemly" or " un- " seemly" in their remarks upon the working of any institution which is supposed to be supplying a public want; and if they are to be informed that, unless they should happen to think on this point in accordance with the infallible manager, " the sooner " our connection ceases," they will probably be shortly following the example of this paper, and in sailor parlance " cutting the painter" which binds them to the Press Agency. Mr Holt may rest assured that we do not intend to put up with any insolence or dictation from any one who is employed by us, and that we shall find fault with any one so employed, whenever we think it necessary to do so in order to ensure the work for which we are paying, being carried out to the satisfaction of those who pay us, viz, the general public.