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Typo: A Monthly Newspaper and Literary Review, Volume 4
[trade dispatches]
Several of our American friends have desired to forward to us bulky or heavy specimens or samples, but have been deterred by the difficulty and expense of conveyance. Messrs Lyon & Blair, of Wellington, have kindly undertaken to receive for us any parcels addressed to their care, and forwarded to their agents, Messrs H. W. Peabody & Co., Boston, Mass., for enclosure.
If (as our Dunedin correspondent seems to think) the master-printers are charging unreasonably high prices since their association was formed, they will not be gainers in the long-run. But his examples do not prove anything of the kind. A book which a customer wished to publish at 2s 6d, and similar to books published at home for 1s 6d, could not be produced under 3s in Dunedin; and the customer thinks of sending the job home. Should he take the precaution to first obtain an estimate, we imagine he will do nothing of the kind. He probably wants about 250 copies—perhaps less; and if he is fortunate, may sell eighty or a hundred. The English book which he takes as his model has probably a sale of thousands or tens of thousands. Who is the unreasonable party—the colonial printer, or his intending customer?
Lithographers will find several items of much interest, and probably to their advantage also, in the column devoted to inventions in our present issue.
« Trades and Labor » is endeavoring to carry things with a high hand. The Maritime Council have issued their ukase to Messrs Cowan and Co., forbidding them to supply Messrs Whitcombe & Tombs with printing paper, and to Messrs P. Hayman & Co., requiring them to abstain for the future from buying or selling any of that firm's publications. There has been a dispute of some months' standing between the firm and the N.Z.T.A. and we doubt whether half a dozen printers outside of Christchurch are acquainted with the position of affairs—much less the Maritime Council. This attempt at a direct boycot confirms the surmise we have already expressed-—that the agitation by the Trades and Labor Council for uniform schoolbooks was not the result of any new-born interest in the cause of education, but in reality a covert attempt to destroy the value of Messrs Whitcombe and Tombs' copyrights.
« The semi-serious item about the Wairarapa man who called for tenders for the making of his winter suit, » writes a journalist from a northern city, « is I think, fairly eclipsed by the enclosed document, received from Mr Q. in response to a circular addressed to him in the ordinary course of business asking that his advertisement might be extended to the Examiner. » Mr Q. offers, for a seven-inch double-column advertisement, and a one-inch paragraph thrice-weekly for a year, the sum of £4, to be paid for in his patent articles, supplied at wholesale rates. Mr Q. is an extensive advertiser, and has probably taken the measure of the press pretty accurately. Our correspondent stood upon his dignity, and declined to do business on the terms offered. If other newspaper-men had the same amount of backbone, Mr Q. would have to pay better prices or refrain from advertising. We do not blame him. Why should he offer £20 cash for what he can get for £4, taken out in « trade »?
An important meeting of directors of the United Press Association, Limited, was held in Wellington during the present month. The proceedings were not public, and were not reported in the press. We are indebted to Mr W. H. Atack, the manager, for the following report:—The Directors present were the Hon. M. Reeves, who was elected Chairman (Lyttelton Times and Star); Messrs H. Blundell (Evening Post, Wellington); J. L. Wilson (N. Z. Herald, Auckland); G. Fenwick (Otago Daily Times, Dunedin); and H. Brett (Star, Auckland.) Mr Wynne, manager of the Sydney Daily Telegraph, and Mr J. Fairfax, jun., of the Sydney Morning Herald, represented the two great agencies which now control the supply of the cable news to the principal Australian newspapers. Mr Fraser, the Sydney manager of the Association, was also present at some of the meetings. Mr E. Collins, formerly Reuter's agent in New Zealand, attended on behalf of his Company. All these gentlemen made proposals to the Association to join their services alone; but eventually Messrs Fairfax and Wynne agreed to sell the whole of their cables jointly, and to furnish a more regular and improved series of commercial quotations. A contract was entered into for a fixed term of two years, and thereafter from year to year, with three months on either side. This arrangement will place at our disposal the whole of the cable news received by the rival services of the Argus and the Age, to which, with only one or two exceptions, the whole of the papers in Australia of any consequence belong, and the effect will be that any daily newspaper of the first class in New Zealand will publish more cable news than any single Australian paper, whether Argus or Age. The present contract terminates at the end of the year, and the new one begins on 1st January, 1891. It was also decided to endeavor to make arrangements by which cables shall be transmitted at an earlier hour to New Zealand, in order to enable evening papers to receive them at the earliest possible moment, and our Sydney manager anticipates no difficulty in getting this done at a comparatively small outlay. The staff of the Sydney office is to be increased, to enable messages to be handled with the utmost despatch. The Manager alluded to an arrangement with the Cable Company, effected during the year, by which messages relating to events of great importance are transmitted at a reduced charge. It was this reduction which enabled the remarkably full reports of the Federation Convention to be published in New Zealand papers. The total number of words transmitted on that occasion was about 7,000, far surpassing anything of the kind previously attempted on the Australian Cable.—There was also a special meeting of shareholders to consider some alterations proposed in the Articles of Association, and it was determined to extend the period within which the annual meeting must be held to the months of October, November, and December, instead of October as at present, which is not always convenient. The next annual meeting will be held at the end of October, 1891.