PAPER

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 4, Issue 154, 12 September 1941, Page 4

PAPER

WE see it everywhere! It is with us morning, noon, and night the whole year through—this light, flimsy, inflammable, impressionable, transparent, opaque, rough, smooth, adaptable, torsional, übiquitous material called Paper. Could we do without an article embracing so many qualities, with such length and breadth of service? The ever-increasing instrument's invented for economising time, labour and space are taken as a matter of course, as much as air and sunshine. Deprived of them, even temporarily, we are uncomfortable. If they get cut of order, only for short periods, we become impatient. But paper is unique, a thing' apart, and its extermination would cause the utmost dislocation. It enters our life at every turn —in social activity, as well as 1 in the world of trade and commerce, in Governmental administration, a,s well as in the arts and sciences. Office, shop and factory, channels of transport and communication, every branch of industry and movement, all demonstrate the prominent part it plays in our world. As' easy to stage ""Hamlet" by leaving out the Prince of Denmark as to enable civilisation to carry on without it. And yet it may be misleading. Many a man believed he had a fortune "on paper" until disillusioned by a financial crash or a fall in the market or the importunities of his creditors, It will carry joy as easily as pain; disaster as readily as triumph;; anxiety as tranquilly as hope. Crumpling or tearing it requires no more than the strength of a child; a puff of wind will send it sky-high; a match will reduce it to ashes. Veil-like, it is penetrable by light and shows up the form and colour of the article behind, while the opposite effect may be obtained in hiding the contents of a parcel. There are extremes in the sandy-surfaaed paper wanted by the cabinetmaker and the glass-like appearance sought by the photographer. Its constant use calls for unceasing supply. Here comes into review machinery for its manufacture, the sources from which the raw material is drawn and* the printing press composed of ingenious contrivances to impress it with pictures, colour and reading matter. Visualise the vast employment of labour and capital required to present the finished article. Think of the romance bound up in its origin and its continual improvement. Then cast your mind over the prospects of the splendid, new industry which has been founded alongside our own town of Whakatane, and the vast potentialities it holds for this district, the Bay of Plenty and the Dominion as a whole.