PRICE OF NEWSPAPERS

Dominion, Volume 10, Issue 3015, 28 February 1917, Page 4

PRICE OF NEWSPAPERS

INCREASE TO BE MADE IN APRIL. In the course of his presidential ad 4 dress a), the annual conference of tho! Newspaper Proprietors' Association/ Mr. P. Selig said that newspaper own-; ers had gravo reason for concern re-j garding future paper supplies. The>! first shock of the New Year was the! failure of the initial shipment fronr Powell Rivcr ; which was not now ex-! pected till March. Contracts made for' 1917-18 are "freight at buyers' risk."; Twelve months ago he had referred to j tho fact that the cost of output of: newspapers had gone up by leaps and! hounds. All materials that enter intoj the production of a newspaper liavol continued to increaso in price. Thoj. principal offices havo had to face anj increase in price of news print paper! of nearly 125 per cent, compared with I pre-war figures. Metal, ink, and other 1 materials, also wages, .cost of cable ser-:, vice and telegrams had also largely in" creased. All over the world somewhat; similar conditions prevailed, and they: must face here, as elsewhere, the ques-i tion of> raising the selling price of: papers to tho public to, in some mea--sure, recoup these heavy additional ex- : penses in production. After a. very full discussion by thei:. largest meeting of newspaper proprie-. tors held in the Dominion for many! years, it "was unanimously resolved:; "That this meeting of members of the. Newsnaper Proprietors' Association of. New Zealand is of opinion that in view' of the enormous increase in the price' of news-printing paper and the iti-i 'creased cost of material and of working" expenses in practicallv all departments of newspaper production, the time has arrived when an increase.in the selling' price of New Zealand newspapers can no longer be avoided, such charge to come into force on April 2."