PAPER SHORTAGE

Hokitika Guardian, 8 April 1920, Page 3

PAPER SHORTAGE

NEWSPAPERS THREATENED WITH EXTINCTION.

A cable message received in Wellington threw further light on the seriousness of the situation confronting the newspaper proprietors of New Zealand concerning supplies of printing paper for 1920. According to the message in question, the outlook is black indeed, it being impossible at the moment to airange for expected deliveries. Some idea of the gravity of the situation may be gathered from the comments of an Australian journal: — Commenting on the present state of the newsprint (paper) market, this journal recently remarked that all over Australia and New Zealand there are newspapers threatened with extinction. They hive reached the end of the newspaper supplies and replenishments are not in sight. Some are eking out a hazardous existence for a few weeks or months longer by borrowing from competitors sl’glitly better placed. These loans, however, have also ceased, because no office has any .surplus left, and each is ; working on a hand-to-mouth system. The crisis has grown more acute /luring the last few weeks. The position was bad enough at the beginning of December. To-day it is 50 per cent worse. { The position during the war was that

paper in abundance could be bought but there was an increasing difficulty ir finding ships to carry it. To-day the shipping is available, but there is n< paper for sale. LOOKING TO CANADA. Australian and New Zealand newspapers, because of the war, became almost entirely dependent upon the Canadian paper mills during 1919, and looked to them to provide supplies for 1920. Just then contracts were ready for signa ture, however, the shortage of news- ! print in North America (which had been ' concealed from general knowledge) became apparent. American papers, having largely increased their prices and their advertising rates, were able to pay i much larger charges for their materials, and the exohange rate further gave them | an enormous advantage over Australasian and British competitors. They hadj thus cut deeply into Canadian stocks, so that even Canadian papers were confronted with a possible famine, no matter what they might pay. ( The Canadian manufacturer, compelled . to sell in Canada by Government con-1 trol at £l7 per ton, naturally preferred

to place his output in. New York at £34 per ton. The Canadian of these local conditions, was suddenly closed against Australia and New Zealand. It is extremely improbable that tile Commonwealth and Dominion will draw from Canada even one-fourth of the newsprint which they received from that Dominion last year. In these circumstances Australian and New Zealand papers, like the great journals of New York, South America, France, Italy, and Great Britain, had to turn to the paper-making countries of the Old World, and chiefly to Scandinavia, in.the hope of retrieving the situation. PRICES ON THE JU.VTT

Witli all these buyers in the market bidding almost frantically for stocks, prices commenced to jump, and American quotations followed in concert. In the rush some were lucky and some were not. Some had reason to believe that they were very lucky until it was discovered that the output of the mills had been considerably oversold, whereupon most unpleasant shocks were received by buyers on this side. What they thought were firm contracts turned out to be waste paper, because they were informed; that large parcels upon which they had relied would not reach them, because the mills could not produce the paper. The scramble for what little is left lias therefore been something of n panic, and agent after agent in Australia has been forced to inform prospective clients that he cannot quote at any price for any quantity for delivery at any time.

. The condition of the climbing market is best disclosed in a table setting forth actual quotations during the last few months, and. its significance may not be realised unless it is borne in mind that paper was landed, duty paid, in Australian and Nea A Zealand ports before the war at £ll 10s per ton. The e, according to Australian reports, were the best prices offered: —

Per ton. 1919. £ s. July 7 32 10 October 3 33 0 October 5 .' 33 10 October 27 * 37 5 October 29 40 0 December 2 42 10 December 31 44 10 1920. January 15 17 10 January 18 51 5 January 20 60 0 January 23 0 February 1 75 0 There are no quotations current so far as New Zealand is concerned. The prices have deterred proprietors fronj entering into contracts for 1921, and only small parcels are obtainable for tie. livery in 1920, the prices being more than double those ruling last year. Under these conditions it appears to be inevitable that the size of papcis will be everywhere reduced, and the “rationing” of advertisers will become universal A sharp rise in advertisement rates is also to be anticipated.