PAPER SHORTAGE

Pukekohe & Waiuku Times, Volume 9, Issue 519, 1 April 1920, Page 2

PAPER SHORTAGE

ALL NEWSPAPERS THREATENED. MARKETS STRIPPED. PRICES SOARING. A cable message received in Wellington recently 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 Heine impossible at the moment to arrange 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 stntn of the newsprint (paper) market, this journal recently remarked that all over Australia and New Zealand there are newspapers threatened with extinction. They have 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 slightly better placed. These loans, however, have also ceased, liecause no office has any surplus left, and each is working on a hand-to-mouth system.

The crisis has grown more acute during the last few weeks. The position was bad enough at the beginning of December, but 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 in finding ships to carry it. To-day the shipping is available, but there is no 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 when contracts were ready for signature, however, the shortage of newsprint in NorthAmerica (which had been concealed from general knowledge) became apparent. American papers, having largely increased their prices and their advertising rates, were able to pay much larger charges for their materials, and the exchange rate further gave them an enormous advantage over Australian and British competitors.

They had thus cut deeply into Canadian stocks, so that even Canadian newspapers were confronted with a 'possible famine, no matter what they may pay. The Canadian manufactuier, compelled to sell in Canada by Government control at £l7 per ton, naturally preferred to place his output in New York at £3l per ton.

The Canadian market, because of these local conditions, was suddenly closed against Australia and New Zealand. It is extremely improbable that the Commonwealth and Dominion will draw from Canada oven one-fourth of the newsprint which they received from that Dominion last year. In these circumstances Australian and New Zealand pape-s, like the great journals of New Yo'k and South America, France, Italy, and also Great Britain, had to ruin to the paper-making countries of the Old World, and chiefly to Scandinavia, in the hope of retrieving the situation. Prices on the Jump. With all these buyers in the market, bidding almost frantically for stocks, prices commenced to jump, and the American quotations followed in conceit. In the rush some were lucky and some were not. Some had reason to believe that they were 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 ppper, because they were informed that large parcels upon which they had relied would not reach *hem, because the mills could not produce the ; aper. The scramble for what is left has therefore., been something <-f :> panic, and agent after agent in Australia has been forced to inform prospective clients that he cannot quote at any price for any quartity for delivery at any time. The condition of the climbing market is best disclosed in a table setting forth actual quotations during the bust few months, and its significance may not be realised unless it is borne in mind that paper was landed, duty paid, in Australia and New Zealand ports before the war at £ll Ids per ton. These, according to Australian reports, were the best prices offered:—

1915) Per ton October 3 .. .. £33 July 7 .. .. £32 10/ October 5 .. .. K33 10' October 27 .. .. C 37 5/ October 29 .... K4O December 2 .. .. E42 10/ December 31 .. t44 Jft' 1920 January 15 .. .. K47 10 January 18 .. .. CSI 5 ' January 2ft .. .. M>o January 31 .. K72 February 1 .. E7!> There are no quotations current so far as New Zealand is concerned. The prices have deterred proprietors from entering into contracts for 1921. and only small parcels are obtainable for delivery in 1920. the prices being more than double those ruling last year. Under these conditions it appears to be inevitable that the size of papers will be everywhere reduced, ;nd the "rationing" of advertisers will become universal. \ sharp rise in advertisement rates is also to be anticipated.