The Taihape Daily Times AND WAIMARINO ADVOCATE WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 6, 1916. WAR AND NEWSPAPERS.

Taihape Daily Times, Issue 219, 6 December 1916, Page 4

The Taihape Daily Times AND WAIMARINO ADVOCATE

WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 6, 1916. WAR AND NEWSPAPERS.

(With which is incorporated The TaiPost and Waimarino News).

The report of proceedings in a dispute in the printing trade now being ventilated in Auckland by Commissioner Giles, makes interesting reading to the business community generally, because it goes rather deeply into the present condition of master printers and newspaper proprietors. It concerns the whole, business community owing to the fact that it must affect their expenditure on printing and advertising to a greater or less extent. The representative of the employers stated in Court what is common knowledge to every newspaper proprietor in New Zealand, when he said that newspapers sold at a penny were a dead loss. It is' as well the public should know that every paper sold from newspaper offices costs more thanSjt is sold for, therefore to work for an increased circulation is to pave the way to liquidation or bankruptcy. As was stated to the Court, increasing circulation was increasing that loss. The charges on Press telegrams had been doubled, and a great number of foreign advertising contracts had been cancelled. By foreign it is meant all advertising coming from outside New Zealand. To increase advertising rates would be disastrous, because small businessess in a community like Taihape for instance, cannot be loaded with additional expenditure. This journal has, however, to deeply appreciate the willingness of the greater number of its local patrons to agree to a small increase in advertising charges. Our friends have realised the position, and have in loyalty to their newspaper nor.

even murmured at the little extra they have been asked to pay. In mentioning the loss on every newspaper sold it might alsio be said that paper which in previous days cost £lO per ton now costs £4O per ton; the sheet of paper sold from this office costs its

proprietors nearly three-farthings before a single letter is printed upon it, and everything required, from the clean paper to the finished news sheet has greatly increased in cost, and such as Press telegrams have, doubled in price. It was stated in the Auckland Court that so disastrous was the conditions brought about by the war that some newspapers were actually forced into liquidation, one of them being a journal that had run uninterruptedly for over fifty years. There can now be no doubt that when the Government penalised newspapers for war purposes by a hundred per cent, increase on Press telegrams they rang out the death knell of more than one of that class of newspaper that are admittedly essential to the progress of well-settled districts. Tne very small newspapers, mostly of a bi-weekly or tri-weekly issue, are not affected by this Government loading, as they are u ot members of the Press Association; it is only the bigger and larger circulating, therefore the better grade of newspapers feel the war pinch the hardest. One such paper is now in liquidation, but the community to which it has been familiar for the past fifty years will discover a blank so insistent that it will be only a very short time before it re-commenc-es publication, or another journal fills its place. During the past thirty years there has been many newspaper changes, but none have had to cease publication owing to war conditions till now. So far as this journal is concerned it has less to complain about than many others. It has its enemies, which is the sure testimony that it is pursuing a journalistic course that is in accordance with the traditions of - newspaper journalism, and even should its fearless resistance of everything contrary to the community's welfare cause it to be maligned and boycotted in some quarters, it will take all the risks gladly. Lick-spittle journalism deserves to fail, as it is of no real service to any community whose interests it pretends to advocate, but when journals are overwhelmed, such as one of those referred to in the Auckland Court, it is nothing short of a disaster to the district in which it was published, anc its rapid replacement will be absolute proof of this view.