GOLDEN PAPER.

Taihape Daily Times, Volume XI, Issue 3384, 13 January 1920, Page 5

GOLDEN PAPER.

A WORLD SHORTAGE. _lt is quite possible that those. of ourreaders who noticed the message at all thought it anunneccssary waste of ca.ble power to proclaim to the world that Canada has just held back seven car-loads of paper consigned to the United States, says the Chris-tchurch Sun. In ordinary circumsltances they would be right. But matters are far from ordinary in. the paper-world at present tlilat. everyone should know what the position is. In a vague way the public realised during the war that ‘they were getting ‘unusually generous treatment in supremely difiicult times. Until a few months ago no one was asked to pay more for his newspaper than had been considered a fair thing before the wer———when paper was about one-third of the present price. What our readers do not realise is that shortage and high prices did not end magically with the armistice, but are causing more anxiety to-day -than ever. Broadly the position is still that paper is being consumed over the whole world about 10 per cent faster !than it ‘is being produced. Even in America, , which is easily the largest paper manu- ' facturing area anywhere, two -thousand ‘ newspapers are threatened with extinction because they cannot be supplied. _lt is estiniaited, indeed, ‘that ii’ the newspaper fatalities were compiled over the whole world, they would not the fewer than 20,000——all of them, or nearly all of them. victims ‘of famine. That is 2 misfortune that affects countless thousands of people. I Noijis it a question merely of price. If supplies were absolutely ':-tssured, trpeans wouldlbe found to adjust. the burden of increased cost equitably for feverybody; but months, and possibly years, must pass before supplies 3 catches up with demaiid. Of the thoutsands of Canadian and American timlber cutters who kept the mills supplied beforc the war only a proportion - have returned to their original occu-lg pations. Tlleusands will never re~t turn. In .Seandinavia. the paper millst not only lied. to go slow during the! submarine. I;u~.nilla.e«3. but are going‘ slow 5 still owing tr.» Sll<ll“tf:Lf__2_'(‘. of Welsh coal t The great r.).¢-ms of Finland must cOntinuc to ha.l‘f-yield as long as the war lasts between. Reds and Whites on the ,' borders. G-ermany will not overtake! local I'oqu'll'ernents for another ‘I twelve menths——and probably not then. ;~ France depends on Britain and l A.mel'ic-:1. And in Britain and Amer-t ica_, unfortunately—in fact, everywhere t in the world, the endless diseussionsg and schemes for recontruetion, added; to the new popular reaction against' short.Supplie.~; in everything, cdmpel '3. general inciease in the size of newspapers. 'VV:.'e :11'eVtlius burning the candle at bothpends, while‘ niaritime and other tr'anspon’t strikes flicker us fur-3 tlier into the darkness of a_ paperlesst world. Llkg the Germ'an ex-Cliancellor, I our ‘readers should begin at once to reassess the value of a scrap of paper-._ :_