GOLDEN PAPER.

Taranaki Daily News, 17 January 1920, Page 2

GOLDEN PAPER.

A WORLD SHORTAGE. It is quite possible that those of our readers who uoticed the message at all thought it an unnecessary wasie of cable power to proclaim to the world that Canada has just held back seven carloads of paper consigned to the United states, says the Christchurch Sun. In ordinary circumstances they would be right. But matters are so far from ordinary in the paper world at present that everyone should know what the position is. In a vague way the public realised during tho war that they were getting unusually generous treatment in supremely ditlicuit times. Until a few months ago no one was asked to pay more for his newspaper than uad been considered a fair thing before the war—when paper was about onethird 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 to-day than ever. Broadly the position still is that paper is being consumed over the whole world about 10 per cent, faster than it is bc-ing produced.* Even in America, which is easily the largest paper-manufacturing area anywhere, two thousand newspapers are threatened with extinction because .they cannot be supplied. It is estimated, indeed, that if the .newspaper fatalities were compiled for the last twelve months over the whole world they would' not be fewer than 20,000 all of them, or nearly all victims of famine. That is a misfortune that affects countless thousands of people. Nor is it a question merely of price, tf supplies were absolutely assured means would be found to adjust the burden of increased cost equitably for everybody; but months, and possibly years, must pass before supply catches up with demand. Of the thousands of Canadian and American timber cutters who kept the mills supplied before the war, only a proportion have returned to their original occupations- Thousands will never return. In Scandinavia the paper mills not only had to go slow during the submarine menace, but are going slow still owing to a shortage of Welsh coal. The great forests of Finland must continue at half yield as long as the war lasts between Reds and Whites on their borders. Germany will not overtake local requirements for another twelve months—and probably not then. France depends on Rritain and America. And in Britain and America, unfortunately—in fact, everywhere in the world the endless discussions and schemes for re-construction, added to the new popular reaction aga : nst short supplies in anything, compel a general Increase in the size of newspapers. We are thus burning the candle at both ends, while maritime and other transport strikes flicker as further into the darkness of a paperless world. Like the German ex-Chancellor, our readers should begin at once to reassess the value of a scrap of paper.