BRITISH IMPORTS OF NEWSPRINT

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 67, Issue 235, 17 July 1947, Page 5

BRITISH IMPORTS OF NEWSPRINT

NEWSPAPERS PROTEST AGAINST CUTS REVERSION TO WARTIME STANDARDS (N.Z. Press Association— Copyright.) LONDON, July IG. British newspapers will return next week to their wartime standards. This decision has been forced on them as a result of the Government’s decision to cut imports of newsprint during the next 12 months with the intention of saving between 1,000,000 and 3,000,000 dollars.

The newspapers, apparently, are the only users of paper whose ration is to be reduced, though commercial and general printers, wrapping and other industrial users are consuming GG per cent, of their pre-war consumption, publishers 85 per cent., and Government departments 177 per cent. Among the consequences of this reduction is a second breach in two years of a contract guaranteed by the Government with the Canadians. The newspapers contend that instead of the contracts being broken, supplies should be permitted to come in. They should be used to build up stocks and thus be available as a sound dollar asset for use in an emergency. The “Daily Mirror.” which, next to the “Daily Express,” has the greatest circulation in Britain, says: “That great and good newspaper, the * Manchester Guardian,’ fears that this Government is breaking faith with the Empire and making this ridiculous cut in newsprint because it hates the newspapers and resents criticism. We do not share this fear. We do not want to share this fear. But we do insist that Empire agreements must be honoured. So we say to Cabinet that the first privilege of being alive is to be able to change one’s mind. Do that, do it speedily and gracefully. Reverse a decision that damages the nation’s purpose and damages Great Britain's good name.”

Political Motives Suggested

All the newspapers criticise the Government’s action. The “Manchester Guardian” says: “There also seem, it must be said with regret, to be political motives foreign to the spirit of a truly democratic party behind the Government’s discrimination against newspapers.” Lord Layton, in an article in the “News Chronicle,” says: “The Government has made a grave mistake. It is undue discrimination against this particular industry. It is impossible for the press to fulfil its proper function in existing conditions in four-page papers. “If the Canadian contracts are broken it will produce an impression of British bad faith in the Dominion, deprive the press of its most reliable source of material, and endanger the normal expansion of the British press in years to come. The proposed restrictions, combined with the much higher prices of newsprint, will hit hardest those independent and newspapers Whose continued existence is vital to the freedom of the press. It will create unemployment among workers who, because of the specialised nature of newspaper work, may find it difficult to get other jobs. The saving of dollars involved it quite insignificant compared with the damage done.”

Other comments include a ' statement by the “Daily Express” that the additional cost entailed in production by the curtailment of the Canadian contract, coupled with the heavy increase in the price of home newsprint (from £35 5s to £39 7s Gd a ton) will be £IOOO a day." Advertisement rates will have to be increased, it adds, and stringent and sweeping economies will have to be made in many directions.