NEWSPAPERS HIT BY THE WAR.

Auckland Star, Volume XLIX, Issue 163, 10 July 1918, Page 6

NEWSPAPERS HIT BY THE WAR.

SOME INTERESTING FACTS. "What a jolly good thing this war is for the newspapers. They must be making a pot of money." This casual statement, so frequently made by the "man in the street," hae almost passed into something like sober fact. But it is not a fact. Newspapers everywhere are having the worst timo of their histories. Paper costs five times ac much ac it did before the war, and even then it ie hard to get. One shipment cornea to hand and the next ie left to the glorious uncertainty of the future. There is always the chance that when the paper doee come it will have jumped another CIO or .C2O a ton above the previous shipment. England is feeling the paper famine tremendously. Papers that before the war printed 12, 14, 16, and even 24 pages (the size of the "Daily TelegTaph") ac a regular daily thing for a penny, now creep out with four, sis, or eight pages, and charge twopence. The halfpenny dailies, which gave eight to twelve pages daily for the small coin named, now issue but four pages—sisf on a. pinch—for a penny. The most marvellous production of the whole lot is the '"Daily News." Before and during the earlier stages of the war it published six to eight pages, size 17in by 24in, for one halfpenny. To-day its size ie eight pages, 12in by 17in, for one penny, and on more than one occasion it brought out a four-page sheet the size of a good big pocket-handkerchief, and the price was still one penny. The "'Daily Mail," "Express," and ''Chronicle.' , all famous halfpenny dailies, have cut down their pages from 12 to 6, and occasionally 4, and .doubled their price. The "Times," -which used to bring out 20 and 24 pages daily—with special editions up to 48 pages—for one penny, now gives 14 pases for threepence, and limits ite output "to 150,000. The "Morning Post"' and "Daily Telegraph" have also curtailed their pages and increased their price. Where their daily issue used to bo anything ffom 34 to 24 pages for one penny, they now give only eight pages, with occasional jumps to 10 and 12 pages for twopence. Even in America, the home of paper, and the land of big editions, prices have gone up and sizes come down. In France the newspapers are mere sheets, in some cases two, and at the most four pages. The prices have been increased in a good number of cases, and quite a lot of papers, unable to bear the added cost, have quietly dropped out—waiting for pea,ce and cheaper paper.