Serious Effect On Devaluation Decision

Bay of Plenty Times, Volume LXXVIII, Issue 15088, 23 September 1949, Page 3

Serious Effect On Devaluation Decision

£333,000 Added To Cost

Of Production

Comment At Proprietors'

Conference

(P.A.) Wellington, Sept. 22. "Devaluation has landed like a bombshell on the newspaper industry of this country," said the president, Mr R. D. Horton, in an address to the half-yearly conference of the Newspaper Proprietors' Association. "All our supplies of newsprint are at present drawn from Canada and the increase in price will mean an added charge of £336,000 on our production costs. Wage increases during the last 12 months have also added a very substantial sum to the cost of our daily newspapers. "Newspapers will have 10 find some way of meeting these extra charges and the best solution to that appears to me to be for the industry to be decontrolled and for us to be allowed to work out our own destiny." Mr Horton remarked that the Royal Commission on tho British press stated in its recommendations on the financial and economic state of the press: "In our view free enterprise in the production of newspapers is a pre-requisite of a free press, and free enterprise will generally mean commercially profitable enterprise in the case of newspapers of any considerable size and circulation."

The report further stated: "It was suggested that in order to keep commercial motives within bounds a .limit should be set to the profits of newspaper undertakings and commissions. The answer to that suggestion was: Such limitation would, it seems to us, be both unfair and undesirable and would not achieve the purpose intended." In a further section the report condemned any attempt to limit advertising revenue and gave as its reason:

"The limitation of revenue might necessitate either an increase in the price of newspapers or a reduction of the amount spent on producing them and possibly of the quality of the service given to the public."

Mr Horton also referred to the apparent determination of the Government to spend vast sums of money on the pulp and paper making project at Murupara. He said that on several occasions assurances had been given that the newspaper proprietors, who were the principal consumers of newsprint, would be consulted before positive decisions were made, but no such consultation had yet been proposed. He expressed the hope that before the Government proceeded with any plans for the manufacture of newsprint it would refer the whole matter to a committee of inquiry, on which users would be represented.