CORRESPONDENCE

Press, Volume LXXXVII, Issue 26441, 7 June 1951, Page 2

CORRESPONDENCE

Sir,—The 50 per cent, increase in your coffers, while the addition to mine is only 15 per cent., moved me to cancel delivery of your paper; and only the medley of opinion that makes up your correspondence column saved it. I believe this column enhances and encourages circulation, and I know many of similar opinion. It is regrettable, however, that so many write anonymously. These letters ’I merely glance through but do not read; hence they are, to me, valueless. I do not imply dishonesty: but it is, I think, indisputable that it lends itself to dustthrowing and erroneous statements During emergency rule some justification for a name other than one’s own exists, especially if that opinion expresses criticism of the Government. Let us know who writes what we read; then we shall be in a better position to know if that opinion is worth listening to.—Yours, etc., ANDREW KYDD. June 6, 1951. [Replying to our correspondent’s first point. The increase in the price of “The Press” to regular subscribers is not 50 per cent, but 25 per cent. It is 50 per cent, for irregular sales. The price has not been increased since 19 7. It may be taken for granted that wages have risen considerably more since 1937 than the recent rise of 15 per cent. In that period wages paid by the Christchurch Press Company, Ltd., have risen by more than 100 per cent.; the cost of newsprint has risen since December, 1936, from £l2 7s 6d to about £7B a ton; the cost of carrying papers has risen in the same period nearly 100 per cent.; ink, which in 1936 cast £42 a ton, has risen to £92 a ton. If our correspondent can name any commodity, produced with similar increases in costs, which has not risen in price since 1937 more than 25 per cent, we shall be interested to read about it.—Ed., “The Press.”]