NEWSPRINT COST REACHES NEW RECORD FIGURE

Greymouth Evening Star, 12 March 1948, Page 5

NEWSPRINT COST REACHES NEW RECORD FIGURE

(P.A.) WELLINGTON, This Day. The landed cost of newsprint .to New Zealand publishers will be increased by another £2 5s 4d per Lon as from April 1, according to advice received from Canada by the Newspaper Proprietors’ Association. This will bring the price of newsprint to about treble what it was before the war. , . . The 1938 landed cost of newsprint was approximately £l3 10s a ton, but throughout the war years the price rose steeply to £35 10s a ton at the cessation of hostilities. But this was not the end of the price increases. During 1946 further rises added another £3 to the cost. Price increases continued thKOUgnout 1947 and the landed cost has now risen to the new level of close on £47 per ton. . . The cost of importing newsprint into New Zealand does not finish at the New Zealand main ports, and it is estimated that with this latest rise it will cost New Zealand publishers at the main ports about £5O per ton by the time their paper is on the machines ready for printing. For many provincial papers the Drice will be far in excess of £5O owing to the heavy freight charges to various provincial towns. Before the war the Newspaper Proprietors’ Association members imported about 31,000 tons of newsprint annually. This year, owing-to the dollar crisis' and import restrictions, the importations for members have been held down to 17,000 tons, or only little over half the pre-war imports.