NEWSPRINT CONSUMPTION.

Manawatu Standard, Volume L, Issue 138, 10 May 1930, Page 6

NEWSPRINT CONSUMPTION.

Recent figures on the _ total world consumption and .production of newsprint present an interesting study. A very noticeable, though not unexpected feature, is the predominance of newsprint consumption in the English speaking countries. The United States with 631bs per capita, leads the field, Australia, where the population is almost wholly English speaking is second with an average of 45 lbs., Canada is fourth, with 381b5., being proceeded by Great Britain and Ireland, whose per capita consumption is 441bs. New Zealand and South Africa (tiro white population only) with 36 and 21 lbs., respectively, complete the six leading consumers of newsprint. It is also interesting to note that Canada’s total consumption of newsprint is approximately 180,000 tons a year. In other others only 6 per cent of Canadian production is absorbed in the domestic market, the remaining 94 per cent or approximately 2J million tons, being produced for export. The contribution of the newsprint industry, therefore, to Canada’s favourable trade balance, is highly significant. Another significant factor in the complications are the figures relating to European Russia. In the one-time land of the Tsars, there are 125,000,000 people. Their total consumption of newsprint is 100,000 tons a year, ; a little more than half the amount annually run through the Canadian presses, Education and enlightenment of the Russian masses will, in the future, have an important bearing on newsprint production. The commanding status of Canada

in the newsprint world is revealed ty a comparison of Canadian and orld production. The latter in 1928, was estimated at 6,750,000 tons. Of this amount Canadian production totalled 2,750,000 toiis, or 33 per cent, of the entire world’s output. . The per capita consumption of newsprint in China is exceedingly small. The total newsprint consumption for tho entire continent of Asia is only 325,000 tons a year; and of this amount Japan with a of 65.000,000 alone consumes 225,000 tons. The past few years, have, however, been featured by an increased spread of tho printed page in China; and in tho future, when stability places the present period of uncertainty, it is unquestionable that that the Chinese market will absorb an increasing quantity. There are about 79 daily papers printed in China. And as one might guess, these are confined largely to the densely populated areas fringing tlie coast and the three great rivers, the Hwang, Yangtze and Ycst. One feature deserving of emphasis, is that of the 79 dailies issued in China, 41 are printed solely in Chinese, 22 in English, 6 in Japanese, 5 in Russian and 4 in English and Chinese, and 1 in French. ' . The Journals printed id Chinese have, naturally, by far the widest circulation. The Sin Wan Pao, of Shanghai, (distributes 100,000 copies daily, on a 16x20 sheet, averaging from sixteen to twenty pages. Other leading Chinese journals are the Shun Pao of Shanghai with a 90,000 circulation. and the China Times of the same city, averaging 85,000 copies a day. The largest English journal is the “Loader,” printed in Pekin, and circulating 10,000 copies daily. The

“Molvn,” of Harbin, printed in Russian, sends out 9,500 issues. In Manchuria, Japan’s special sphere of influence, Japanese journals predominate. Three of these papers in Darien, Manchuria, have circulations of 62,00 U, 55,000 and 41,000 respectively, but their thickness averages only 4 to o pages an issue. It is a fact known to every school boy that the Chinese were tho world s first paper makers. The use of paper, made originally from the hark of the mulberry tree, and later from rags, probably dates back into the second century of tho Christian era. With the dissolution of the famous Han Dynasty in 220 A.D., the art of making paper had already been established. Under the great Suy Dynasty of the sixt hcentury came the literary renaissance of China, and with it, tho greatly intensified demand for paper. Historians tell us that over 54,000 volumes were added to the Imperial library under one of the Suy monarchs. How the secret of paper making was seized from tho Chinese by the Arabs at the battle of Samarkand in 751, is common knowledge. Among the Chinese prisoners were several skilled paper makers. Through these tho Arabs learned tho secret of the ’art, which, six hundred years later was one of the great propelling forces in the European Renaissance. It is presumed that during tho Christian reconquest of Spain, several Moorish paper mills were captured by the victors. By tho thirteenth century, the art had been learned in Italy, from whence it was slowly disseminated through Europe. oNt until the dawn of tiro fifteenth cc-ntury, was paper cheap enough to come, into general use.