COST OF NEWSPRINT

Otago Daily Times, Issue 26719, 13 March 1948, Page 6

COST OF NEWSPRINT

ANOTHER SHARP INCREASE NOW TREBLE PRE-WAR PRICE P.A. WELLINGTON, Mar. 12. The landed cost of newsprint to New Zealand publishers will be increased by another £2 5s 4d a ton as from April 1, states advice received from Canada by the Newspaper Proprietors’ Association. This will bring the price of newsprint to more than treble what it was before the war. The 1938 landed cost of newsprint was aprpoximately £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 throughout 1947, and the landed cost has now risen to a new level of close on £47 a 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 £SO a ton by the time their paper is on the machines ready for printing. For many of the provincial papers the price will be far in excess of £SO, owing to the heavy freight charges to the various provincial towns. Before the war the members of the Newspaper Proprietors’ Association imported about 31,000 tons of newsprint annually. This year, owing to the dollar crisis and the import restrictions. the importations for members have'been held down to 17,000 tons, or only a little over half the pre-war imports.