TOPICS OF THE TIMES

Southland Times, Issue 19517, 17 May 1922, Page 4

TOPICS OF THE TIMES

The übiquitous postage stamp has the largest sale of any printed paper, and often the suggestion has been made that the gummed side should be utilised for trade advertisement, writes Mr Fred. J. Melville in the London Daily Telegraph. In the present state of the British Post Office the idea ’ has been seized upon, as offering a new source of revenue. The PostmasterGeneral has invited tenders for advertisements on the backs of postage stamps and soon, wo may experience a thrill as we post a letter on. finding we have to moisten a slogan such as “Every time you lick a stamp think of ’s Fruit Jellies.” The philatelist will regard the introduction of advertisements as a desecration of the little talismans that waft our letter with magic ease over land and sea. The general public, too, will not appreciate this forcing of advertisements almost down their throats. Moreover, many large firms, while expending vast sums on advertising their own commodities in the press and on hoardings, may have to mail their extensive correspondence with gratuitous advertisements of rival concerns. In New Zealand, however, the idea was put to a practical test in 1893, when, a three years’ contract was given to a firm in Wellington, to utilise the backs of stamps for advertising purposes. Most of the stamp denominations current at that period had letterpress or block advertisements on the underside. Th|s heaviest users of these tiny advertisement spaces were Sunlight Soap, Beecham’s Pills, and Bonnington’s Irish Moss, but a few local firms paratied their perambulators, sewing machines, carpets, waterproofs, painless extractions, and the magical properties of “a new cure for asthma, diptheria, and croup.” The contractors, Messrs Truebridge, Miller, and Reich, found the venture unsatisfactory, and exercised their right of determining the contract at the end of the first 12 months.

Speaking at the annual dinner of the London Master Printers’. Association, Mr James MacLehose (president of the Federation of Master Printers of Great Britain and Ireland) said that printing had transformed the work and the opportunities of the echo 1 ar and of every individual in the country; They were perhaps apt to think

that because there were great labraries in the old days, and literature and philosophy flourished so luxuriantly, every citizen was a scholar or a poet. But it was not so. The inspiration and relaxation of literature were confined to a narrow circle, and although there were great libraries, access to them was ‘ difficult. To-day the humblest scholar, however abstruse his subjects, could feel that there was an open door to a great library waiting him. That change was due to the printing industry. While it was true it had enormously multiplied the opportunities of reading, it was a very interesting and difficult question whether it had heightened the standard of literature. They must always remember, when comparing standards, that the better literature had a longer life; the contemporary was aph to look at the very large amount produced in the present day by the printing press and to think that the general average was not high. They were apt to forget that the older time had very inferior literature also, but in the waste of time only the great outstanding things remained.