RISING VALUE OF A SCRAP OF PAPER.

Waikato Times, Volume 88, Issue 13432, 10 March 1917, Page 3 (Supplement)

RISING VALUE OF A SCRAP OF PAPER.

Few people ever realised until the war was a year old just how valuable is a scrap of paper—in this case the waste and not the diplomatic note. When the price went up from 200 to 300 per cen ; . the idea that waste paper was worth something took root. Waste paper now sells for nearly as much) ns white paper was bought for a year ago, and a campaign is under wav to save and utilise the more than 1,000,000 tons that go go annually into the waste: basket, the furnace and the ash can.

The uses to which this waste paper or paper scrap can be put to are numerous. It can be sorted for various purposes. In 6ome instances even the dyes and chemicals are worth extracting. Wrapping papers and cheap cardboard are manufactured ,of this class of paper. A large demand comes also from manufacturers of fibre and pulpbonrd boxes.

The cause of the paper shortage in the United States is said by the Philadelphia Record to be the embargo on pulp shipments from Norway and Sweden and on rags' from England. The higher grades of paper in this country have been subjected to the largest increase. On some of these the prices have gone up as much as 100 per cent. This big increase in cost mokes a scrap of waste paper especially valuable nowadays. Th? rag or paper picker in the alley of the big city, who not only goes out upon the street himself, but sends his boys out to gather scraps in big hemp sacks, is taking advantage of the present harvest and buying in or picking up all the rags and paper lie can find. In the larger cities to-dav it

is no uncommon sight to see small Tta-

Han and Greek lads trudging the allevs or even down the business streets with great sacks of paper scraps on their basics.

Two thousand years ago paper w.ifi made bv hand hi little cradles. The word paper is derived from papyrus, a

plant from the leaves of which a pulp was made by pounding and vacerating in water. Nowadays, of course, improved machinery is used to make paper, and in this one item rt* manufacture America leads the world.

Writing- paper is mad." mostly frnm rags, but for practically all other grades wood pulp is the basis'. The wood used is spruce or poplar or hemlock. Poplnr is used for fine book papers, and spruce pulp go&s into newspaper, wallpaper, and ha^paper. The fine wood pulp must, of course, he tieatod with a preparation containiii>/ clay, dies and other ingredients and called "stuff" befor? it finally becomes naner. But by a careful process of! fining in the open spices with clay and pressing through heavy steel rollers or mangier*, the wood pulp takes on the I appearance and texture of paper. j As the product comes from the paper machine it is wonm 1 off nn n reel, making a large roll. A roll of newspaper will weigh almost in ton and is usually handled bv a derrick. The large newspapers to-day are more sarins of their paper scrap than they used to be, and now much of the waste paper is gathered up and sent hack to the mills Tor a good price per pound. .

**hir Douglas Haig's battle plans, says the Spectator,, "unroll themselves, like some mighty piece of music. Then, is a majestic development and rhythmic intention about them which remind one of the stately advance of a great orchestral symphony. The tiiv-t movement was long drawn out, but irom

! its first note the world recognised thai it heard not mere aimless eddies of sound, but a vast scheme of co-ordin-ated harmony, a steady evolution, lull oi a purpose austere and irrevocable. The second movement it is now finishing before our eyes,.or rather not tin Idling, but about to pass by a harnioniou transition into a third movement, flow many movements there are, or whore and when the finale-will be played, who can tollr Perhaps not even the great

conductor who, casting his ey<> over hi

soul-shaking orchestra, calls now upon the great guns and now upon the small to play their dreadful parts. Here he beckons to the drums of the infantry, there to the violins of the cavalry, now calls in the clanging cymbals of his.

• tanks.' Each and all swell the volume of action and of sound as the masterhand directs. "It is no saturnalia of furious) bravery or of senseless rage, which we are witnessing on the Somme, but a fully realised and fully intentioned composition. Like Marlborough in Addison's* poem, the Commander-in-Chief ■ toll? the doubtful battle where to rage.' and the battle conforms- to his will.' It is we now who have the initiative, we who call the tune, we who attack. It is the Germans who must stand on the defensive, or, at the very best, try by some hopeless and half-hearted counterattack to regain what they have lost.

THE PASSING OF THE FORTRESS. "Combles was .a place specially valued by the Germans. They were proud ol taking it in 1914, and they were still prouder of the work which their engineers had done there for the last two years in transforming Tt into the greatest of underground citadels. It stood, indeed, a type of the fortress of the future, and was planned to play the, part in trench warfare whicrf the submarine does in naval combat. It exemplified the greatest change since Vauban th e plunge underground. Though Thiepval was not so great a. place of arms or so fine an achievement from the _ engineer's point of view as Combles, it held a very strong position, and one in which Art had done a great deal to help Nature. Lastly both, places were held and defended by some of the very best of Germany's troops. Combles and Thiepval have fallen not to cold steel or to a great frontal attack, nor were they gained at a terrible sacrifice of human life. They fell to the forethought, preparation, and the skilful tactics of Sir* Douglas Haig. He did not take them directly He took, instead, places which rendered the two citadels untenable. He made the tide of battle sweep round them till they were cut off.

''And here We see once more what we may term the tragedy of the fortress. The trench—ugly, dirty, dull, untidy serpent of mud and sandbags—will always have the advantage of the mostartful fortress. In the last resort, the reason for this scorning; miracle is the fact that the trench has something of mobility in it, and mobility is the vital essence of war. A fortress has a finality about it which is fatal. Combles and Thiepval are stepping-stones to greater things. By their capture, Sir Douglas-' Haig has immensely increased his pc»ver to accomplish his double purpose. His first aim is to drive the enemy back, to gain ground, to eat —if we "may vary our metaphor—the artichoke leaf by leaf. His second aim is to wear dewn.

and thus slowly but surely destroy, the German armies in the field and to render them incapable alike of offence and defence."