Pulp Palaver

Presumably more bootleggers than good-will crossed the border between the U. S. and Canada last week. Reason: on one side were ranked the newspaper publishers of the U. S. who are accustomed to purchase their newsprint (newspaper paper) almost entirely from Canadian manufacturers at wholesale prices averaging about $55 per ton. On the other side were the Canadian newsprint manufacturers, who desired to raise the price to $60. Louis Alexandre Taschereau, the crisp Premier of Quebec, had declared on his own behalf and for Premier George Howard Ferguson of Ontario:*". . . The price of $55 is not a fair return." This indication of provincial government opinion had stirred U. S. statisticians to compute that a price raise of $5 would cost U. S. publishers $19,000,000 yearly (TIME, Dec. 9).

Fortnight ago Abitibi Power & Paper Co. and St. Maurice Valley Paper Co., forming a very consequential portion of their industry, definitely announced a price raise, effective Jan. 1, from $55 to $60. The next U. S. move was a meeting of the representatives of more than 300 U. S. and Canadian newspapers called early last week in Manhattan's Hotel Pennsylvania. Three basic suggestions emerged. The most direct was that legal action be used against the Canadian pulpsters.

A resolution was adopted urging that Federal authorities be consulted as to "whether there is any redress open in this situation through Federal action." The most conservative suggestion advocated the reduction of newsprint consumption. Shrewd Paul Block, chain publisher (Brooklyn, Newark, Pittsburgh. Toledo, Duluth), expressed his opinion that most U. S. newspapers are now "over-featured," that the elimination of many a feature would do no harm.

More far-sighted and cogent to those publishers who regard the Canadian industry as a monopoly, was the proposal of onetime Senator Gilbert Monell Hitchcock of the Omaha World-Herald. Said he: "Whatever the directors do of a temporary nature ought to be supplemented by some action towards permanent relief, such as developing a new supply of newsprint for the western part of the United States, possibly from Alaskan sources or a supply from European sources./-

The gist of the conference's opinion was expressed in a report published after their conference: "The publishers are in possession of no facts that lead them to believe that an increase [in newsprint price] is warranted on an economic basis." From Toronto came a report, quickly denied by Premier Taschereau, that the price-rise policy would be reconsidered by Canada's pulpsters.

*Quebec and Ontario contain most of the Canadian pulp mills.

/-The U. S. Government is negotiating for $10,000,000 worth of Alaskan spruce and hemlock for newsprint manufacture, a stimulant to pulpsters' interest in that territory. The U. S. now annually imports about 100,000 tons of newsprint, duty free, from Germany, Finland, Sweden, Norway. This amount is, however, negligible in the annual consumption of newsprint in the U. S., estimated (1928) at 3,600,000 tons.

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