Newsprint Cost, Fuel and the Fashionable From Our Own Correspondent Paris, March 20.
We have already dearer bread (the price in Paris has just been advanced from 50 centimes to 1. fr 5 centimes per kilo) and the intel-Jectual daily bread in the form of newspapers seems likely to move in the same direction. The price of newsprint, which is made from wood pulp, is now nine times what it was in 1914 and is stil! rising. Unless some remedy is found, many daily journals will be compelled to suspend' publication.
The chief sufferers would be the "journaux opinion" which, though of little value from the news point of view, are useful as safety-valves. It would be bad policy to let them die gut, as their extinction would leave*the field to newspapers which, with the support of large capital, could alone meet the high cost of production and would certainly be tempted to take advantage of so privileged a position. In such an eventuality the "capitalist Press" as the Socialists call it, would acquire much greater power than at present and would be a very material addition to the long list of proletarian grievances. Everyone is in such a state of discontent over the incessant rise in prices that no Government can afford to create fresh causes of irritation.
Unanmaity or Noruixe-
It was suggested some time ago that there should be legislation to prohibit the issue of daily journals more than six days a week, but unity of action could not be secured, and the Government has not adopted the proposal. Other suggestions' were submitted to the Government! by the Office National de la Presse. which has hitherto regulated the purchase and distribution of paper, but the Government prefers not to interfere, the Minister of Commerce, M. Isaac, who is something of a free trader, being of opinion that. the State should hold aloof and allow free competition to produce its natural results. The Office National de la Presse, as a result of this attitude, has asked for its own dissolution, so as to throw the entire responsibility on the shoulders of the Government.
The most obvious remedy is for the newspapers to raise their price to the public. but, unless this were made obligatory on all, it would probably lead to the more prosperous papers continuing at the present price of ten centimes, while their rivals, obliged to go un to 15 or 20 centimes, would lose a great many readers, who would naturally turn to the ten-centime papers. Two of the Socialist organs. the "Humanite? and the "Populaire," have already been obliged to advance their price from 10 to 15 centimes, and the Royalist '"4dction Fran-caisse" is going up to 20 centimes. These are class organs which have
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.