The daily banner. (Cambridge, Md.) 1897-2008, 1916-05-08
GREAT PAPER FAMINE
CONFRONTS THE WORLD
Scarcity of Basic Matter, Unusual
Demand For Chemicals And Large
Foreign Demand Sends Paper
Prices Soaring.

Cellulose is the fibrous matter that
is the basis of all kinds of paper.
This substance is produced CONNER
cially from cotton and linen rags and
from wood pulp. Millions of tons OF
cellulose are required annually to
supply the requirements of the pa
per mills of the world.
In normal times sixty per cent. of
the rags and forty per cent. of the
sulphite used for the manufacture of
paper in the United States is import
ed from foreign countries.
But Cellulose is also the basis of
modern high explosives. The dupont
Powder Mills have installed an enor-
nous battery of heaters having ca
pacity vastly greater than the capaci
ty of any paper mill in the United
States. They are paying fabulous
prices for rag stock and commanding
the first choice of rags from all over
the country.
What in normal times would be
the fibrous texture of fine papers is
now being converted into ammuni-
ton bomb and torpedo and howitzer
and machine gun.
Germany has confscated the en-
tire supply of raw materials for the
fines of her empire. Even the WOOD
pulp of Germany is now being con-
verified into explosives, Sparing only
enough for the manufacture of such
amounts of paper as are absolutely
essential to domestic requirements.
The government of Germany has
fixed the size limit which the pub
Usher of a newspaper in the Empire
may not exceed. The German resi-
dent who would buy a daily paper
! can do so only on condition that he
surrender the paper of the day before
to be returned to the paper mill,
cleaned and converted again into
stock for the publication of future
| issues
England, in times of peace, exports
coal to Sweden and balances the ac-
count by importing Swedish pulp.
But with the outbreak of the great
war the British Empire needed all
her fuel supply to operate her mu-
milton plants and war ships.
Sweden, in retaliation, has refused
to ship pulp to Great Britain, and ,ow-
ing to her shortage of coal and the
dangers and difficulties of ocean traf-
f1c, she is now shipping very little
pulp to the United States.
South America, Central America,
Australia, India, Africa and many of
the European countries, finding their
usual sources of supply closed to
them, clamOr to the United States
for relief and find that our stock of
| raw materials is so nearly exhausted
that we can scarcely produce enough
paper to meet the requirements of
our own people.
The god of war has not only ap-
propriated the wood pulp and cotton
I, essential to the manufacture of pa
per, but he has also claimed for his
destructive purposes the bulk of
available chemicals of scarcely less
Importance.
Bleached sulphite (wood fibre)
that formerly sold for $265 per cwt.,
now commands as high as SIS per cwt.
! Bleaching powders that : commonly
sell for little more thapka cent
pound are unobtainable even at IS
cents. Soda Ash, Rosin, Satin White
Casein and Alum have doubled ana
trebled in price. Aniline Colors that
the paper manufacturer commonly
buys for forty cents per pound are
now difficult to obtain even at 500
per pound.
Every aFticic That enters into the
production of paper has advanced in
price and is still bound to advance to
even higher prices. Labor, now feel
ing the stimulus of war orders, COM
mands more than the same grade of
| labor could command before the
war.
There is no immediate possibility
of speedy return to normal prices.
With the curtailment of production
of raw materials and the artificial
demand for cellulose of raw mater
ials and the artificial demand for
cellulose for the production of high
explosives, paper must continue to
advance in cost. Even the termina-
ton of hostilities could not restore
normal conditions until after suffici-
ent time had elapsed to permit in
dustry to return to healthy condi-
lions and to allow for the manufac-
ture OF enormous reserve stocks.
To the printer this all means the
urgent necessity of advancing his
prices in proportion to the general
advances in the market Paper al
ready purchased and held in stock
should be valued at today's prices,
because it cannot be replaced for
less.