The Washington times. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1902-1939, 1920-03-11
! Prompt Action Needed on the
Underwood Paper Resolution
II Will Enable Many Small Newspapers to Continue
Publication.

1t Will Enable Many Small Newspapers to Continue
i Publication.
The print paper situation in the United States has
reached point where constantly increasing prices are
resulting the almost daily suspension Of publications too
weak financially to stand the burden of mounting costs
few years ago newspaper stock sold large users for
fraction two cents pound and to small consumers
for not more than three cents.
Large buyers are today paying as much ten and
eleven cents in the open market and small users are having
great difficulty in getting paper at any price.
The present demand any figure is greater than the
capacity of the mills supply and the only remedy is to
provide greater production
The obstacle to greater production and consequently
the basic cause of all the trouble lack of wood which
is the raw material from which all newspaper stock is
featured
AS long ago 1890 the American paper manufacturers
saw the danger off, of exhausng the supply in this
country varieties of wood from which pulp is
made With that danger facing them they negotiated for and
acquired the rights cut timber from great acreage Of
Grown Lands in Canada.
With this supply available the American forests could
be given time grow again. and by improved methods Of
forestaon and the application of better judgment and i'm
proved ideas cutting and handling the timber this
try would be assured of continuous supply of the necessary
and the newspapers dependable of at
reasonable and stable price
theoretically this idea was entirely sound But the best
laid plans occasionally 60 awry.
Under the Taft administration the United States Gov
entered into negotiations with Canada to establish
new trade relations One result of those negotiations and
the important in this connection, the adms
sion the United States without payment of duty
paper manufactured in Canada
With cheaper labor and the advantage which new
industry has of building its factories next door to the
material Canadians quickly realized that the manufacture
of newsprint paper would be very profitable
AS result big industry quickly sprang up, and with
the advance prices this side of the border and little
no advance in the cost of manufacture the other side
Canadian manufacturers have found worth while to ship
SO per of their output into the United States which
they have made increasingly large profits.
This was good business Judgment their part and a
procedure against which neither American manufacturers of
paper American publishers could make either
criticism protest.
But in the meantime certain provinces not the Domn
ion governmen passed legislation which provides that the
particular kinds of wood from which is made should
be shipped out of the country except manufactured
form-that is, either pulp or fully finished paper.
This law carried into its fullest effect that for
the years while reforestaon is going in this country
there only two courses to American manufacturers
Either discontinue their pulp mills in this country at great
loss and erect mills in Canada entailing
investments depend Canadian manufacturers to sup
ply the pulp from mills under Canadian ownership and
control
It means putting gigantic American industry almost
wholly into the hands and under the direction and
Cueny at the mercy Of conditions dictated by foreign CAPT.
tai and foreign laws.
This is the situation it exists today, and to it,
to establish possible conditions which will be farer and
more stable and particularly to relieve the market that
the small newspaper will not be wiped out of existence by
continued famine prices Senator Underwood introduced
resolution providing for the appointment by the President
of commission of five who should have power to open
negotiations with the provincial governments of Ottawa
Quebec and New Brunswick and arrange if possible for
the shipment of the pupwood cut from the Grown Lands