Nigger in the Pulp Pile?

Five years ago the greyish, absorbent paper upon which the publishers of the 1,939 U. S. dailies spread the country's news, cost $75 per ton. Today it costs $62 per ton. The decline in price is cited as the reason the newsprint makers, notably International Paper Co., have been going into the business of selling waterpower to make a side profit, and buying newspapers to ensure their market (TIME, Apr. 22, et seq.). The possibility of a price rise was cited by the American Newspaper Publishers' Association, convened last week at Asheville, N. C., as a potential menace. Said the publishers:

"RESOLVED, that the membership of the American Newspaper Publishers' Association views with deepest concern the continued efforts being made to negative the operation of the law of supply and demand and to substitute in its stead an artificial control of the price of newsprint. . . . The membership further feels that any increase in the price of newsprint, in the face of existing conditions will be persuasive evidence that such increased price will be the result of collusive combination. . . ."

Journalism's trade weekly, Editor & Publisher, explained that the publishers had been alarmed by "secret meetings of Canadian [newsprint] manufacturers with the Premiers of Ontario and Quebec for the purpose of arranging a production level and a standardized price."

A few newspapers (notably Chicago's Tribune, Manhattan's Times) own their own paper mills. Most newsprint is bought from the great International (more than twice as big as its nearest competitor), from Great Northern Paper Co., Canada Power & Paper Corp., Abitibi Power & Paper Co. International is not making money on its pulp product but it denied last week that it was planning a price rise, professed ignorance of what the publishers' resolution might mean.