CURTAIL THE PRESS.

As we read the morning paper over our breakfast coffee, it is hard to believe that in ten years time, at the present rate of consumption, the available supply of newsprint pulp will have been exhausted. Not only the leaders in national and state conservation tell us that the forests are being sacrificed to feed the hungry press at a rate of ten acres a day, but even the publishers themselves are beginning to admit the shortage that looms ahead.

At a meeting of American newspaper men in Cleveland recently, the conservation of advertising space was urged as the most effective method of reducing unnecessary waste. But the Italian Government has found a way equally adequate and far more beneficial to the community. A decree has been issued at Rome that on and after April 8 newspapers shall be restricted to two pages. At Nassau in the Bahamas, for many years a digest of the world news in two pages was the only form of newspaper issued; and this brief journal served with complete satisfaction to keep the populace informed as to the world's progress.

While two page papers swing the pendulum too far the opposite way, still, the removal of the many extraneous sections and supplements which triple and quadruple the normal size of our journals would be a blessing. American publishers might well follow, in spirit at least, the example of Rome, for the combined conservation both of the forests and our mentality.