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"It is not so easy to get a price as to fix it," said he somewhat ruefully. "It may not be possible to get $60. However, that is the price on which Canadian sentiment is fixed, and we will do our best to obtain it. We have recognized that the price of $55 is too low."
Montreal rumors were to the effect that Premier Taschereau, backed by Ontario's Ferguson, had strongly hinted that unless I. P. & P. was willing to raise its price, Crown land leases would be canceled, timber land reallocated to Canadian pulp mills now shut down.
In New York, quick figures announced that a raise of $5 a ton in the price of newsprint* would cost U. S. publishers $19,000,000 yearly. Since this cost must be passed on to the advertiser, it will mean an increase of .45% in all advertising rates.
Excited at the news, Vice President J. L. Fearing of International Paper Co. (I. P. & P. subsidiary) telephoned to Montreal to learn the reason for his chief's sudden reversal. By this time President Graustein had recovered somewhat from his interview with the two premiers.
"No definite agreement on newsprint prices has yet been reached," said he abruptly. "I do not know when such an agreement will be made."
Worried U. S. newspaper publishers, their budgets upset, exchanged telegrams, announced an emergency convention in New York's Hotel Pennsylvania for Dec. 9 to talk paper prices.
*The New York Times has its own forest and papermills at Kapuskasmy, Ontario.