The effects of the depression make themselves felt all round
without discrimination. A good many people, in normal times as well as abnormal, often express interested curiosity as to how a paper like The Times fares finan- cially. I see The Times Publishing Company has just issued its report for the year 1931-2, showing profits of £8,153. The figure for the previous year was £134,343, and for the one before that £236,378. The drop is, of course, fully explained by the fall in advertising, for many firms have felt compelled to contract their expenditure on this head, though others, more courageous and perhaps more wise, have decided that there is greater need for advertising than ever. But one highly remunerative class of advertisement, the company prospectus, from which papers of the type of The Times always benefit most, has gone into eclipse altogether till the last week or two. It is a common enough experience that firms producing commodities of the highest quality are as exposed to financial vicissitudes as any others, but no one who has read The Times daily for the past three years, as no doubt most readers of the Spectator have, has ever detected signs of an economy effected at the expense of its high traditions.
* * * *
Previous page
