Back to Normal ?
By the time this issue of the Spectator is in the hands of readers, the London compositors will have returned to work. The end of the printing dispute comes too late to make the production of an entirely normal Spectator possible this week, but it is hoped that next week's issue willto something to compensate by its bulk for the short commons of the past two months. The ending of this strike would be an occasion for congratulation as well as relief if it could be shown that the settlement arrived at in any way justified the inconvenience that has been caused on all sides. Unfortunately this is not the case. The settlement is only partial, and some of the most difficult aspects of the dispute—notably the question of recruitment—remain to be discussed. Until conditions of pay and recruitment in the printing industry are put on a national basis there is no guarantee that disputes such as that which has just ended will not recur periodically. Meanwhile the affair has caused hardships all round. Millions of members of the public have been deprived of their regular reading material ; not only the compositors, but some thousands of other printing workers who were not directly party to the dispute, have lost r many weeks' pay. The Spectator, in common with other periodicals printed in London, has been compelled to hold over many pages of advertisements at serious financial loss, and for eight out of the last ten weeks has appeared in a truncated form. Now periodicals, to add to their difficulties, are faced with a further rise in the cost of newsprint. The end of the dispute may prove to have raised as many problems as it has settled. Meanwhile it will be something to be able to offer our readers a normal Spectator once again.
