'THE Manchester Guardian would have been printed in London as
well as in Manchester two years ago, had it not been for fear of protest from the printing trade unions.' Thus Mr. Laurence Scott, the chairman of the Manchester Guardian and Evening News, Ltd., last week. He went on to suggest that this was due to the popular newspapers tolerating such practices when times were good, and thereby giving them the sanction of usage. Now that times are less good, the effects on the less-prosperous news- papers are extremely serious. The tradition has been established that labour-saving devices are not to be introduced unless they do not, in fact, save labour : where they are used, the surplus hands remain—sometimes doing nothing. Yet it is precisely the newspapers which have allowed this state of affairs to arise in their own industry who have been most vocal in the campaign against restrictive practices in other industries.
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