It will be some little time before the effect of
the new freedom conceded to the London daily papers to get what circulation they can will be visible. The first reactions may well be misleading. But such as they are they have their interest. The greatest proportional increase, I arn told, is claimed by The Times, the greatest actual increase by the Daily Mirror. In the instructive article he wrote in the Daily Telegraph on Monday Lord Camrose gave the recent circulation of that paper as just under 833,000, and added that the number of Monday's issue "ordered by the public" was 989,131. The idea, of course, is that when the various newspapers have found their new circulation-level paper shall be allotted to them on the basis of that, no longer on the basis of the now obsolete 1940-41 level. The weekly papers, it may be mentioned, are getting different treatment. Their paper-increase does not come till November 7th, and it is only a limited increase—from 272 to 4o per cent. of the pre-war figure. Papers can use the increase to increase either their size or their circulation. Most of them, no
doubt, will aim at both.
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