Lost Weekends

British newsstands, normally snowed under by a weekend blizzard of weekly magazines, last week looked rather bare. Of some 200 London weeklies, 60 had failed to appear, including such favorites as Radio Times (circ. 8,000,000). Reason: a labor dispute affecting some 3,500 London job printers. They charged that they had been locked out by their employers, the London Master Printers Association. The association retorted that it had fired the printers for refusing to abolish overtime restrictions. They had been required to do so under a government arbitration decision awarding the men a weekly raise of 3s. 6d. (49-c-).

While the government tried to settle the dispute, some magazine publishers (daily newspapers were not affected) managed to get out token issues by makeshift methods. The New Statesman & Nation (TIME, Sept. 4), normally a comfortable 24 pages, squeaked out eight pages by photostated typewriting. The Economist, like many strikebound U.S. papers in the last few years (TIME, Dec. 1, 1947 et seq.), used Vari-Typing to produce a makeshift, 16-page issue for its 107th anniversary. It tartly warned the printers: "Union leaders would do well to observe that it is possible to get along without any compositors at all."

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