To grasp the paper situation as it affects this island kingdom we must hark back to the glorious days preceding 1914. We made paper upon a relatively extensive scale in our own mills, and the industry flourished amazingly. But to what extent did indigenous materials enter into the composition of the article? Barely 10 per cent. We preferred to buy 90 per cent. of our raw materials from foreign mills brought into existence for this especial purpose, and, be it remarked _en passant_, the foreigner found it highly lucrative to trade upon our disinclination to prepare the products ourselves. A British firm, which had built huge mills in Scandinavia for the preparation of the essential raw material, disposed of its financial interests to a foreign concern. The bargain was settled for a round £7,000,000--$35,000,000! Surely this transaction suffices to demonstrate that there is big money to be made preparing paper pulp, as the raw material is called, for British paper mills. The fact that in pre-war days we imported a round 2,000,000 tons of pulp and paper during the course of the year serves to convey some idea of the magnitude of the industry, and the extent to which this country became dependent upon foreign sources of supply. One hundred years ago, or even less, the British paper-making industry was a staple. The paper was British made from British materials. In the light of this knowledge one may well ask why, and how, we allowed this profitable trade to slip through our fingers? The cause was not far to seek. Our old pugnacious friend the wasp was primarily responsible for the passing of this British industry. He, from his paper-making prowess in the fabrication of his wonderful nest, set certain imaginative men thinking hard. If this humble insect could contrive such a remarkably tough and stout paper for home-building purposes from wood surely it was not beyond the wit of men, with the bewildering array of mechanical and chemical handmaids at his elbow, to do likewise! Accordingly the observant, fertile, and patient minds went to work. Within a short time they not only succeeded in imitating the wasp, but evolved such a simple process in the doing of it as to make an irresistible appeal to commerce. Incidentally while this one line of investigation, the purely mechanical, was being pursued other equally brilliant minds were perfecting a second means of achieving a similar end by mechanical-chemical agency. In this manner commerce became equipped with two efficient means for the reduction of trees into paper, and at such a low figure as to render the conventional competitive methods impossible, at least for the cheapest grades of paper, such as are employed for our newspapers, popular periodicals, and low-priced books.