Professor De Morgan:

The present system cannot last, right or wrong. The system of artificial prices has received its death-blow in the repeal of the corn-laws; and the only question for publishers now is, whether they will accept the new system for their own benefit, or see a new race of publishers and retailers arise, to serve the general public, to their exclusion from any share in the matter.

Mr. Denison:

I really cannot see who, of all the parties concerned, from the original inventor or author of a book down to the final consumer, has any advantage in maintaining the present system of the retail advance of one-third to one-half upon the publisher's price to the trade, except the particular middle-man, or commission-agent, or broker, or in other words, the bookseller, who is enabled to put that difference in his pocket.

They undoubtedly (like the musical gentlemen, who put a similar per centage in their pockets for going for you, or with you, to Broadwood's, to buy you a piano) have an interest in it; and by all means let them 'associate' and agitate as briskly as they can to keep it up, and to persuade the public that it is a very good thing. We know what the end of that will be.

Professor Newman:

It appears to me transparently equitable, that a publisher who at all sells books to a second party should allow that party to be the sole judge at what prices the books shall be again sold; and that every attempt to control one another's sales is inconsistent with the nature of property, confounds men's notions of right and wrong, and can lead to nothing but waste of valuable goods, capital, and time, of so serious a nature, that evasions and duplicity will be widely used as a partial remedy for so great an evil.

The Honourable and Reverend Sidney Godolphin Osborne :

I cannot conceive any ground of fair commercial policy on which a publisher selling ten dozen books at a certain price to a bookseller, has any right to interfere with their after-destination. He has severed himself from all title in them; the bookseller has them altogether. If he chose to burn them, sell them at an advanced, or at a decreased, price, surely they are his so to deal

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* For the interest of authors, I am satisfied the book trade cannot be too open.

Dr. Lindley:

I am of opinion that the retailers of books should be free to fix for them

selves the profit they require, and that it is unwise and unjust that publishers should interfere in the matter. I believe that it is impossible to name any considerable branch of trade, except bookselling, in which that interference is even attempted.

Mr. G. R. Porter:

I cannot see why the publisher, who must be considered as the manufacturer or wholesale dealer, should interfere with the retail bookseller as regards the conducting of his business, any more than the manufacturers or wholesale dealers in other articles are in the habit of interfering with their retailing customers. Dr. Royle:

The prevailing system appears to me to enhance unnecessarily the price of books, and limits greatly the sale of books of information, for the purchasers of them are not generally a very wealthy class, and do not buy books as articles of luxury, but of daily and hourly use in their profession and pursuits, whether scientific or literary. In having this effect the system is, I conceive, injurious both to publishers and to authors, and produces a little more deception than all parties would like to acknowledge, for prices do vary in different parts of the country, and yet the rule is supposed to be everywhere the same. Mr. Rutter:

What greater sin is there in a retail bookseller selling a book cheap, in the sense now causing so much dispute, than in a publisher throwing some hundreds of copies into the market cheap? The publisher, I expect, has no pangs about the copies on the shelves of his customers-for which he received the ordinary price at the moment when he is arranging the terms for knocking down the price of such copies to half or a third of the sum he received for them. Dr. Searle :

To talk about the trifling duty on paper as opposed to cheap literature is absurd, in the face of the fact that not less than 40 per cent., or four shillings in ten, is swallowed up by the publisher of every work issued from the press, and his satellites. Bookselling in general is a ready-money transaction; or if not, let it be so, and the charges may be well reduced 25 per cent. below the current rates; and were they so, the sale of books would assuredly be greatly extended, to the interest of all parties. Alfred Tennyson:

I am for free-trade in the bookselling question, as in other things. Charles Dickens :

No; most certainly not.

Mr. Tomes:

If I sell you a stick for one shilling, it is nothing to me whether you sell it again for two shillings, or for one farthing, or break your own head with it, and leave the coroner to pass a fine upon it, as they do upon locomotive engines that have acquired the unpleasant habit of running over folks. When you have

sold a copy of a work, I conceive you have, after the sale, as little to do with that copy as I with the stick. Mr. Wenckstern:

A book is a kind of merchandize which the author and the publisher combine in fabricating. They are the manufacturers. The retailers are the shopkeepers. Why should books be altogether exceptional from all other manufactured articles? And why should they be watched after they have come into the hands of the trade? Other manufacturers allow free-trade, and are all the better for it. I am afraid literature has too many friends, and too much protection. Of late years there have been so many gentlemen kind enough to lecture about, and beg for the poor authors. And indeed I am afraid we are getting poor by means of their protection movements. Give us fair play and free-trade, and save us from our friends! But above all, do not refuse to sell our books to every man who will have them. Professor Whewell:

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*

As to the author's interest in the question, in general the bargain with him is made on the basis of the publisher's price, not the bookseller's. The effect of the conventional profit is, that he obtains a much smaller remuneration than the recognised price of the book appears to entitle him to expect. If it be said that the publisher makes allowance for this in making the bargain, I should say that the allowance seldom appears in a form which is not disadvantageous to the author. I do not see, therefore, that either the public or the author receive anything but detriment from the convention.

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Mr. Digby Wyatt:

*

A fixed rate of profits is contrary to common sense, since all those conditions upon which profit should obviously depend-such as supply, demand, extent of sale, current rates of discount, and probabilities of speedy return for money invested-must vary with every article sold, and with the occasion of every transaction.

Professor Craik :

not bear arguing. The only thing that a person interested in the sale of any kind of production or commodity can desire or care for, with a view to its pecuniary returns, is that the sale, at a given price, should be as extensive as possible. So long, therefore, as the retail dealer gives me, or my publisher, our own price for the books which he purchases, we have nothing more to ask. His rate of profit, let it be as low or, if you will, as inadequate as it may, does not affect ours.

In the face of such protests as these, to which we might add a chorus of negatives, it would be impossible to preserve the present bookselling system, even if the recent decision of Lord Campbell had not to all intents and purposes pronounced its doom. Referring the reader to the newspaper reports of that luminous and most dispassionate verdict, it will be enough to state, that his lordship's opinion delivered at the last meeting of publishers and booksellers convened before him, not only recommends the abandonment of the existing restrictive regulations, but suggests the advantages which would accrue to all parties concerned by throwing open the trade. The line of argument adopted by the publishers, and the attempts made to deprive authors of their right to take an interest in the adjudication of the question, were not very creditable to the Association that sought his lordship's arbitration. Mr. Seeley dismissed the opinions of the authors with an air of flippancy and superciliousness, which we should pass over in silence, but for certain misrepresentations contained in his speech, and repeated the next day in the shape of a dreary leader in the Morning Herald. Taking up the collection of answers from which we have been quoting, he declared, with astounding coolness, that he regarded the publication as an absolute triumph to the Booksellers' Association. Yes,' he exclaimed, as a triumph of the most decided character. The unsophisticated reader will marvel what Mr. Seeley could have meant; and when we explain the grounds of that gentleman's exultation, he will marvel still more.

Mr. Seeley divided the replies under three heads. First, authors who answered without assigning

any reasons, which Mr. Seeley seemed to consider fatal to their evidence, as if it were necessary that they should assign reasons for desiring to extend the sale of their books. Many of these gentlemen, he observed, were authors of books of slow sale, and their answers being dictated by selfish motives could have no weight in the controversy.' Pray, Mr. Seeley, by what description of motives are the booksellers actuated in their combination? If selfish motives are to have no weight in the controversy, what is the pure and disinterested object the Association was formed to promote? Are booksellers alone permitted to prosecute their own interests at any cost of justice to the community, without the imputation of selfishness ? And when the authors come forward to protect their interests, with which the public at large are identified, are they to be turned out of court by Mr. Seeley on the ground of selfishness? The fact, if it be a fact, that the majority of the fifty gentlemen who come under this category are authors of books of slow sale, is surely the very best reason in the world why they should desire to alter a system which has worked so manifestly to their injury. The author who commands a quick and extensive circulation can afford, like any other prosperous producer, to leave things as they are; it is the author who feels the impediment, and suffers from it in pocket and reputation, that has a right to protest against the obstructive system, and whose evidence, as to its practical working, is best entitled to be heard. But Mr. Seeley jumps a little too precipitately to his conclusion. The most emphatic negatives, without a syllable of explanation, come from authors of the most established popularity. Mr. Dickens does not think it necessary to enter into reasons for Mr. Seeley's satisfaction, but answers the question in the shortest possible form of words that can convey his repudiation of the right of publishers to refuse to sell his book to undersellers ? No; MOST CERTAINLY NOT!' Does Mr. Seeley regard Mr. Dickens's answer as originating in selfish motives, and therefore having no weight in the controversy ?

The second class into which Mr.

Seeley divides the respondents is composed of eight gentlemen, whose replies, he tells us, are to the effect 'that the Association are in the right.' These gentlemen are, Dr. Bernays, Dr. Bushnan, Mr. Coleridge, Mr. Melville, Dr. Latham, Mr. Merivale, Mr. Scott, and Mr. Walcott. We have already shown what the opinions of three of these gentlemen are, and to what extent the Association is indebted to their support. Dr. Bushnan's answer is clearly beside the question at issue; Mr. Coleridge assumes a position which is obviously independent of it, while his reasoning is as available on the one side as the other; and Mr. Walcott is decidedly in favour of the trade regulations, on grounds which afford the most convincing reasons why they should be abolished. We will now see what are the opinions of the five remaining gentlemen claimed by Mr. Seeley in favour of the Association.

Dr. Bernays says, that as long as the present system of trade continues, he thinks the trade should be protected against the undersellers. We are by no means disposed to dispute the justice and morality of this dictum; but the question was, not whether the trade should be protected while the system continued, but whether the system itself was one which ought to continue. Upon this question Dr. Bernays declines to give any opinion whatever, preferring to confide his own interests to the hands of his own publishers, on whose judgment and temper he relies; but he is avowedly of opinion that 'good books gain nothing by the

allowance made to the retailer.' and he distinctly expresses his conviction that'the trade will by circumstances be forced into new courses, neither the nature nor the consequences of which one can venture to foretel.' This is one of the opinions described by Mr. Seeley as declaratory in favour of the Association.

Mr. Melville conceives that the practice of one bookseller selling at a lower price than another might naturally prevent the public from paying a guinea in one place for a book which they might procure elsewhere for a pound. He then proceeds as follows:

But as far as my own opinion goes, I do not consider that even this contin

gency is in justice a fair and sufficient reason for preventing a tradesman from disposing of his property upon his own terms; and as long as he pays the price required for his articles, I should conceive he had a right to sell them at the lowest rate on which he can make a profit.

This is another specimen of the opinions claimed by Mr. Seeley, on behalf of the Association.

Dr. Latham misunderstands the whole drift of the question. He thinks that if a publisher belongs to the Association he is bound by its rules. So do we. But he does not tell us whether he thinks the author is bound by rules to which he was no party, and of which, in most cases, he was totally ignorant; nor does he inform us whether he, as an author, would consider his publisher justified in refusing to sell his book at the wholesale price to a retailer who refused to subscribe to those rules. In fact, he does not meet the question at all, and we have no objection to make a free present of his answer to Mr. Seeley.

Mr. Merivale enters elaborately upon the subject, with hesitations and misgivings for and against the prevailing system. He tells us, however, that having some years ago found out the shop of Messrs. Bickers and Bush, he heartily congratulated himself upon the discovery that new books could be obtained at 20 per cent. discount; from which we infer, that so far as his instincts as a buyer are concerned, he has no opposition to offer to the extension of the cheap system. He observes also, that his impression is, that the contemplated change would be in the first instance prejudicial to authors, but that it would lead through a great revolution to a new system, in which they would recover, and perhaps more than recover, their present advantages; and he sums up in a sentence, from which even Mr. Seeley will find it difficult to extract an excuse for taking possession of Mr. Merivale.

Your Question' is one which I do not find it easy to answer categorically, but you will perceive, from these remarks which you have invited me to lay before you, that I should have been satisfied with the existing system, had it never been brought under discussion, but that now that a change has been

mooted, I doubt its being practicable, or ultimately beneficial to my own interests, to persist in maintaining it.

Mr. Scott's answer being brief, and remarkably lucid and decisive, we give it in full.

In answer to your 'Question' I have only to say that I see no reason why a publisher should not allow a retail bookseller to sell any book at any rate of profit at which he thinks it his interest to do so; and that, as this implies that the retail bookseller is likely to sell more copies at the lower rate, I think it is the author's and publisher's interest to allow him.

N.B. I do not enter into the question, as between one retail bookseller and another; on this I am not competent to form any judgment.

We will make only one observation on the triumph of the most decided character' derived by Mr. Seeley from the evidence of Mr. Scott. Here is a gentleman who, in the plainest words, declares against the Association, and Mr. Seeley does not hesitate to include him amongst its advocates. The assumption of Mr. Seeley is all throughout more or less of the same character. In short, there is not one of the eight gentlemen, except Mr. Walcott, who, by any perversity of reasoning, can be embraced within Mr. Seeley's category. But even if they were all unequivocally in favour of the Association what then? Of what weight would be the opinions of eight gentlemen against the recorded convictions of ninety-two, besides many verbal communications' to the same effect, which Messrs. Parker state they have since received?

Mr. Seeley's third class consists of gentlemen who have given decided negatives, with reasons attached to them. It is very difficult to please Mr. Seeley. Having ignored some fifty authors because, he says, they gave in their negatives without reasons, he rejects the remainder, because they have explained their reasons. The result is, that, with or without reasons, Mr. Seeley, on behalf of the Booksellers' Association, decides against allowing the authors to have any voice in the matter.

Now as the Booksellers' Association has taken upon itself to assume so despotic and exclusive a

position, it will not be considered altogether irrelevant to ask what is this Association? Is it a corporation? Has it a charter? Is it established under an Act of Parlia ment? From what source does it derive its powers? What authority has it for enforcing and carrying into effect the laws it lays down for regulating the intercourse between the author and the public? And if it cannot enforce and carry out the laws it makes, by what known or recognised usage can the author or the public be called upon to submit to its authority? If, then, it have no such authority, if it be neither chartered, nor incorporated, nor patented, if it possess not one of the attributes with which controlling bodies are invested, by what right does it pretend to interfere with the free operations of commerce, and to check the honourable industry of that class of producers to whom of all others the world is most largely indebted, and who of all others is notoriously the worst paid? When we find this self-constituted association adopting means for crushing all those who do not subscribe to its regulations, it is full time for public opinion to interpose. It seems that, not content with prohibiting the publisher from selling his own books to the independent retailer, it takes the most effectual measures for preventing the large wholesale houses from supplying him with them. It proceeds to the unwarrantable length of hanging up placards in the warehouses of the trade, with the names of the undersellers' inscribed on them, so that when any of these persons apply for books they shall be known and refused. This is a species of persecution which, being calculated to damage the credit of the tradesman who is thus excluded from the means of carrying on his business, and which, if persevered in, must inevitably terminate in his ruin, has more in it of the character of a combination for the preservation of a monopoly, than of an association for the protection of trade. It is not at all certain that a retailer whose supplies should be stopped by a conspiracy of this description has not a legal remedy; but, at all events, he has an appeal to the jus

tice and emmer was of the
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and more effective recress
shape.

In order that car melon my enabled to understand the operandi of the book trade, and the purpose of daring my the 'technical diferites' with the Association have en desvoris mystify the public, it will be neces sary to touch upon a few detta, which we will dismiss as briefy possible.

The publisher who launches the book in the first instance, deals wih two classes of customers - the wholesale and the retail bookseller; but principally the former. Waz he subscribes a book, or issues s sale catalogue, he sends round as a matter of courtesy, to the principal retailers, in which case the retad bookseller is permitted to deal on the same terms as the wholesale. These terms are by no means inex orably fixed, for although the publishers will not allow any compe tition amongst the retailers in the sale of the book to the public, they have no objection to a little private competition amongst themselves in the sale of their books to the retailers. This is shown in various lengths of credit, and in the different allowances granted by different houses. Some houses give 13 books as 12, with an addition of 25 as 24, some few tempting their purchasers with 7 as 6 or 6; all these extra allowances constituting a competi tion amongst publishers themselves in order to induce the booksellers to take an additional interest in their own books. Seeing, then, to what an extent the publishers carry competition in their own case, we can the better judge of the purity of the motive which prohibits its application to the case of the retailers.

But we are told that the agitation is not on the part of the publishers but on the part of the booksellers themselves. It is asserted that the maintenance of the price fixed by the publisher as the selling price to the public, is necessary to cover the risk of the retailer who speculates on the subscription to the book. Before we touch upon this point, one word as to the true intention of