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��NOTES BY THE WAY.

��" such regulations seem prima facie to be indefensible, and contrary to the freedom which ought to prevail in commercial transactions. Although the owner of property may put what price he pleases upon it when selling it, the condition that the purchaser, after the property has been transferred to him and he has paid the purchase - money, shall not resell it under a certain price, derogates from the rights of ownership which, as purchaser, he has acquired."

John Stuart John Stuart Mill took the same view. I have in my possession

Mill a letter of his, written from the East India House, May 5th, 1852,

advocates, , -, *

Free Trade. m whlch he savs : ~

" There is no case to which, in my opinion, the principles of Free Trade are more completely applicable than to the question in dispute between the London Booksellers' Association and those who claim a right to sell books at a less profit than that prescribed by the rules of the Association. Not only in the book trade, but in all others, I conceive that the profits of distributors absorb at present a very undue proportion of the proceeds of industry ; and it appears to me impossible to maintain that their contenting themselves with a lower rate of remuneration would be injurious to the producers. It is self- evident that whatever part of the profits publishers and retailers are willing to forego must be gained either by authors or buyers ; and if by buyers, it would still benefit authors by increasing the sale of books."

In consequence of the arbitrators' decision, the Booksellers' Association was dissolved, and " for some forty years the applica- tion of coercion to deal with admittedly unfair competition was ruled out of court " ; for although Whitaker in The Bookseller made frequent strong comments on the evils of the underselling system and the advertising of new books for sale at considerably below the published price, no definite general attempt to deal with the question was made until March, 1890, when Mr. Frederick Macmillan's letter appeared in The Bookseller in which he definitely proposed the establishment of the now well-known net system. Later Mr. C. J. Longman suggested the abolition of any fixed retail price, thus leaving the bookseller to fix his own in the same way as retailers in ordinary commodities do, the publishers acting merely as wholesale dealers. I remember that my father many years ago suggested this plan ; but Mr. Longman's proposal failed to find any support. On the 21st of April, 1896, the Publishers Association was inaugurated, Mr. C. J. Longman becoming its first President ; and at the annual meeting on the 23rd of March, 1899, the net-system agreement as now understood, on being moved by Mr. John Murray, was adopted unanimously.

On Wednesday, the 3rd of June, 1908, The Daily Telegraph's correspondent at New York cabled that the United States Supreme Court had decided that publishers holding a copyright cannot for that reason fix the price at which a book must be sold.

��The

Booksellers' Association.

��Mr. Frederick Macmillan.

CharlesJames Longman.

��Publishers'

Association

formed.

�� �