Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 14.djvu/459

Rh of wages. In the past it was the greediness of money-lenders that had to be checked, or, as in France for many generations, the greediness of hotel-keepers; and now it appears to be the greediness of book-producers that needs checking, I do not see, however, any reason for believing that, regulations made by law to secure cheap bread for the body having failed, there is likelihood of success for regulations aiming to secure cheap bread for the mind.

Q. Then do we understand you to mean that no analogy furnished by past experience in commercial affairs can be held to imply that the proposed royalty plan would succeed?

A. I think that all the facts are against it. I find it stated in the evidence lately given that there has not been raised "an insuperable objection in point of principle" to the plan of a royalty. If no such objection in point of principle has been raised, I think one may be raised; the objection, namely, that it is distinctly opposed to the principles of free trade. One of the aims of the plan, as expressed in the words of the same witness, is the "preservation of a fair profit to the author." Now, on the face of it, it seems to me that any proposal to secure fair profits by legislation is entirely at variance with free-trade principles, which imply that profits are to be determined by the ordinary course of business. But, further, I would point out that, if it is competent for the legislature to say what is a "fair profit to the author," I do not see why it is not competent for the legislature to say what is a fair profit to the publisher: indeed, I may say that it is not only as competent but much more competent. I take it to be impossible for the legislature to fix with anything like equity the profit of authors, if profit is to bear any relation to either skill or labor, as it should do; inasmuch as one author puts into a page of his book ten times as much skill as another, and, in other cases, ten times as much labor as another. Hence, therefore, if they are to be paid at the same percentage on the price, there is no proportion in that case secured between the value of the labor and what they receive. Similarly, if we consider the numbers sold, the royalty which might afford ample return to an author who sold a popular book in large numbers would afford little return to an author who produced a grave book selling in small numbers. Obviously, then, it is extremely difficult, and in fact impossible, for the legislature to fix an equitable royalty; but it is by no means so difficult for the legislature to fix an equitable rate of profit for the publisher. The function of the publisher is a comparatively mechanical and uniform function: the same practically for all books, the same for all publishers, and hence is a thing very much easier to estimate in respect of the proportion; and in fact we have the evidence that it can be fixed with something like fairness, inasmuch as publishers themselves voluntarily accept a ten per cent, commission. Hence, I say, not only does the carrying out of the principle imply that if, in pursuit of alleged public advantage, the profit of the author should be