Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 14.djvu/461

Rh A. That is one objection. There is no possibility of fixing one that would apply to all works, inasmuch as the thing paid for is an extremely variable thing, more variable than in almost any other occupation.

Q. I put that question to another witness before you, but I am afraid failed to make him understand me. I am therefore glad to have the answer from you, in order that we may show (I think you will agree with me) that no special royalty specified by act of Parliament could be just to poetry, and to the drama, and to fiction, and to science, and to history at the same time?

A. Quite so. I think it is obvious, when it is put clearly, that it can not be; and that is an all-essential objection.

Q. (Sir H. Holland). Nor would it in your opinion be desirable that the question of determining what amount of royalty is proper in each case should be vested in some registrar or some single person?

A. It would make the matter still worse. It would be bad to vest it anywhere, but especially bad to vest it in any single official.

Q. (Chairman). Are we to assume that you think the plan of a royalty to be at variance with the established principles of the science of political economy?

A. I think quite at variance with the principles of political economy. The proposal is to benefit the consumer of books by cheapening books. A measure effecting this will either change, or will not change, the returns of those engaged in producing books. That it will change them may be taken as certain: the chances are infinity to one against such a system leaving the returns as they are. What will the change be? Either to increase or decrease those returns. Is it said that by this regulation the returns to producers of books will be increased, and that they only require forcing to issue cheaper editions, to reap greater profit themselves, at the same time that they benefit the public? Then the proposition is that book-producers and distributors do not understand their business, but require to be instructed by the state how to carry it on more advantageously. Few will, I think, deliberately assert this. There is, then, the other alternative: the returns will be decreased. At whose expense decreased—printers', authors', or publishers'? Not at the expense of the printers: competition keeps down their profits at the normal level. Scarcely at the cost of the authors; for abundant evidence has shown that, on the average, authors' profits are extremely small. Were there no other motive for authorship than money-getting, there would be very few authors. Clearly, then, the reduction of returns is to be at the cost of the publisher. The assumption is that, for some reason or other, the publishing business, unlike any other business, needs its returns regulated by law. Thinking, apparently, of prosperous publishers only, and forgetting that there are many who make but moderate incomes and very many who fail, and thinking only of books which sell largely, while forgetting that very many books bring no profits and still more entail loss, it is assumed that the publishing