Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 14.djvu/463

Rh, then, we may say that there is a natural cheapening of books, going as far as trade-profits allow; as there is a natural cheapening of other things. Conversely, I mean by artificial cheapening, that kind which is anticipated from the measure proposed; for it is expected by means of this measure to make publishers issue books at lower rates than they otherwise do. And this is essentially a proposal to make them publish at a relative loss. If, as already argued, the average rates of publishers' profits are not above those of ordinary business-profits, these measures for lowering their prices must either drive them out of the business or be inoperative. To put the point briefly—if there is an obvious profit to be obtained, publishers will lower their prices of their own accord; and the proposed competitive system will not make profits obvious where they were not so before.

Q. But if there was free competition on the payment of the author's royalty, might it not be that another publisher would be led to issue a cheap edition when the original publisher would not?

A. I see no reason to think this. The assumption appears to be that everybody but author and original publisher can see the advantage of a cheap edition, but that author and original publisher are blind. Contrariwise, it seems to me that the original producers of the book are those best enabled to say when a cheap edition will answer. The original producers of the book know all the data—number sold, cost, return, etc.; and can judge of the probable demand. Another publisher is in the dark, and it does not seem a reasonable proposition that the publisher who is in the dark can best estimate the remunerativeness of a cheap edition. If it is hoped that, being in the dark, he may rashly venture, and the public may so profit, then the hope is that he may be tempted into a losing business. But the public can not profit in the long run by losing businesses.

Q. (Sir H. Holland). Take the "Life of Lord Macaulay"; you know that Tauchnitz has published a cheap edition in four volumes—a very neat edition, good paper and good print. Is it not possible that if this system of royalty is introduced, without considering whether the author would lose by it, a cheap edition like that would be put upon the market at once, and would pay the publisher?

A. It is possible that it would be done earlier than it is now done. I take it that the normal course of things is that, first of all, the dear edition should be published and have its sale, and supply its market, and that then, when that sale has flagged, there should come the aim to supply a wider market by publishing a cheap edition.

Q. You are aware that one of the advantages which the advocates of this royalty system most strongly dwell upon is that under the present system the great mass of the reading public are not able to purchase the books; those who have the advantage of circulating libraries can get them and read them, but poorer persons can neither purchase nor read them, whereas under the other system an edition like