Mr. JOHN MURRAY, the famous publisher, has recently given a
representative of _The Pall Mall Gazette_ some interesting facts and
figures bearing on the impending crisis in the publishing trade. It
is a gloomy recital. Men doing less work per hour with the present
forty-eight hour week than with the old fifty-one hour week, and
agitating for a further reduction of hours; paper rising in price by
leaps and bounds. "Between the two they are forcing up the price of
books to a point when we can only produce at a loss." In other
words, we are threatened with not merely a shortage but an absolute
deprivation of all new books. The horror of the situation is
almost unthinkable, but it must be faced. We can dispense with many
luxuries--encyclopædias and histories and scientific treatises and so
forth--but among the necessities of modern life the novel stands only
third to the cinema and the jazz. It is possible that in time the
first-named may reconcile us to booklessness, but that time is not
yet.
What amazes us in Mr. JOHN MURRAY'S pessimistic forecast is his
failure to recognise and advocate the only and obvious remedy. By the
reduction of the Bread Subsidy fifty millions have been made available
for the relief of national needs. We do not say that this would be
enough, but if carefully laid out in grants to deserving novelists,
so as to enable them to co-operate with publishers on lines that would
allow a reasonable margin of profit, it might go some way towards
averting the appalling calamity which Mr. JOHN MURRAY anticipates.
The Ministry of Information is closed, but should be at once
reorganised as the Ministry of Fiction, with a staff of no fewer than
five hundred clerks, and installed in suitable premises, the British
Museum for choice, thus emancipating the younger generation from the
dead hand of archæology. Similarly the utmost care should be taken
to exclude from the direction of the Ministry any representatives
of Victorianism, Hanoverism, or the fetish-worship of reticence or
restraint. But no time should be lost. The duty of the State is clear.
It only needs some public-spirited and respected Member of Parliament,
such as Lieutenant-Commander KENWORTHY or Colonel JOSIAH WEDGWOOD,
to promote the legislative measures necessary to secure a supply of
really nutritious mental pabulum for the million.
* * * * *
[Illustration: _Auctioneer_ (_selling summer "grass-keep_)". "NOW
THEN, HOW MUCH FOR THIS FIELD? LOOK AT THAT GRASS, GENTLEMEN. THAT'S
THE KIND OF STUFF NEBUCHADNEZZAR WOULD HAVE GIVEN TEN POUNDS AN ACRE
FOR."]
"CONSCIENCE MONEY.--The Chancellor of the Exchequer
acknowledges the receipt of 10/- from Liverpool.
The charge for announcements in the Personal Column is 7/6
for two lines (minimum), and 3/6 for each additional
line."--_Times._
Any large outbreak of conscientiousness on this scale will mean ruin
for the country.
* * * * *
"A band of armed ruffians disguised as soldiers held up
a train near Parghelia, in Calabria, and carried off the
contents of two vons, consisting chiefly of sausages."
_Scotch Paper._
This is an abbreviated way of speaking. By "the contents of two vons"
the writer evidently means the contents of the baggage of two German
noblemen.
* * * * *
For Prospective Centenarians.
"Salary, £50 per annum, rising upon satisfactory service by
annual increments of £5 to a maximum of £880."--_Welsh Paper._
* * * * *