THE ENGLISH COPYRIGHT COMMISSION. 455 



think of the kind specially to be encouraged, amounting to between 

 twenty and thirty already published, and potentially to a much larger 

 number, which would not have existed at all had there been in force 

 the arrangement proposed ; inasmuch as the publisher affirms that he 

 would not have offered such terms, and I can testify that, in the absence 

 of terms as tempting as those, authors would not have agreed to coop- 

 erate. 



Q, {Sir H. Holland). Was Mr. King made aware that there Avould 

 be a limited time within which each volume would be protected ? 



A. Yes, three years. He did not count upon anything like adequate 

 return in that time. He says, " We are a long way off profit as yet 

 on the series" (I think it is nearly five years since it commenced), 

 " although I am convinced that ultimately "we and the authors, too, will 

 be well satisfied." 



Q. That would raise the question which I wanted to put, whether 

 in a case like that it would have been possible to publish a cheaper 

 edition than the one now published ? 



A. Yes, in the absence of the author's twenty per cent. 



Q. In the case which you have brought to our notice, may we assume 

 that the cheapest form of edition was published consistently with fair 

 profit to the author and publisher ? 



A. I think, certainly, with anything like a tolerable mode of getting 

 up. Of course, you may bring dow^n a thing to rubbishing type and 

 straw paper ; but I was speaking of a presentable book. They are very 

 cheap for presentable books. 



Q. That, perhaps, would be one of the evils arising from a system 

 of royalty, that you would get extremely bad and incorrect editions 

 published of a book, even in the first instance ? 



A. Very likely. 



Q. Because it would be the publisher's object, if that system were 

 thoroughly established, to publish such an edition that another pub- 

 lisher could not underbid him at the end of the three years ; that would 

 be, would it not, the general object of the publisher ? 



A. Yes. 



Q. In this case I understand you to say that he could not, consis- 

 tently with fair profits to the author and publisher, and consistently 

 with its being a properly printed w^ork, without which a work of that 

 kind would be of very little value, have published a cheaper edition ? 



A. He could not. 



Q: And yet he would not have been able to publish such an edition 

 if he had to run the risk of being underbid ? 



A. Certainly not. He says, " I confess my idea, in proposing such 

 terms as those of the ' International Scientific Series,' looked forward to 

 a yearly increasing interest in scientific literature, and an ever-enlarging 

 circle of readers able to appreciate books of a high class." So he was 

 looking for a distant effect. 



