Deccmbov 28, 1917 
LAND & WATER 
15 
Mt anil itelter^ 
By J. G. Squire 
British Printing 
IM the summer of 1914 I was in Germany. Having 
handed thoie plans to the Kaiser and received those 
bags of gold from Bethmann — for it is just as well to 
confirm at once the suspicions that my first sentence 
will have aroused — I left Berlin and went to Leipzic. At 
Leipzic there was being held an Exhibition of Printing and 
the Graphic Arts, and thither on my first morning I bent my 
stops. In one respect the E.xhibition was hke all other 
exhibitions; having been open for several months it was 
onlj' half ready. Even German efficiency, apparently, 
breaks down when faced with the problem of exhibitions : 
some of the buildings were not yet completed and the roads 
were morasses. It was a very large concern ; almost every 
State in the world had its pavihon and its official representa- 
tive. Each building was in the style of the nation occupying 
it ; the EngUsh exhibits, for example, were displayed in a 
charming low Tudor house. Siam had a little box, and, for 
all I know, specimens of Thibetan art were to be seen in a 
miniature lamassery. I spent the whole day there : finishing 
up, I remember, with a meal in the company of two stray 
Englishmen who talked of what was the burning question of 
the day, the prospects of the British polo team in America. 
« 4! « * * 
One thing that struck the English visitor at once was the 
popularity of the Exhibition. Had one attempted such a 
show here I imagine that we should have held it in the Agri- 
fcultural Hall, that it would have been generally attended by 
members of the printing trade on the look-out for economical 
devices, and that the principal exhibits would have been enor- 
mous machines capable of turning out miUions of Dailv 
Mails in an hour. But the German Exhibition was de- 
liberately made as popular as possible ; the public were 
expected to come to it just as though it were Earl's Court or 
the Zoo. All over the p'ace were touches of what the con- 
troversiaUsts call " the old Germany of Beethoven, Goethe 
and Kant." There were beer saloons in plenty ; there was a 
life-size reproduction, not of a Zulu village, but of Old 
Heidelberg, including that venerable vault where is kept the 
largest Barrel in the world, and a students' museum containing 
notable specimens of the equipment with which German under- 
graduates contrive to improve each other's faces. There were 
great halls where bands of Ba\arian peasants, in knee-breeches 
and jaunty feathered hats, discoursed the music of their 
highlands, whilst the audience drank beers and stuffed itself 
with black bread and little gherkins. There were flags in 
masses and booths with freaks in them and galleries where 
Dne could shoot at models of beasts and men. It was all so 
very unlike a really serious English industrial e.xhibition. 
* * * ♦ * 
But unhappily, the most noticeable and the most humiliating 
thmg of all was the hopeless inferiority of the British as com- 
pared with the foreign and especially the German exhibitions. 
In the department of drawings we held our own. But the 
show in our printing pavilipn was simply miserable. In 
gallery after gallery the German publishers'showed thousands 
of beautifully printed and produced books ranging from 
the expensive edition dc luxe on vellum to the tasteful penny 
series. All that we could show to equal or surpass their bes"t 
were a few examples of the Kelmscott and other private 
presses. Most of the Enghsh publishers who had taken cases 
seemed to be totally unaware what printing was. They 
had apparently mistaken the Exhibition for a book-shop, 
and had sent specimens of all their dreary pubhcations 
apparently in the hope that British or American tourists 
would buy a few copies. They even, some of them, showed 
rows of unreadable theological books bound in that sort of 
horrible navy blue or sage green cover, which emits a dim 
shriek when one runs one's finger nail across it. I admit 
that the Germans, when they lay themselves out to produce 
an unprepossessing book, can leave us stapding ; they could 
even— though it may be hard to believe— surpass that pamphlet 
entitled Murd.r Mosl Foul, which somebody in authority 
seems to imagine is produced as the English people would 
hke It. Hut the Germans are doing an immense amount of 
very creditable commercial printing, and we are not, 
♦ * * ♦ « 
These memories of the forgotten and shady past Cvere re- 
awakened this week when I received a copy nf what is intended 
to be the first volume of a new edition ot Shelley— 7"Ae Lvrical 
Pocm^ and Trandations of P. B. Shelley, edited by C H 
. 'l"'"i/^'^^"°T.'''"^ Hindus, 15s. net). " Tj^s book— printed 
at the Florence Press— is a most beautiful book, and. like the 
productions of the Riccardi Press, and our unexcelled private 
presses, shows once more how well we can do if we care. But 
the price of the volume is fifteen shillings, and I do not suppose 
it could have been economically done for less. And this is 
almost invariably the case in this country ; if one sees a well- 
printed book it is almost sure to be expensively bound, and 
printed on costly paper, so that its price puts'it out of the 
reach of the big public. The chances also are that its con- 
tents will be — well, Shelley, or Marius the Epicurean, or some- 
thing else which is considered " worthy " of good print. It 
costs no more to print from a good fount of type than from a 
hideous one. It costs no more — once one has spent a little 
time thinking about design— to print a well-arranged title 
page than it does to print one, the type and spacing of which 
are left to chance or evil custom. But in this country we 
seem to be tied by two obsessions : one, that only the rich 
deserve to have really nice things, and the other, that it is 
indecent to " waste " good design upon something which has a ' 
vulgar use. Just as we think— or act as if we thought— 
that churches should be beautiful, but that workmen's 
cottages are not worth bothering about, so we will refuse to 
allow our taste to enter into the production of an ephemeral or 
popular work merely because it is not the Faerie Qiieene. 
Our lowest depths are plumbed with our^ technical works. 
" Business is Business," one can hear their producers reflecting, 
and they are probably afraid that if they take any pains to 
make their books look pleasant they will be mistaken for 
d.lettanti or quacks. The last irony is that some of the 
ugliest books of the last generation have dealt with what their 
authors and publishers, in mechanical respect for tradition, 
were content to describe as the Art of Printing. 
***** 
AU this would not be worth writing if printers and pub- 
lishers only were going to read it. They are, in England, 
a sluggish and unimaginative crowd ; and, ^s long as they 
can market bad goods, not the eloquence of a Demosthenes 
would persuade them to produce good ones. But the im- 
portant thing is to overcome the apathy of the consumer, 
the reading person who has a liking for a pretty book, but 
does not allow his own tastes to influence his purchases suffi- 
ciently or bother to make his views known to his bookseller. 
Even authors usually allow their publishers to get their 
works up in styles which make them writhe rather than insist 
on having a voice in the matter themselves. I recommend 
Professor Herford's Shelley to those who can afford it, and I 
am glad to have it myself. But when it has gone on the shelf 
it will cause its owner more pain than delight because of the 
abominable-looking trash by which it will inevitably be 
surrounded. 
A Sailor's Garland 
By N. U. F. Corbett. 
01 will weave a garland, 
.\ garland for my Sweet, 
Of clouds of sunset splendour ; 
Of wavelets' murmur tender ; 
Of music of the Summer stars that glance on silver feet 
Across the floor of Heav'n. 
Of solemn hush of even ; 
Of Twilight's shy surrender ' 
Her Lord the Night to greet. 
A garland of the glamour , 
Of Ocean's tameless flood ; 
Of sea-bird's wings a-quivcr ; 
Of moonlit sails a-shiver ; 
(Green fire-flakes at the forefoot and the mast-caps silver 
shod), 
And through the pattern running 
Shall twist in fashion cunning, 
O ! like a goWen river. 
The sea-taught Peace of God. 
! I will weave a garland 
But not of fading flow'rs, / 
I'll weave it of the swinging '' 
Deep bosomed surges, flinging 
Their diamonded, salt spray drops in rainbow-tinted sliow'ii-, 
I'll weave it of the thunder. 
The glory and the wonder. 
The Sea is ever singing 
To hearts that love like ours. 
