" Which involves the novel maxim that a loss may be too big to
be cut! Were their amazing factory ten times as large as it actually is,
Messrs. Nelson would have to put it to other uses in face of a regular
loss on their sevenpennies. However, there is no doubt in my mind that the
enterprise is, and will be, remunerative. The Shaw and Co. report is of
the same view. Did the mandarins imagine that they were going to stop the
sevenpenny, that anything could stop it? I suppose they did! More
agreeably comic than the attitude and arguments of the publishers are the
attitude and arguments of the booksellers. But the largest firms, Smith
and Son and Wymans, "do not find that the sevenpenny has interfered with
the 6s. novel." Be it noted that Smith and Son are now the largest buyers
of 6s. novels in England.
* * * * *
In the Shaw and Co. report, in the arguments of publishers, in the
arguments booksellers, not a word about the interests of the consumer! Yet
the consumer will settle the affair ultimately. That the price of new
novels will come down is absolutely certain. It will come down because it
is ridiculous, and no mandarinic efforts can keep it up. In the process of
readjustment many people will temporarily suffer, and a few people will be
annihilated.
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