both to an impossible degree, and a substantial advance both in subscription and advertising rates will be necessary to cover the $42 standard wage for a forty-eight hour week, already offered your union by the employing printers.

The present strike and the fear of an undue advance in wages have already had the effect of driving printing out of New York, as well as reducing the amount of printing, and the suspension of over 500 periodicals in New York has brought home to millions of subscribers thruout the country the fact that refusal of arbitration and conflict within the union organization have shut off their usual supplies of reading. While we have suspended publication of our periodicals, we are placing other printing orders, to the extent of several thousand ucllars, outside of New York, where union wages are also paid. The 10 per cent difference in wage scale between country and city prices scarcely compensates for the inconvenience and extra expense in doing work at long range, but the strike habit is getting so prevalent in New York that it seems unsafe to rely altogether upon city resources. Accordingly, a number of periodicals have announced their removal to other centers outside of New York, while book publishers, especially those who have not printing plants here, are generally seeking facilities elsewhere. A striking example to the same effect is that a strike against Mr. Edison years ago in his old Goerick Street shop caused him to seek for a factory outside of New York, and this ied to the enormous development at Schenectady of the General Electric plant. While this may be a relief to dwellers in this overcrowded city, it is decidedly not an advantage to local unions and their members.

It is also to be kept in mind that New York as the chief export center has the lion's share of an increasing export trade in books, which would be curtailed or cut off by excessive costs and prices. The Typographical Unions have come to see that the manufacturing clause in the copyright act has not had the expected beneficial effect and they are disposed to assent to the repeal of that clause, especially in view of the danger that Canada, in its new copyright law, may enact a measure preventing the export of copyright books into Canada. This export business of New York publishers amounts already to between half a million and 2 million dollars worth per year, and to put a stop to this trade would be indeed another suicidal effect of the proposed advance.

Another effect of the strike may be to increase the use of roll paper for periodicals other than newspapers, and of pneumatic feeders and other mechanical devices which save labor. Of course, every change, even for the better, involves temporary and local displacement. I note that pressmen and feeders are seeking to require a pressman as well as a feeder for each press, altho a capable pressman with capable feeders can easily cover two presses. This is, of course, a natural endeavor, but it is contrary in the long run to industrial development and increased pay for the worker. The first labor riots were in the

direction of smashing labor-saving machines, which, it was claimed would deprive working men of their bread. But with each development of invention, particularly in labor-saving machines, the demand has been increased by the cheapness of supply, and more workers are required at better pay. Mr. Edison's inventions, many of which are labor-saving, have resulted in the employment of hundreds of thousands of men at high wages the world over. It is to the interest of every worker and wage earner that production should be stimulated and not limited; and any policy to the contrary is in the long run a serious blow to labor; while, in the present state of the world, after the waste of the war, every endeavor to decrease production is indeed a crime.

In view of all these considerations, I venture to express the hope that "Big Six" in its own interest and that of the allied trades as well as of the employing printers and publishers, may see its way to accept the arrangement with the International Union, of which it forms a part, for the forty-four hour week, effective May 1, 1921, as arranged, and for arbitration on the wage and other questions involved in the present contest. For "Big Six" to refuse arbitration on any point, when employers have agreed in advance to accept its results, would seem to be contrary both to the principles and precedents of your organization and to the best interests of labor.

MR. R. R. BoWKER, 62 W. 45th St.,

New York City.

Dear Mr. Bowker:

November 5, 1919.

Your communication of October 21st duly received. Owing to the pressure of business attending the duties of my office, I have been unable to reply before this.

I deeply appreciate all that you say in your letter. We have at all times offered to arbitrate the question of wage scale and other conditions if the proprietors would concede our demand for 44 hours. We have never enjoyed the real eight hour day in this city. We have worked eight and three-quarter hours five days, and half a day on Saturday. As frequently happens, an employer will post a notice on Friday night, informing the men that there will be no work Saturday, thereby taking from them half a day's pay, in addition to having had them work overtime at single price the other five days. This is an injustice that we are trying to remedy. We want an eight hour day and half a day on Saturday. We are ready and willing to arbitrate the wage scale, but the employers refuse this and insist on the forty-eight hour week; hence the present controversy.

We have violated no contracts. No. 6 has no arbitration agreement with the employing printers at the present time.

Again thanking you for your deep interest, I am Very truly yours, LEON H. ROUSE, President.

LORD LEVERHULME, Soap manufacturer and philanthropist and the largest employer of labor in England, is one of the most recent visitors to arrive in this country. He is attracting considerable attention at present as an advocate of the six-hour working day, a schedule which he plans to introduce in all his factories. He has already written a book developing this idea, which Holt publishes under title of "The Six-hour Day and Other Industrial Questions," and his visit to America is to do a little missionary work in behalf of the plan in this country.

STEPHEN MCKENNA, whose recent novels "Sonia: Between Two Worlds," "Midas and Son" and "Sonia Married" have found many readers on this side of the At lantic, is one of the younger English novelists who is interesting not only because of his work but because of his life. Of Irish parentage, he was born some thirty years ago in England and was educated at Oxford. His extensive travels in Europe, Asia and Africa made him invaluable to the British War Trade Intelligence during the war and in 1917 as a member of the Balfour Mission to the United

States he made his first visit to America. In his books he writes of the upper and influential class, no doubt because he knows that best, for as nephew of a distinguished member of Parliament he has been brought much into contact with English politics and society.

HUGH WALPOLE, now on a visit to this country, is another of the young English novelists to reach a place of prominence in literature while still in the early thirties. He grew up in a little seaside village in Cornwall, took an honors degree in history at Cambridge and started life as e as master in a boys' school. Later, he went to London, worked at journalism and published his first novel at the age of twenty-five. During the early years of the war he served with the Russian Red Cross. Then the British Government sent him to Petrograd to help promote pro-British sentiment there.

WILFRED T. GRENFELL, whose latest book "The Labrador Doctor," an autobiography, has just appeared under the imprint of Houghton Mifflin Co., sailed for England on November 19. Dr. Grenfell and his wife are to visit the author's boyhood home in Surrey.

Foreign Visitors and What They
Think of Us

When we can scarcely pick up a daily paper these days without reading of some distinguished personage now on a visit to these shores, the question naturally arises "What do these visitors think of us?" It is one of those age-old instinctive queries this wondering what others think of us, individually and as a nation, and it can be gratified to some extent by reading a few of the many books which have been written by foreigners telling of their impressions of America and Americans. In a recent issue of the Review, Edmund Lester Pearson devotes his literary column to sundry and one books which have been written about us by our foreign cousins, ranging from the somewhat unpleasant memories of Charles Dickens in "Martin Chuzzlewit" to the more courteous "In the Land of the Strenuous Life" by Abbé Klein. He concludes his article by saying that after looking at some score of these books by foreigners and after reading a dozen or two, he judges the following to be honest and worthwhile reading:

"The Land of Contrasts," by J. F. Muirhead. Lane.

"The Future in America," by H. G. Wells. Harper.

"America of the Americans," H. C. Shelley. Scribner.

"America To-Day," by Wm. Archer. Scribner. "The American Commonwealth," by Bryce. Macmillan.

"America and Her Problems," by Baron D'Estournelles de Constant. Macmillan. "Your United States," by Arnold Bennett. Harper.

"America and the Britons," by Frederick de Sumichrast. Appleton.

1

"America and the Americans from a French Point of View," by Price Collier. Scribner. "As Others See Us," by J. G. Brooks. Macmillan.

No Nobel Prize in Literature

It has been announced that the Swedish Academy in Copenhagen has decided not to award the Nobel Prize for Literature for the years 1918 and 1919, as it has not been able to find in its judgment, a suitable author.

English Book-Trade News

From Our London Correspondent.

A neat idea for children's books has been hit upon by Westall, the publisher of the successful "Artemus" books. The collection is to be called "Westall's Cinema Series." The plan is original, and is protected in the United Kingdom, U. S. of America, Australia, Canada, France and Belgium. Each book is fully illustrated, and contains, in addition a miniature cinema, which shows as moving pictures, two well known incidents taken from the story. The following are to be ready at once: "Jack and the Beanstalk," "Babes in the Wood," "Cinderella," "Sleeping Beauty," "Puss in Boots," and "Aladdin."

E. T. Raymond, whose "Uncensored Celebrities" had such a run of success, is to have a second volume called "All and Sundry."

Whitakers are planning a new "Reference Catalogue." It is over six years ago since the last one was issued. Great effort is being made to get it on to the market with the least possible delay. It is a very indispensable bibliography, and booksellers are needing it badly. The probable date of publication is early in 1920. Naturally, the printing of the catalog, especially nowadays, is fraught with all manner of difficulties, and takes a long time, while the indexing is a pretty stiff task.

From bookseller to premier is not at all a bad move, altho there were some other jumps in between. A little while since there died in Brisbane, Australia, Hon. William Kidston, a former premier of Queensland. He was born in Falkirk, Scotland, in 1849, and went to Australia in 1882. He opened up as a bookseller and stationer in Rockhampton soon after and a few years later entered politics, gradually rising to the highest position. A good record this!

The Piccadilly Review No. I is just out. It is an attempt to provide, at the popular price of about 6 cents, a periodical which will combine the characteristic features of the best weeklies with much of the activity of a daily newspaper. Arthur Symons writes

on "Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec," Rose Macaulay on "Novelists and the Peace," George Street (author of "Ghosts in Piccadilly") on "Wanted, a London Fit for Londoners to Live in," while George_Saintsbury initiated an article on a "Cellar Book." So judging from the first copy, The Piccadilly Review is to be an interesting sheet.

Those who doubted the existence of Miss Daisy Ashford, the authoress of "The Young Visiters," had an opportunity to see her recently when she gave a public reading of her book for the benefit of the British Drama League. An autographed copy of the first edition of the book. with the original cover which Norman Wilkinson designed for the work, was put up for auction and sold for 36 pounds.

There seems to be no end of new jour

nals. Here is another: Pam. It is published by Odhams, who are developing as popular publishers and they describe the new venture as "a new journal for saints and cynics." They add "this covers everybody." It will be well illustrated, and many of the pictures will be in colors. Judging from early material, it will be the smartest thing of its kind, and no doubt will secure a wide sale at the retail price of 12 cents.

Total exports of British paper for printing for 1918, and the previous four years were as follows:

1918 1917 1916

1915

1914

Paper Bindings to Reduce Book Cost

We have referred on different occasions, says the London Athenaeum to the serious situation in which the author and the reading public are placed by the great increase in the cost of producing books. It is a pressing necessity that the costs should be reduced wherever possible. The reply is that essential costs are already at an irreducible minimum. But readers of foreign books have long since been of opinion that it is not in the least necessary to bind all books in cloth. The paper-covered French book is quite strong enough to stand a third or even a fourth reading, and when it has become dilapidated and precious (which happens to about one book in ten) it can go off to the binder's and be really bound.

If the libraries insist that for their own special purposes all books must be bound in cloth, what is to prevent the publisher issuing a double edition-one bound in cloth, the other in paper? As far as we know, the pioneer of this simple reform is Mr. William Heinemann, from whom we have received a paperbound copy of Mr. Clenton Logio's excellen: book "Bulgaria." The price of the paper copy is 8s. 6d. net, a saving of Is. 6d. on the price of the cloth-bound volume. The paper binding is much stouter than the ordinary French cover, and is quite strong enough to stand even reasonable library handling.

German Competition

At the recent Leipzig Fair there was a great display of German manufactured goods, over 10,000 firms exhibited their wares and 7,000 foreign buyers were present. The prices were from 200 to 400 per cent. above prewar prices.

In the section dealing with paper and print the only articles available to any extent were art prints of every description, comprising pictures, calendars, post cards, blotting pads and manufactured stationery generally, and excellent color work was seen in this connection. Production generally is much restricted owing to lack of raw materials.

There is need for special attention to the manner of wrapping and packing packages for the United Kingdom, since it is alleged that 500 damaged packages were received at one time in London, and it is probable that senders are possessed of the belief that packages need not be as strongly wrapped and packed when destined for the United Kingdom as when destined for countries further removed from the United States.

Third and Fourth Class Mail to be
Returned

The House of Representatives has adopted the bill authorizing the Post Office to return to the sender undeliverable third and fourth class mail. This legislation, which has the approval of the Post Office Department, is considered among the most important postal legislation which has come before Congress in some time.

Under existing laws such matter (which includes printed matter and parcel post) cannot be forwarded if the addressee has moved, or returned to the sender at another post office until the postage for its forwarding or return is first prepaid. This procedure necessitates the holding of such undeliverable matter at the office of original address pending notification of the addressee or the sender and the receipt of the required postage for its transmission to its ultimate destination, and the delay which necessarily is involved frequently causes inconvenience and loss.

The bill goes to the Senate for consideration, and it is not believed there will be any difficulty in securing its passage. This reform, as can readily be seen, will be of value to business men thruout the country and particularly to the printing and publishing fraternity.

Additional Postal Charge to Mexico

Officials of the New York Post Office Department have been advised of a new decree of the Mexican Government increasing from 15 per cent to 25 per cent the additional charge on mail articles exported from or imported into Mexico. This charge is over and above the regular tariff duties applicable to the merchandise involved.

Why have Postal Discrimination Against Advertising?

By Senator Arthur Capper, Former Governor of Kansas.

The periodical and newspaper is the only product that is sold for less than its cost of manufacture, and this fact is made possible by the advertising. Advertising is nothing but a bulletin board-the bulletin board of our economic wealth-producing, business life.

Advertising is the one great factor in modern wealth production that enables wealth to be distributed almost instantaneously; a generation or so ago the same result could not have been accomplished without years of personal salesmanship. You, as a thinking citizen, know what any restriction upon advertising would do to the wealth production of this nation. Congress itself saw this, and when means of war taxation were being carefully discussed and every channel was being developed, it was deliberately decided that the destructive economic effects that would follow the taxation of advertising would be too great and too dangerous to attempt.

The difference between advertising and an ordinary economic commodity is, to my mind, this: that advertising is an idea, the germ of an idea, a thought; it is the economic, generating germ of infinite wealth-producing potential; it is, in itself, not wealth production, but it means the production of wealth by reaching possible consumers who otherwise would have been deaf, dumb and blind in their demands upon our national wealth production. What the cultural, educational and stimulative reading pages are to the social and civic factors in our national life, just that is what advertising is to the economic and wealthproducing side of our nation. Both the editorial and the advertising pages are nothing but thoughts; they are the stimulations, the stimulative germs of an enormous creative potential in all channels of our civic and economic life. To me it is unsound policy that would attempt to limit or restrict the circulation of stimulative thought thruout our nation on the ground of postal cost.

The most unfortunate part of this postal zone legislation is that it is an insidious and dangerous attempt to set back postal history seventy years and re-establish the universally condemned principle of postal cost determining the postal rates. It abolishes the sound postal principle of equal postage to all parts of our nation. The rural free delivery-one of the most vital and important postal functions-is conducted at almost

a

total loss, and if this vicious and unsound cost principle is once established the demoralization of our splendid postal principles is only a matter of logic and time.