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    3 i4 The Publishers' Circular * April i,...

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    188 Fleet Street, April 1, 1886.

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    IF members of Parliamentary to be permit...

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  • Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.

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    3 I4 The Publishers' Circular * April I,...

    3 i 4 The Publishers' Circular * April i , 1886

    188 Fleet Street, April 1, 1886.

    188 Fleet Street , April 1 , 1886 .

    If Members Of Parliamentary To Be Permit...

    IF members of Parliamentary to be permitted to introduce special questions in the same

    way as Mr . A . O'Connor forced his Railway Bookstalls motion , it is impossible to conceive

    how far the ramifications of debate may extend in connection with the simplest measure

    brought forward i £ the House of Commons . On Tuesday the 16 th ulfc . the second reading

    of the London , Brighton , and South Coast Kail way Bill occurred , and immediately

    thereafter Mr . O'Connor moved , * That it be an instruction to the Committee on the London ,

    Brighton , and South Coast Railway Bill to insert a clause providing that the company

    shall at the expiration of their present-agreements with the contractors for , or tenants of ,

    the bookstalls upon the premises of the company , put such bookstalls up to public

    competition among the newsvendors and others being bond fide residents in the borough , or ,

    if outside a borough in the county in which such stalls are situate , and that the company 4 h

    shall be bound to enter ' into no agreement for the letting of any bookstall for any Mr period

    longer than -- _ m- three years . The hon . member ^ in supporting his amendment said that it was

    intended to put an end to a virtual monopoly of railway bookstalls , * which operated not only

    in restraint oi trade , but also established a practical and irresponsible censorship of the

    press / To illustrate the nature of the monopoly he gave the following assumed statistics .

    Taking 65 , 000 copies as the issue of any daily paper , Mr . Sullivan said ' they were issued by

    the proprietors in quires of 26 copies apiece , to the sum of 2 , 500 quires . To the trade , they

    were sold at 1 $ . 6 d . a quire of 26 , which came to £ 187 . 105 . They brought in retail £ 250 ,

    not counting the extra two in each quire , but , allowing for them , the total daily profit on the

    issue of a single penny paper was £ 83 . 6 s . Sd . Taking 26 days as the average month , the

    profit per month was £ 2 , 126 on each , representing a total of £ 29 , 645 per annum . Now ,

    as there were besides The Times and the Morning Advertiser and the evening papers

    five penny daily papers in London , out of the London daily penny press alone this particular

    firm made a profit of no less than £ 148 , 225 a year . The firm , among other payments ,

    charged the newspapers for the placards which appeared upon the stations at the rate of 2 s .

    a month . ' As might be expected , the sense of the

    House utterly condemned Mr . Sullivan's motion . Mr . Marriott said that if it were

    carried it would inflict intolerable discomfort on all who lived near a railway . Speaking

    r ftfom the point of view of newspaper

    propriefors , Mr . Eiabouchere argued that the present custom was better for them , and

    necessarily for the public , than . the system proposed by Mr . Sullivan . If that system were , adopted

    the result would be that the newspapers could not reach the country so early as at present

    and therefore the public would be the losers . , The- hon . member , he pointed out , had in his

    figures taken the gross profit and not the net profit . The newspaper proprietors knew

    perfectly well that it would cost them a great deal more , with the system of / returns / to

    send the different newspapers themselves to the different local stations . Nor did he think I

    it was the case that Messrs . Smith exercised I a censorship over their publications . He was

    not aware that any one could cite any newspaper or book which they had boycotted .

    Other members reprobated the motion , Mr . Mundella saying , the hon . member for

    Donegal 'has asked the House to interfere in a private Bill with the terms of contraet on the

    part of a railway company with the persons with whom they might contract for the sale

    of books and newspapers . If the House once began this kind of intermeddling lie did not

    see where it would stop . There was really much more reason for interfering with regard

    to refreshments . A penny newspaper would always be sold for a penny , whereas there was

    no definite limit to the price of refreshments . On the whole , he thought that the public were

    well served under the present system , and were able to take care of themselves . ' . The result

    of the debate was that Mr-.- Sullivan ' s motion was negatived without a division .

    In our opinion the only class of people who have a recognisable grievance in

    connection withT the railway supply of books and newspapers are the local traders ; and even

    in their m . a , case we fancy that if they conducted station stalls in a manner that would satisfy the

    exacting travelling public , half of them would be absolutely ruined in a few months . Unsold

    copies of newspapers and books of ephemeral interest are not the best stock that a dealer

    can have . Instead of being * censors of the press ' the proprietors of the so-called

    monoj- , xx poly are the servants of the public ; and they are not to be blamed if they do not keep in

    stock books or newspapers for which there is no existing or promised demand . Travellers

    rarely have cause to complain of the continued supp fc X lIT y of literature offered , under the present M .

    excellent organisation which has been perfected by the experience of years . The opportunities

    which Messrs . Smith < fc Sons and Messrs . Willingof LondonMessrs . Menzies & Co .,

    , , of Edinburgh , and we may now add Messrs .

    Eason & Sonoi Dublinhave for the quick , ,

• Citation
  • Publishers’ Circular (1880-1890), April 1, 1886, page 314, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/pc/issues/tec_01041886/page/4/