Meanwhile, other incentives to reflection on the paper question present
themselves. It is melancholy to realise that the admirable, almost indispensable, World's Classics series, which were once obtainable at Is. a volume now cost 3s. 6d ; an increase of 250 per cent. is formidable. However, here are to be some double volumes at 6s., and if you buy enough of them you will save a lot of money. Another example of book-pricing shocks me rather more. The world may now obtain a selection of recent speeches by Sir Stafford Cripps. No doubt the world wants them, though they would be very much more interesting if they covered the rebel period, and not merely the respectable period of the last few years. But whether the world wants to pay I2S. 6d. for 131 large-print pages of utterances all of which have appeared in print before I take leave to doubt. The publishers, Messrs. Sidgwick and Jackson, evidently think it does. But here is a case in which there is presumably no question of a fee to the author, and in which the editor, who contributes next to nothing, can hardly have been remunerated on a lavish scale. How- ever, it is no doubt a compliment to the President of the Board of
Trade that his oratory should be thus priced.
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