I am aware that the shortage of paper is not
the only, not even perhaps the most serious, disability with which publishers have to contend. Even if they obtained double their present ration of paper they would still be faced by the acute congestion in the binding trade. Before the war there were some seventy firms which specialised in binding books for the market, and of these some twenty have been put out of action, whereas the remaining fifty have lost half their labour. The suggestion is often made that the shortage of strawboards for binding might be met were all our books to be published in paper covers, as is the practice in France. This suggestion does not really solve the difficulty since different types of machinery would be needed for binding in paper covers, and this machinery cannot now be obtained. Many publishers have sought to mitigate this difficulty by reduc- ing the weight of the strawboards used for binding ; yet such ersatz bindings are apt to curve and cockle if exposed to the comparative warmth of a February sun. And thus it comes that even the most lavish bookseller will inform us with a wan smile—that the book we ask for is " being bound " ; one knows what that means ; it means that the book has been caught in the great bottle-neck which it will take many a weary month to disencumber.
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