A waste-paper salvage drive is said to be in progress,
though I see no signs of its working itself up to any great fury. However, it is all to the good ; any amount of paper is burned or otherwise destroyed that might well be pulped down and turned into new paper. But what is quite as much wanted is a scheme for old books —and not merely old ones either. Most of us accumulate books
beyond the limits of our shelf-space, and many of the books, once - read, will never be referred to again. What do we do with them? Usually nothing. What might we do? Well, during the war there was an excellent arrangement by which books for the troops could be handed in over the counter of any post office. What happened next I don't know, but presumably the soldiers got the books in the end. If the Postmaster-General would continue that arrange- ment these books could be handed in, taken to some central depot and sorted out by a small intelligent staff—some going to hospitals or schools or similar institutions, the rubbish (and there would be plenty of it) being despatched for pulping, and the best of the harvest being sold, if necessary, to second-hand booksellers to pay expenses. This. I suggest, would be well worth doing. But the essential element is the co-operation of the Postmaster-General. It is only if no more effort than carrying books to the post-office is involved that the thing will work at all.
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