Mr. Houghton said he started with the statement that the statistics I gave I could not vouch for; they are the statistics from the Census Bureau, and the small amount of product which they give is undoubtedly offset by the small amount of importation, so as a matter of comparison they are undoubtedly fair. I only wished to speak of the matter. The Chairman said that this question is reciprocal; that we sell to England as well as England to us; and I have a word which will illustrate that. You know if a man wants to make a bargain with another man, they have got to be on some sort of equality, or their bargain will not be a fair one. If you sell a man a thousand dollars worth of goods, and you give him a cigar, you may think you are equal with him. He may not think so. Our exports in 1872 were $710,339, against $6,280,852 imports. In 1873, exports $713,980, against imports $2,916,354. In 1874 the exports had fallen off, being only $589,928, against imports $2,663,487. There is free trade for you! We give them the moiety-the value of a cigar that they buy of us against a thousand dollars worth of books on their part. I do not stand here as the slanderer of this government or any of its officers in New-York City, and if our friend Randolph will get up a plea for the New-York customs officers, I would sign it. If we do not pass this resolution, our Convention will act the play of Hamlet with Hamlet left We want such laws as can be enforced. It is impossible to enforce the present law. This committee is asked to investigate that. Is there any thing unreasonable in suggesting laws? Any man can oppose them. This is all this resolution asks of you: In the first place, to say if the present laws can not be enforced, to see if some sort of influence can not be brought upon the Congress to make laws which we can all agree upon, and which can be enforced. In regard to the publishers, I hear strong expressions-if the publishers did not come, the dealers would not sell the publishers' books. Can the dealers get along without the publishers? Can the publishers get along without the booksellers? Must we not work together? I say to you, this suggestion has relative importance to your discussion, and is as legitimately here as any question, because it affects the life of the trade; and this great Niagara in its unceasing roar is no more in its majesty and power to the little rain-drop which falls upon your cottage-roof than this is to the other questions before you. [Applause.]

out.

Mr. Randolph said: We have discussed this question in various lights. I wish to say that in the State of New-York, we have four or five respectable English importing houses, and that without their aid and co-operation we can not in the city of New-York, or in Boston or Philadelphia, get a combined movement to put in force

the 20 per cent rule. Now if you pass this resolution, there will be a misapprehension about it; they are sensitive already, and will say they take very little interest in this thing, because you have ruled them out; and if you rule them out to-day by the passage of that resolution, you can not put in force your 20 per cent rule in the city of New-York. [Long-continued applause.]

Mr. Martin Taylor said he arose to speak of this resolution, not noticing that this substitute had been altered. I think the substitute is preferable, but it seems to me the whole thing is out of place. I move that it be laid on the table. Mr. Taylor's motion to lay the resolution on the table was put and carried.

The President: We have had a good time, and every one has had their say, and some of us have been a little hot. Let brotherly love continue. [Long applause.] Mr. Coates desired to disclaim any personal allusion in his remarks on the subject of the resolution.

The President here introduced Mr. W. C. Gould, Passenger Agent of the Erie Railway, who, said he, I think, for the first time in our history, has given us that against which we are Mr. Gould was refighting-reduced fares. ceived with great applause, and was honored with the thanks of the Convention by a unanimous standing vote.

Mr. R. R. Bowker presented the report of the Committee of Five to re-word the 20 per cent rule; but it being late, after some arrangements had been made as to returning to New-York, the Convention adjourned until four o'clock.

Fifth Session-Thursday Afternoon.

The Convention was called to order by the President, shortly after four, when the Treasu rer, Mr. Timothy Nicholson, of Richmond, Ind., submitted his report. The total receipts up to June 23, 1875, were $884; total expenditures, $600. Cash on hand, $284. On motion, the report was accepted.

The Retail Price Rule.

The President then called for the report of the Committee of Five. Mr. Bowker, in again reading the report, said: I should say, the report not having been duly before the house at the previous session, and the committee having been consulted with by several prominent members of the Association, including the president and chairman of the Executive Committee, we have omitted any further definition of the term "large buyers." These gentlemen very strongly insisted that it would lead the large buyers to seek a discount, and many of the small dealers thought it might lead to injuries to them. This omission, it was thought, would take away the only subject on which there would be great diversity in the Convention.

The report consisted of the following declara

tion:

The American Book Trade Association pledges itself to maintain, and urges upon the entire trade the absolute necessity of maintaining, the publishers' advertised retail prices, in all sales to buyers outside the trade, excepting that a discount not to exceed ten per cent on medical books, and twenty per cent on all other classes of books (including educational), may be allowed to the following classes only Public libraries (including circulating and Sunday-school libraries); clergymen and professional teachers; professional books to professional buyers; large buyers said purchasers buying solely for their own use; and in the case of

exceptions made by the Publishers' Board of Trade, for publishers only.

In case the rules of this Association should, under exceptional circumstances, work injustice to any dealer in competition with other parties, said dealer may state his case to the Arbitration Committee, and this committee shall have power to authorize him to take such measures as will meet the emergency, after notice has been given, and the like liberty granted, to other dealers directly concerned.

On motion, the report was accepted.

Mr. Sheldon moved the adoption of the report; which motion was seconded. Some misunderstanding arose from this motion, but the resolution was decided to be before the house for discussion, and the President ruled that Mr. James Campbell, of Boston, had the floor.

MR. CAMPBELL SPEAKS HIS MIND.

Mr. Campbell said that he had waited all day for these resolutions, and he was opposed to nearly the whole matter. He had come there to relieve his mind, as he hoped every body else would. He did not see why there should be necessity for these special arrangements, for on manufactured articles on which the manufacturer can set his price there should be no discount. I do say that any manufacturer of his books, be he who he may, to be sustained as a man, and to see that he does business on a square, honest basis, ought to make his books to-day for a certain price, and sell them for no less to-morrow. Now, you make school-books for schools, and here we are asking this National Convention to go into that peddling sort of thing. I think it is the most contemptible humbug that there ever was in any profession, and it is a dishonest way of doing business. The man that we heard of here to-day-the quack medicine maker-is a much more honorable man in his business than we are; and if his business is bad, he does it on principle. If bookselling is not one of the most honorable of businesses itself, it should be so; and it lies on the same basis, and is governed by the same general laws that all business is governed by. What would you think of a man that had a patent-right on an article and makes it at a certain price, and sends it down to Boston, and there it is undersold, and he will make 20 per cent discount? How is a patent article different in trade from a book that is copyrighted? and if it is a manufactured article, we call it a patent; and that is all the difference there is. And I want to say, and I want attention to it, that no bookseller or publisher is a fair, honest manufacturer of books that makes a price on a book, and makes a discount to any one outside of the trade-I don't care who it is.

Mr. Ennis called the speaker to order, but after some personal discussion, Mr. Campbell continued, saying he was here as a man of business. I am not a missionary to help clergymen or any one else. If you want to favor the clergyman, give him a book; but do not come here and ask to put it in our fundamental law that we shall favor him as a matter of business. I will not; I will violate the rule as sure as I live; I have no respect for persons, and I will not sign it. I know that any thing in this constitution, or any where else, that goes into such detail as that is a subversion of every business principle known to man. I say the book-maker has no business, and should not be allowed, to make any discount outside of the trade, no matter in what quantity they buy.

That is my doctrine. Again, I refuse, sir, to sell books at the prices you make, because three fourths of them have got fancy prices. They should not be sold at the prices you make; make your prices honest and true, and then let us combine to sell them to all men who want to buy. I will sign that and subscribe to it. I do not care about teachers. Why should I? or why should you? Have you got a book you want to introduce into the schools? Pay them then, like men, for introducing it, and do not put it into the fundamental articles of our constitution. Be like the patent-medicine man; give them the pill, if it is bad. I care not what you want to do; if I want to give them one, I will do it. Here is my friend over here who is in the Sundayschool business; he is an honest and upright man; but what sort of tomfoolery is it for the Sunday-school book makers to make books, and then make a discount for the Sundayschool? I came here to say this very thing, and I shall feel better after I do say it. [Applause and laughter, and voices: "Go on, go on."]

Mr. Campbell: I can not go on very well while you are making such a noise! I shall not try to say any thing more during this Convention, after this time. I may not at the next, because at the next I hope to send some one, and not come myself. I came myself to this Convention to say what I wanted to; and I think I have looked it all over, that we are making ourselves very ridiculous to every business man in the land except booksellers. There is no other business managed like it. I wrote off a lot of resolutions this morning, and thought I would present them here, but I think I will not. But I have these things to say, and I am going to say them: First, I am opposed to booksellers making books for a certain price, and then making discounts on them to the consumer. There should be no discount made by the publisher, except to the trade. [Applause.] I am opposed in toto to singling out any class of men that we are to make discounts to. Law books are made for lawyers, and why should the manufacturer of law books make a price, and then discount to them? Why do you not put the price down at once, and sell at that? We have to-day two representative manufacturers of law books in the house, and why do not they get up and tell their reasons for making law books and then discounting? I am talking only of the manufacturers. We have here one or two more who make Sunday-school books, and then make discounts of 20 or 25 per cent. Will you rise, gentlemen, and tell us why you do that? We have another class of men who make theological books, and one gentleman who was here a little while ago made a book at five dollars-we knew no one ever attempted to sell it for more than $3.75. Why didn't he make it at $3.75 in the first place? I call for those book-makers to get up and tell us on what principle this ought to be done.

Now, I am a bookseller; I want to sell books with my neighbors; I want to make a living; I am not a missionary, and that is what I came here to talk about. Then we make schoolbooks for schools, and we know the trouble that occurs all over the country in regard to that, and we have got a peculiar practice dowy East-I do not know but they do it evern where-of making these discounts. Why is it

that these Boston school-book makers make the price right with the schools, and done with it, and then make us some discount? Any other class of men that would do business in that way, you would laugh at them, and say they were either knaves or fools, or both. It is an honorable profession, but we have degraded it; and the statement you made on the platform as to how these discounts came to be brought about is natural, and I know personally that that was the way it came to be done. Now, if you want a minister to herald your books in his church, pay him for it; but do not come into this National Convention and ask us to subscribe to such a thing as a principle. I am opposed to it, Mr. Chairman, and to all the other provisions you have in those resolutions, except where you make a discount to public institutions and public libraries buying for library purposes.

I will tell you where there is a loop-hole there. I am concerned somewhat in selling the higher class of text-books, such as they use at Cambridge and elsewhere. I have made it a business for some time, and we made an arrangement with the professors of some of the schools, so they would come to us. We agreed to make 20 per cent where we sometimes only got 25. And why did we do it? Because we knew that other booksellers in Boston would do the same thing, not because we could afford it, or because we thought it honorable and right. And we went on that way for two or three years, and supplied large quantities of books, and bought them at New-York prices, and did the best we could. What is the result now? Last spring, one of the students at one of these schools came to me and told me to my face they would not buy any books of me that year; he said he had got the books, and was going to sell them. And while the publisher will make discounts to men not in the regular business, but to men in colleges, you may say good-by to whatever you make out of the book trade in this way. Whenever these professors would want books, they would count noses and send to New-York, and distribute them among themselves; and when they want an odd book or so they will come to you to get it. Now, sir, I will put my foot down, and I want my voice to be heard by every man, at any thing that will leave such a loophole as this. I have seen the time when there was honor enough, at least in the Eastern part of this country, when such a man would not be countenanced who would do business in that way. He would get the cold shoulder; the place would be too warm for such a publisher of books. A publisher who would sell books for a dollar, and then shove them into the school for 85 cents, should not be upheld. I despise and condemn it. You may think what you please about what I say, but I have talked to a great many men about this, and I have put it squarely before the Convention. No bookseller, no publisher, should make any discount on his own books. After he sets his price on his own property, he should not without disgrace, make any discount to any man outside of the trade, for any quantity. [Applause.] And then he should make-not fabulous prices, as we have now, and that three quarters of all the books manufactured are sold at, and some of the books of certain Tes I can name never should be sold at the

prices named. It is dishonest to sell them at that price; I have not the face to do it, and I will lose before I will do it. Make your prices like every other man that manufactures articles-like a good mechanic, as cheap as you can afford to do it and do yourself justiceand then see to it that every man who handles your productions sells them for that price. I can do that, and when you make your prices down where they ought to be, then let us retail dealers combine to sell that at that price. Mr. Campbell here treated the medical book question specifically and personally, and went on to say: I ask the men in the trade, you booksellers and publishers, that you will take some interest in helping us; then you will see whether we will not stick up to the mark. The idea of paying a heavy rent and keeping a clerk, and making but seven per cent, is a disgrace to any trade, and I can not help myself. Every man of you who publish books stick to the prices, and are very touchy about reducing them, but you want us to reduce the prices. I do not publish very much; I would not fear if I had a dozen different books; I would not be afraid to do as I say. I would say to every man : I want to make you a bill; I will sell you so many books at 40 per cent or one third, but with the special understanding that you will not undersell, or lead any other man to do so, and then we will be right. But we can not be right with all your talk and resolutions; you will not be right until the book manufacturer himself does the right thing, and looks after his own productions, and sees that the man that takes them should not undersell.

That is the right of it, and all there is to it, and I will go for it if there is not another man in the house that will. I will do any thing honorable to make the bookselling trade pay; but there are certain underlying principles that all your talk and quizzing around will not alter; there are certain principles that are beyond your reach, and you can not break them down; and we must do business like everybody else if we would be honorable, and the manufacturer must set his price as low as he can, and then see that every man sells his books at his price. I am willing, Mr. Chairman, to work with you any way based upon truth and right, and I will not do any thing else. The talk this morning in regard to imported books was too wicked for any man to sit patiently and listen to. I did sit, however, but not patiently, because I arose three times, and did not catch your eye, and there was a great amount of nonsense and a great deal that was not true. The parties, of course, that were speaking thought it was true; but it was not true, and ought not to have been brought into the Convention.

During the latter part of this speech there were various calls for order, and the President called Mr. Campbell to order, saying, however, that within a large latitude the Convention would hear him with all patience and with all interest. Mr. Campbell, however, stated that he had finished all he intended to say.

On motion, in the further discussion of this question, speakers were limited to five minutes.

Mr. Ennis made a personal explanation.

ONE STEP AT A TIME.

Mr. Nicholson then said: There is a great deal of truth in what our friend from Boston has

said; but this matter has been thoroughly canvassed by this Convention at its various sessions; it was at the first session at Cincinnati, and also at the one at Put-in Bay. The evils that afflict us to-day are not of one year's growth. There is the hard-pan somewhere, and I think the gentleman from Boston has found it, and we want to get at it as a body. But as these evils have not grown up in one year, neither can we get rid of them in one year. We have made wonderful advance. Every man who has attended these Association meetings must feel this, that however much we have to accomplish, we have accomplished much already; and I be lieve that we must hold on to what we have and thank God for the present situation, and take courage and go on. [Applause.]

The President said: Gentlemen, I would like to say a word before the motion'is put. I am exceedingly sorry that any controversy or misunderstanding has arisen in our discussions this afternoon. When I had the honor to address the trade in Boston, our friend who has spoken to us to-day with so much earnestness, so much distinctness, made substantially the same statement to us that he has to-day. I honored him for the honesty of his convictions, for his intelligence as a bookseller, and I honor him now; and if he has got to that position, as I understand, in which he is able himself at the present time, and in the present condition of affairs, to obtain the retail price on every book he sells, I give him my hearty congratulations. But this is a progressive movement. When I was about twenty-five years of age, gentlemen, I thought I would reform the world. I started out with great hope and expectation, but I found that it was a slow process, and I gave it up as a hopeless job; and so in all our movements of reform, we strike, not at the abuses of an hour, not at the evils of a year, or else by a single act we could obliterate and destroy them utterly. But we are to labor, making every step a progressive step, grappling with the thing as we meet it, and holding on and moving on until we have got into such a condition by a progressive movement, that it can not be crushed. Now, gentlemen, we can not by resolution of this Convention, or by forty resolutions-although I agree entirely with the principle enunciated by the gentleman from Boston, that the retail price of books should be commanded in the sale of them, and that this whole system of discounts is wrong commercially, if not morally [applause]-but we can not by a single resolution of this Convention establish new rules and regulations to govern all the trade-trade that is not represented here; but we are to go at it step by step.

But if you take the history of the trade two years ago, and compare it with the condition of it to-day, there is not a gentleman on the floor but what out of his experience can declare that we are in a better, more wholesome condition, than we have been in fifteen years. Now, gentlemen, let us be satisfied. I think we have accomplished great things. I know that our friend, when he comes to think this matter over, will do as he did in Boston-will come to our side. He has the true idea. Why, gentlemen, I had this kind of an idea, and I dreamed on it as to what kind of a bookseller I would like to be. I would like to have a bookstore with a brown-stone front, situated on the finest avenue, filled with luxurious counters, and with

a sign over the door, "Only the best of editions sold here;" and then I would like to sit in a luxurious arm-chair at a sumptuous desk, and when a man came and looked over my store, he should speak to the clerk and say, Will you kindly ask Mr. Randolph if he will please to let me have this rare copy of Plutarch?" [Applause and laughter.] That is the kind of a bookstore I would like to have, and the kind of a business a man would like to do, instead of, as now, standing behind my counter, trembling lest a man who asked for a dollar and a half book would not buy it. I should like to be as independent as a physician or a lawyer, and let them come to me with their hat in their hand, and pay the fee for my opinion and my work. [Applause and laughter.]

By request, the resolution was again read, and Mr. H. M. Ingham said: Allow me simply to say that I never hear that word "discount" without having a kind of nausea; I wish we could use the word "reduction" instead of discount, since this is for publication.

THE BOARD OF TRADE EXCEPTION.

Mr. Bowen asked for an explanation of the clause relating to the Publishers' Board of Trade, and Mr. Barnes said: The rule is one made by the Publishers' Board of Trade to publishers, and therefore, should there be any conflict between the rules of the Board of Trade and this Association, the publishers in the Board of Trade must follow the Board of Trade, to whom they first gave their allegiance. As the clause stands, it applies to publishers only.

Mr. Bowker said: The purpose of that was simply this: Certain publishers of school-books owe a paramount allegiance to the Board of Trade. It was found if some such exception was not made, they could not sign this agreement, and we should compel them to be left out of the Association. It was not designed to specify the exceptions that the Board made. This leaves it flexible. It allows publishers to remain in the Association under the rules.

Mr. Draper, of Andover, asked: Supposing this to pass, in what position does it leave the publishers as compared to where they have been before? Have I liberty to sell books on the same terms as I have for the past year? (The President: Certainly.)-Or am I to go home and sell for the retail prices except as stated? We understood we had to wait until a certain house had come in; and now it is understood they have come in.

MR. BOWKER'S EXPLANATION.

Mr. Bowker said, in explanation of the report: I am very glad the gentleman has asked that question, for it brings the reason of the thing before the whole Convention. Please understand that, above all things, this report is a conservative one, and does not promote further legislation, simply because further legislation would be, just now, legislation backward. It re-states the old rule better, and defines it where misunderstandings had crept in that proved seriously hurtful to the Association among its own members. It is no further legislation, but simply definition. That answers one question.

Secondly, under the old system, we had a platform which spoke about a 20 per cent rule. Some houses who had joined the Association went back from Put-in Bay, not knowing