English Books in Canada
SIR,—Sir Stanley Unwin has already explained, with his usual lucidity, the main factors governing the prices charged for British books in Canada. As the publishers of Professor Smart's Origin of the Earth, the book cited by Professor Satterly as his example, may we be allowed to dot the i's in Sir Stanley's argument ?
The Canadian agent must bear, entirely at his own cost, not only the expenses of importation, the sales tax, and the high rates of discount expected by Canactan booksellers (and, I believe, by professors), but also the whole of the overhead expenses of warehousing the imported stock, of advertising it in newspaper announcements and by circular, and of covering the risk that it may remain unsold. Though the English publisher takes no part whai...ver in fixing the prices at which
his books are sold- in Canada, it is nevertheless a matter of interest to him that these prices should not be excessive. We have from time to time examined the basis on which the Canadian equivalents of the prices of Cambridge books are fixed, and we are satisfied that, for the very considerable service of making both stocks and information immediately available to the Canadian public, the prjces charged by the Macmillan Company of Toronto are entirely fair.—Yours faithfully, R. W. DAVID. Cambridge University press, Bentley House, 200 Euston lad, N.W.I.
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