Loth as I am to see any scholastic institution deprived
of anything it needs for its welfare, I am bound to say I sympathise to the full with Sir Stanley Unwin's renewed protest against the obligation laid on all publishers to send free on demand to Trinity College, Dublin, any copy of any book they publish. That may have been all very well when the Copyright Act of 1842, joining " The Library of the College of the Holy and Undivided Trinity of Queen Elizabeth near Dublin " to the other institutions—the University Libraries of Oxford and Cambridge, and the Law Advocates' Library in Edinburgh— entitled thus to lay toll on all publishers was passed. (In 1911 the National Library of Wales was added ; the British Museum must get every copy of every book without asking for it.) In 1842, and for that matter in 191 1, Ireland was an integral part of the United Kingdom. Today Southern Ireland, in which Trinity College, Dublin, is situated, has legislated itself out of the Commonwealth and has no right to expect—though it often seems to expect—to retain the privileges that membership of the Commonwealth confers. It would be intolerable in such circumstances that British publishers should still be compelled to present what may often be very expensive books to an institution in Eire, and I hope legislation to put this right may soon be introduced, great though the respect I entertain for T.C.D. is.
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