Part 13 (1/2)

_A_ and _B_ earn _1s._ each by carrying luggage. Says _A_ to _B_: 'I am in favour of circulating books by means of a subscription library; from this _1s._ I therefore propose to deduct _1d._ in order to compa.s.s my desire. There is my friend _C_, who is of the same opinion as myself, and he is willing to subscribe his quota to the scheme. We hope you will be willing to subscribe your mite, but if not, we intend to force you to do so, for, as you know, all private interests must give way to the public good.'

'Perhaps so,' replies _B_,'but then, you see, I have my own opinions on the subject, and I do not believe that your method of supplying literature is the best method. Of course I may be wrong, but then I am logically ent.i.tled to the same freedom of thought and action as you yourself are. If you are ent.i.tled to have your views about a ”Free”

Library and to act upon them, I am equally ent.i.tled to the same liberty, so long as I don't interfere with you. I don't compel you to pay for my church, my theatre, or my club; why should you compel me to pay for your library? For my own part I don't want other people to keep me in literature, and I don't want to keep other people. I refuse therefore to pay the subscription.'

'Very well,' rejoins _A_, 'if that is the case I shall proceed to make you pay; and as I happen to represent a numerical majority the task will be an easy one.'

'But are we not man and man,' says _B_,'and have not I the same right to spend my earnings in my own way as you have to spend yours in your way?

Why should I be compelled to spend as you spend? Don't you see that you are claiming more for yourself than you are allowing to me, and are supplementing your own liberty by robbing me of mine? Is this the way you promote the public good? Is this your boasted free library? I tell you it is founded upon theft and upon the violation of the most sacred thing in this world--the liberty of your fellow man. It is the embodiment of a gross injustice, and only realises the selfish purpose of a cowardly and dishonest majority.'

'We have heard all this before,' replies _A_, 'but such considerations must all give way before the public good. We are stronger than you are, and we have decided once and for all that you shall pay for a ”Free”

Library; don't make unnecessary resistance, or we shall have to proceed to extremities.'

And, after all, the so-called Free Library is not really free--only so in name. If the penny or twopenny rate gave even the shabbiest accommodation to anything like a fair proportion of its compulsory subscribers, there would not be standing room, and the ordinary subscription libraries would disappear. According to Mr. Thos.

Greenwood, who in his book on 'Free Libraries' has given a table of the daily average number of visitors at the different Free Libraries distributed up and down the country, there is only one per cent., on an average, of visitors per day of the population of the town to which the library belongs accommodated for a rate of one penny in the pound,--sometimes more, sometimes less;--but the general proportion is about one per cent. Now what do these facts mean? If it costs one penny in the pound to acommodate so few, what would it cost for a fair proportion to receive anything like a share that would be worth having?

Even now it is a frequent occurrence for a reader to wait for months before he can get the novel he wants. Says Mr. George Easter, the Norwich librarian:--'Novels most read are those by Ainsworth, _Ballantyne_, _Besant_, _Braddon_, _Collins_, _Craik_, d.i.c.kens, Fenn, Grant, _Haggard_, _Henty_, _C. Kingsley_, _Kingston_, _Edna Lyall_, Macdonald, Marryat, Oliphant, Payn, Reade, Reid, Verne, Warner, _Wood_, _Worboise_, and _Young_; of those underlined (in italics) the works are nearly always out.' The fact is, the Free Library means that the many shall work and pay and the few lounge and enjoy; theoretically it is free to all, but practically it can only be used by a few.

While there is such a run on novels, solid works are at a discount. At Newcastle-on-Tyne during 1880-81 we find that 2100 volumes of Miss Braddon's novels were issued (of course some would be issued many times over, as the whole set comprised only thirty-six volumes), while Bain's 'Mental and Moral Science' was lent out only twelve times in the year.

There were 1320 volumes issued of Grant's novels, and fifteen issues of Butler's 'a.n.a.logy of Religion'; 4056 volumes of Lever's novels were issued, while Kant's 'Critique of Pure Reason' circulated four times; 4901 volumes of Lytton's novels were issued, while Locke 'On the Understanding' went eight times. Mill's 'Logic' stands at fourteen issues as against Scott's novels, 3300; Spencer's 'Synthetic Philosophy'

(8 vols.) had forty-three issues of separate volumes; d.i.c.kens' novels had 6810; Macaulay's 'History of England' (10 vols.) had sixty-four issues of separate volumes. Ouida's novels had 1020; Darwin's 'Origin of Species' (2 vols.) had thirty-six issues; Wood's novels, 1481. Mill's 'Political Economy' had eleven issues; Worboise's novels, 1964. Smith's 'Wealth of Nations' (2 vols.) had fourteen issues; Collins' novels, 1368.

'No worse than in other libraries,' it may be said; 'knowledge is at a discount: sensation at a premium everywhere!' Perfectly true; but are people to be taxed to give facilities for this? Novel reading in moderation is good: the endowment of novel reading by the rates is bad--that is our contention. And when it is remembered that any book requiring serious study cannot be galloped through, like a novel, in the week or fourteen days allowed for use, it becomes at once evident that this gratuitous lending system is only adapted for the circulation of sensation, and not for the acquirement of real knowledge. And this is the sort of thing people allow themselves to be rated and taxed for!

This is progressive legislation, and its opponents are backward and illiberal!

Free Libraries are typical examples of the compulsory cooperation everywhere gaining ground in this country. Like all State socialism they are the negation of that liberty which is the goal of human progress.

Every successful opposition to them is therefore a stroke for human advancement. This mendacious appeal to the numerical majority to force a demoralising and pauperising inst.i.tution upon the minority, is an attempt to revive, in munic.i.p.al legislation, a form of coercion we have outgrown in religious matters. At the present time there is a majority of Protestants in this country who, if they wished, could use their numerical strength to compel forced subscription from a minority of Catholics, for the support of those religious inst.i.tutions which are regarded by their advocates as of quite equal importance to a Free Library. Yet this is not done; and why? Because in matters of religion we have learnt that liberty is better than force. In political and social questions this terrible lesson has yet to be learned. We deceive ourselves when we imagine that the struggle for personal liberty is over--probably the fiercest part has yet to arise. The tyranny of the few over the many is past, that of the many over the few is to come. The temptation for power--whether of one man or a million men--to take the short cut, and attempt by recourse to a forcing process to produce that which can only come as the result of the slow and steady growth of ages of free action, is so great that probably centuries will elapse before experience will have made men proof against it. But, however long the conflict, the ultimate issue cannot be doubted. That indispensable condition of all human progress--liberty--cannot be permanently suppressed by the arbitrary dictates of majorities, however potent. When the socialistic legislation of to-day has been tried, it will be found, in the bitter experience of the future, that for a few temporary, often imaginary, advantages we have sacrificed that personal freedom and initiative without which even the longest life is but a stale and empty mockery.

ARGUMENTS FOR PUBLIC SUPPORT OF PUBLIC LIBRARIES

A rejoinder to the preceding paper was made by William E.

Foster, of the Providence Public Library, before the American Library a.s.sociation at its conference held in San Francisco, Cal., in 1891. It may be considered as giving the normal American view as contrasted with the ultra-conservative att.i.tude of Mr. O'Brien. A sketch of Mr.

Foster appears in Vol. I. of this series.

The rise of the public library system both in this country and Great Britain, during the past half-century, has been almost coincident with the very noteworthy reexamination of every phase of social economy now so powerfully influencing the thought of the world. In this discussion the contributions of Kaufmann, of Fawcett, of Graham, of Jevons, and above all, of Herbert Spencer, have been more than influential--they have been almost epoch-making--and whatever view one may hold in regard to the social question, in its various phases, one cannot fail to acknowledge the deep debt which we owe to these profound thinkers.

No book, from Mr. Spencer's point of view, which has appeared within recent years, is worthy of a wider reading than the volume ent.i.tled ”A plea for liberty; an argument against socialism and socialistic legislation,” which appeared about the beginning of the present year. In it thirteen writers, whose point of view is very nearly identical, have discussed in successive chapters such topics as postal communications, electric communication, investment, improvement of workingmen's homes, free libraries, education, and other subjects, in their relation to the question, ”What action shall the State take in regard to them?” The underlying purpose of the book is thus expressed in the words of Mr.

Mackay, the editor of the volume:--”If the view set out in this volume is at all correct, it is very necessary that men should abandon the policy of indifference, and that they should do something to enlarge the atmosphere of liberty. This is to be accomplished not by reckless and revolutionary methods, but rather by a resolute resistance to new encroachment and by patient and statesmanlike endeavor to remove wherever practicable the restraints of regulation, and to give full play over a larger area to the creative forces of liberty, for liberty is the condition precedent to all solution of human difficulty.” Surely this is a statement of the case which must powerfully appeal to all thinking men, and lead them to reexamine, at least, the principles on which State support of the various inst.i.tutions referred to is based.

In such a spirit, a reexamination of the argument for public support of public libraries must be regarded as entirely germane to the objects which the American Library a.s.sociation has at heart. In such a spirit the present paper proposes to weigh once more the principles which underlie our American library system, and the considerations brought forward by Mr. O'Brien in the chapter devoted to ”Free libraries” in the volume referred to.

The half-century of discussion of ”socialism and socialistic legislation” already referred to has made few things so clear as the fact that the arguments employed on any subject--social subjects in particular--are weakened in almost the exact ratio in which they are allowed to be tinged by pa.s.sion and excited feeling. It must therefore be regarded as unfortunate that Mr. O'Brien's chapter suffers most emphatically from comparison with the generally high level of calm and unimpa.s.sioned argument, characterizing the larger portion of the book.

Whether this is to be explained on the basis of the apocryphal legal maxim, ”When you have no case, abuse your opponent,” or whether Mr.

O'Brien entered the lists fresh from some too recent partic.i.p.ation in a personal contest over the question, we do not undertake to inquire. The fact remains that not only do the writers of the other chapters of the book appear from a careful reading to state their arguments more effectively, but that the reader is also impressed with the fact that they have a case which admits of more effective argument.

Let us glance in succession at the points which Mr. O'Brien has aimed to make. They may be grouped in general under two heads; first, those which relate to the injury (in Mr. O'Brien's view) inflicted on the individual user of a free library from having it aided by public support, and second, those which relate to the tax-payer's grievance (in Mr. O'Brien's view) in helping to support it. The former is of course the side of the question most germane to the general purpose of the book, and it is therefore an occasion for surprise to notice that in Mr.

O'Brien's enumeration of arguments those coming under the other cla.s.s outnumber it in the ratio of six to one. First of all, to use Mr.

O'Brien's own language ”the argument that if readers were left to pay for their own books, not only would books be more valued, but the moral discipline involved in the small personal sacrifice incurred by saving for such a purpose would do infinitely more good than any amount of culture obtained at other people's expense.” And he takes occasion to suggest that ”possibly the advocates of literary pauperism will see little force in” this argument. Possibly; we are not familiar with the train of reasoning which leads to an advocacy of ”literary pauperism.”