LORD  BYRON  and  his  TIMES
Byron
Documents Biography Criticism
Passages of a Working Life during Half a Century
Note to Chapter XV
INTRODUCTION & INDEXES
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Preface
Contents Vol. I
Prelude 1
Prelude 2
Chapter I
Chapter II
Chapter III
Chapter IV
Chapter V
Chapter VI
Chapter VII
Chapter VIII
Chapter IX
Chapter X
Contents Vol. II
Chapter I
Chapter II
Chapter III
Chapter IV
Chapter V
Chapter VI
Chapter VII
Chapter VIII
Chapter IX
Chapter X
Chapter XI
Chapter XII
Chapter XIII
Chapter XIV
Chapter XV
‣ Note to Chapter XV
Contents Vol. III
Chapter I
Chapter II
Chapter III
Chapter IV
Chapter V
Chapter VI
Chapter VII
Chapter VIII
Note to Chapter VIII
Chapter IX
Note to Chapter IX
Chapter X
Chapter XI
Chapter XII
Chapter XIII
Note to Chapter XIII
Chapter XIV
Index of Persons
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NOTE TO CHAPTER XV

Extract From “The Struggles of a Book against excessive Taxation.” By Charles Knight. 1850.

On the 1st of January, 1833, I commenced the publication of The Penny Cyclopædia, in Numbers and Monthly Parts.

This work was entirely original. It was projected by myself, and published under the Superintendence of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge. But the entire cost and risk were borne by me. The total cost for Literature and Engravings was 42,000l.

The Penny Cyclopædia and its Supplement were completed in 1846. The two works contain 15,764 pages, and the quantity of Paper required to produce a single copy is 2 Reams, each weighing 35 lbs. At the period of its completion, the entire quantity of Paper consumed in the work was Fifty Thousand Reams, the total weight of which amounted to One million seven hundred and fifty thousand pounds. Of this weight 20,000 Reams, or 700,000 lbs., paid the Excise Duty of Threepence per lb., amounting to 8750l.; and the remaining 30,000 Reams paid the reduced Duty of Three-halfpence per lb. (commencing in 1837) upon 1,050,000 lbs., amounting to 6562l. The total Duty paid up to the completion of the Cyclopædia, in 1846, was 15,312l. Since that period 2000 Reams of Paper have been used in reprinting, to correct the inequalities of the Stock, making an addition of 70,000 lbs., excised at 437l. But further, the Wrappers for the Monthly Parts have used 1500 Reams of Paper, taxed at 500l., and the Milled Boards employed in binding the Volumes have been also taxed about 300l. The total payment to the
332 PASSAGES OF A WORKING LIFE: [Ch. XV.
excise by the Penny Cyclopaedia has been SIXTEEN THOUSAND FIVE HUNDRED POUNDS.

I propose to show,—

1. That this excessive burthen upon the great work to which I have devoted seventeen years of toil and anxiety, has been the primary cause that the enterprise has not yet been remunerative.

2. That the continuance of the Paper Duty, at the present rate of Three-halfpence per lb., prevents me undertaking the publication of a new and improved edition, upon its first plan of a continuous alphabetical arrangement.

1. The positive burthen of Sixteen thousand five hundred Pounds imposed by the State upon the publication of one book, is far from representing the difficulty and loss which that payment has entailed upon the undertaking.

It is well known that the amount of a duty upon raw material by no means represents the amount of the charge which it entails upon the manufacturer. Mr. MacCulloch and Mr. Porter rightly state that the price for a ream of one particular sort of printing paper was in 1831, twenty-four shillings,—in 1843, fifteen shillings and sixpence. From 1833 to 1837, the price of a Ream of Penny Cyclopædia Paper was thirty-three shillings; from 1838 to 1846, it was twenty-four shillings. The difference in price was nine shillings per ream; the amount of reduced duty was four shillings and fourpence halfpenny. The paper-makers and the stationers doubled the tax.* But even at the reduced rate it has been satisfactorily shown by my fellow-labourers, the Messrs. Chambers, that the Duty enters one third into price. Unquestionably, if the Duty were now removed, I could buy a Ream of similar paper for seventeen shillings. The tax, preventing competition, and giving

* “Whatever renders a larger capital necessary in any trade or business, limits the competition in that business; and by giving something like a monopoly to a few dealers, enables them to keep up the price beyond what would afford the ordinary rate of profit.”—John Mill, Principles of Political Economy, vol. ii. p. 388. If the tax annihilates profits in a secondary process, such as the conversion of paper into books, it is easy to understand how the monopoly becomes complete.

Ch. XV.] THE SECOND EPOCH. 333
undue advantages to capitalists, had the effect of making me pay for my Paper, from 1833 to 1837, sixteen shillings a Ream more than the price of untaxed Paper would be, or Sixteen thousand Pounds upon 20,000 Reams; and from 1838 to 1846, seven shillings per Ream more than I should otherwise have paid, which upon 30,000 Reams amounts to Ten thousand five hundred Pounds. The tax therefore operated as a burthen upon my publication to the extent of Twenty-six thousand five hundred Pounds, during its long and difficult progress to completion. The paper since used for Reprints, and the paper for Wrappers, has been raised in price 2500l. by the same process.

The Struggles of one Book against excessive Taxation are, up to this point, to be measured by a burthen of Twenty-nine thousand Pounds.

But I have not yet done. The tax has been working against the Penny Cyclopædia for seventeen years, in the chronic form of interest and compound interest.

It was very long before the periodical sale settled into a regular quantity. The work became too extensive for the great bulk of purchasers. For the first few months of the publication the sale was double what it was at the end of the first year. The sale of the first year doubled that of the fourth year. The sale of the fourth year doubled that of the eighth year,—and then it found its level and became steady to the end, reduced from 55,000 at the commencement, to 20,000 at the conclusion. Every publisher of a periodical work knows the accumulation of Stock that must inevitably take place with a falling demand. There never was a period after the third year at which I had less than Five thousand Reams of the Penny Cyclopædia in my Warehouse; upon which Duty had been paid, for some portion at the high duty, and for some at the low, averaging 1500l. In 1841 there were in my Warehouse 1200 Reams upon which the high duty, expiring in 1837, had been paid. I consider the accumulating interest in this investment, in actually paid Duty, upon dead Stock, to have amounted, in the seventeen years during which I have been labouring to sell that Stock, to 1500l., and including the interest upon the extra price charged by the paper-manufacturer upon the Duty, to 3000l.

And here, then, will the usual conclusion arise, that the
334 PASSAGES OF A WORKING LIFE: [Ch. XV.
Publisher has not borne this load of Thirty-two thousand Pounds imposed by the State upon the Penny Cyclopædia, but the purchasers of the Penny Cyclopædia. My answer is very direct. Had that sum of 32,000l. been actually saved to me, I should not have been a pound richer by the publication of the Penny Cyclopædia. But with the saving I should not have been to that amount poorer. The outlay was so great, that it could never pay its expenses under a sale of 36,000 copies with the high duty. In the first five years that average number was printed; but the accumulation of Stock locked up 10,000l. Under the low duty it paid its expenses at 30,000 copies. The actual average sale during the nine years of that duty was 20,000. It would have required that there should have been no Paper Duty at all to have paid its expenses on a sale of 20,000. Had the Duty not been reduced by one-half at the end of 1836, I could not by any possibility have carried on the work. As it was, I struggled to the end.

2. The reduced Paper Duty, as I have undertaken to show, prevents me making the best use of the valuable Copyright which remains to me,—now that the accumulated Stock is in great part exhausted.

I was advised to propose a Subscription for an entirely new Edition. The highest Personage in the realm accorded me Her support, and so did Her admirable Consort, who is doing for Science and Industry what is worth far more than any money value. Some of the most eminent in the walks of intellect also came forward to aid me. Of the support of the Members of the Legislature which taxed me during fourteen years, I have not much to boast. I have given up the design. Upon a sale that would have merely returned my new outlay, the Paper Duty would have burthened the work to the extent of 3000l. Its abandonment would have lightened my risk to the extent of making the work yield me as high a profit from 3000 subscribers, as from 4000 subscribers with the Duty continued. With this encouragement I should have gone on.

There is a steady demand for the existing edition of the Penny Cyclopædia, to the extent of 250 Sets annually. The Paper Duty prevents me meeting this demand with any moderate commercial profit. The technical explanation is not difficult to be understood:—If I print 250 Copies only
Ch. XV.] THE SECOND EPOCH. 335
—I use 500 Reams of Paper, of which the Duty is 4s. 6d. each, and the necessary increase of manufacturer’s price 2s. 6d., making a charge, arising out of the Duty, of 7s. per Ream, or 175l. upon 250 Copies. But in printing only 250 Copies I have to pay for the Presswork, as high as 15s. per Ream; whereas if I printed 500, I should only pay 10s. As the number of a book first printed increases, the cost of Presswork, or Machine-work, diminishes; and for this reason a tax upon the raw material of a book, Paper, increasing the risk of printing a large impression, compels a smaller impression, at a higher cost. But if there were no Paper Duty, I should print 500 Copies, by which I should save 350l. in the price of Paper, and 250l. in the price of Presswork; making a saving of 600l. This outlay of 600l. is imposed upon me absolutely by the existence of the Paper Duty; and that fact will possibly compel me to give up reprinting a Book which has done more for the advancement of sound knowledge and general education in these kingdoms, than any work ever produced in any country. That 600l. saved would afford me an income which would allow me to invest capital in such a Reprint. Printing only 250 Copies at the present price of Paper, a set of this book would cost me 1000l. My net profit upon that outlay would not be 10 per cent.

And with all this danger and difficulty—with “this lion in my path”—I am not yet beaten. I have my valuable copyright of the Penny Cyclopædia remaining to me; and I have passed many an anxious hour in seeing how I can best turn it to account. I am about to publish a Series of separate Cyclopædias, with large improvements, and I begin with a ‘Cyclopædia of British Geography,’ and a ‘Cyclopædia of Arts and Industry.’ Let me show the exact track which “the lion in my path” drives me to seek; and then some of those legislators who find that a fashionable novel, sold at a guinea and a half, pays about fourpence Paper Duty, and thence conclude that it is the lightest of taxes, and by all means should be preserved—especially as books, as they hold, are not necessaries of life—some of those who
“Hate not learning worse than toad or asp,”
may know what it is to maintain a tax upon knowledge,
336 PASSAGES OF A WORKING LIFE: [Ch. XV.
struggling to preserve its high rank and its useful extension amidst the widest competition of cheapness.

Upon these four volumes, estimated to contain about 3000 pages, I shall expend 1500l. upon new editorial labour. I shall further expend about 1000l. upon new plates and maps. The printer’s charge for setting up the types will be 800l.; and the cost of stereotyping will be 500l. Add for advertising 200l.; and I have thus to expend 4000l. as a first outlay, whether I sell 500 copies or 5000. At the present cost of paper, 3000 copies (the least number I could print with advantage) will amount to 1500l.; the Presswork will cost 500l.: total 6000l. The 3000 copies, produced upon this scale, will exactly cover my outlay, without a shilling profit. But let us see how the account would stand with the price of paper reduced one-third by the abolition of the duty. My course would then be to print 4000 copies, and not stereotype, which process is chiefly employed to save the outlay of capital in taxed paper. The first outlay is therefore 3600l.; the Paper for 4000 Copies, at the lower untaxed price, would cost me 1333l.; the Presswork 600l. (reduced per ream on account of the larger number). I produce, therefore, 4000 copies for 5433l., instead of 3000 copies for 6000l. I expend less by 567l., and I have 1000 copies left to sell for my profit. I could sell 4000 copies, under these circumstances, more easily than 3000 as I now stand, for I could afford to advertise more freely, and to offer higher inducements to retailers. This is something different from a fourpenny tax upon a fashionable novel.

END OF VOL. II.
BRADBURY AND EVANS, PRINTERS, WHITEFRIARS.
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