libraries and the book-shops (which necessitated, of course, that the price should be the same for both) was destined inevitably, whatever the actual price arranged, to make the libraries more active and prosperous and kill the book-shops. But that is the least of the evils which it was possible to foresee as inevitably destined to follow the change, for the booksellers have all started circulating libraries to ward off their ruin.

Let us look first at the advantages claimed for the change. It was anticipated, and the anticipation was fully justified, that a simultaneous demand for a novel at the libraries and the book-shops would make the demand greater in both places. Under the old system, when the publication of a particular new novel excited a wide public interest, there was always a chance that this interest would die away before the book-shop edition appeared in the shops. And this danger was greatest when the interest which the new novel aroused was accidental or manœuvred rather than when it was due to any intrinsic merit. The advantages of the change have reference to the 'booming ' of a book, not to its steady sale, and the result of the change was to make the history of the novel for the last eighteen years, a history not of steadily growing reputations, but of sudden unforeseen booms.' For the writer or the publisher of a new novel to gain compensation for the lessening of the price paid by the libraries in the shape of a larger order, it was necessary that the public demand for the book should be immediate and simultaneous; for it is apparent that quite a small number of copies will enable the circulating libraries to satisfy the demands of a very large number of readers, so long as that demand is slow and continuous rather than simultaneous. In order that a novel should 'pay' under the present system, it is not enough that a great many people shall want to read it, but that they shall all want to read it at once. And it is apparent that this simultaneous demand which constitutes a 'boom' is as likely to be gained by a novel of accidental or ephemeral interest as by a novel of lasting worth, or perhaps more so. If one looks back at the 'boomed' books of the last eighteen years, one recognises among them no doubt some works of solid worth which deserved the instant acknowledgment they received, but even more others which leave one wondering now by what necromancy they were once singled out as the books worth reading.

To make the success of a work of art depend quite as much on good advertising as on good workmanship is to put a discount on good workmanship and render advertisement more and more blatant, and the advantage claimed for the institution of the sixshilling library novel was calculated, and I think has proved, to be an advantage for the blatant advertiser rather than for the good workman.

A system of publishing which makes it necessary that a novel shall succeed instantly or not at all must have the effect of making the title of a novel more important than its contents, its subject more important than its workmanship, the novel and bizarre more remunerative than the seriously valuable; and I think you will be able to find in the writings of every established novelist a tendency towards the startling and the flamboyant.

The libraries, besides having to defend themselves from a surplus of novels, are compelled to defend themselves against a natural tendency of writers under the circumstances to gain for their works the advertisement generally given to the 'improper.'

It is a tendency almost inevitable under a system which makes the immediate attention of a large reading public allimportant, and the deliberate verdict of literary judges of no importance at all.

The custom of reviewing novels seriously with a view to deciding their value as contributions to literature or to the understanding of life is dying out. It is strange that it should linger at all when the serious and deliberate review has no longer power to affect the fate of a novel. Even as a guide to the library subscriber the review has ceased to fulfil any purpose, in a day when the library subscriber no longer chooses his books but takes them by the dozen to dip through as quickly as the reviewer himself.

The sound literary judgment of the publisher has become as unnecessary as that of the reviewer, because it is as inoperative. Instead of deciding whether a work has sufficient serious worth to win its way to recognition with the aid of the reviewers, the publisher of to-day is asked to decide whether there is anything in its title, its subject, or its authorship to promise that it shall be in instant demand at the libraries. And not a few publishers have frankly retired from speculation on titles and subjects, and admit that the novel itself is nothing: the only grounds which justify them in publishing a book is that the author of it has already published others, and that his name guarantees a certain order from the libraries for any book, good or bad, that he cares to put on the market. The day is arriving, if it has not already arrived, when every publisher will similarly retire from a speculation which the disappearance of the six-shilling novel from the bookshops renders hopeless, and the art of novel-writing will be killed absolutely by the failure of any means whatever by which the new novelist, be he a Hardy or a Meredith, can present himself.

Under the old system, which ended eighteen years ago, the publisher, the bookseller, the reviewer, and the novelist all had a vocation.

It was worth while to the novelist to write literature, because

the success of his work decided upon its actual worth more than upon the whim of the moment or the ability of an advertiser. The publisher, conscious of the same fact, judged his book with acumen, and published what he thought was good work. If the reviewers, who considered it as seriously, agreed with him in his judgment, the people who in those days got books from the circulating library to read, and not to skim them, ventured to demand it; and their demand meant that the library circulation of the book paid for its publication, and justified the publisher in printing an edition for the shops, an edition for which there was a sale among readers who knew that they could not buy a copy from the libraries until that copy was practically worn out.

It was a good system for the writer of lasting worth, whether he was a new writer or an established one. It was a bad system for the meretricious writer who could manage to arouse a momentary excitement about his work, only to find its effect blocked by the slow method of the library, and the excitement fizzled out before the book which caused it was on sale in the shops; and it is strange to think that the change which, whether it has had that effect or not, was so clearly calculated to benefit the boomed ' novel at the expense of novelists as a class, to destroy the art and the dignity and the profession of novel-writing, was instigated and carried out chiefly by the Society of Authors-a society which is supposed to watch over the interests of novelists as a class and raise the dignity and the status of the profession.

Now that every result which could easily have been anticipated from the change has been exemplified in practice, and even the 'booming' of a meretricious novel has become difficult, the Society might well consider afresh what the price of a new novel ought to be.

If it does not arrive at the conclusion that every evil which it has to consider is the direct and inevitable result of its own action in making the library price of a new novel too cheap, it is difficult to imagine what remedy it will suggest to revive the lost industry of novel-writing, and make the calling of a novelist once more a profession.

HERBERT FLOWERDEW.

CONVENTS IN ENGLAND

A PLEA FOR STATE INSPECTION

In view of the multiplication of religious houses in our midst, and the large increase of convents in this country within the last few years, considerable interest has recently been aroused with regard to the need for inspection of these institutions.

As far back as 1872 a petition, signed by over 55,000 persons, in favour of inspection of convents was introduced into the House of Commons, and 169 petitions have been presented up to this date from various quarters dealing with this question. An interesting appeal presented to the late Queen Victoria in January 1898 contained the signatures of 336,250 women of Great Britain. The latest petition, which was brought before the House in November 1908, contained no fewer than 750,000 signatures of men and women. But so far the State has not passed any legislative measure for the inspection of convents in this country. While in Roman Catholic countries restrictive laws and State supervision are exercised over all monastic institutions, Great Britain has not, hitherto, seriously considered this question. When inspection was advocated in the first instance, the number of these institutions was inconsiderable compared with the number existing in Britain at the present time. In 1870 there were in England (apart from Ireland and Scotland) 285 monasteries and convents; in 1905 there were over 1000 monastic institutions in Great Britain. In 1909 there were 823 religious' houses for women in England, Scotland, and Wales, containing over 10,000 nuns, and 313 communities for men.

Where do they come from, these alien ecclesiastics, who are permitted without question, without restriction, to settle in our country, to teach our children, to compete industrially with our own tax-paying people?

They come from France, where the authorisation of Government is indispensable for the legal establishment and existence. of monasteries and convents, and they are subject to the supervision of the legal power.

They come from Italy, where all such institutions have been suppressed; from Belgium, where the only conventual establish

ments recognised by law are those which have for their object the care of the poor, and where each inmate retains full ownership of her property and income.'

They come from other European countries, where convents are more or less under State control and strict supervision.

The stories of cruelty and brutality, the scandals alleged concerning convents, cannot all be accepted as facts. Many of them are exaggerated, some are untrue, fabrications emanating from the fevered imagination of people who revel in scandalous horrors. But, at the same time, it cannot be denied by any unprejudiced person that inspection of convents, convent schools, orphanages and laundries is an urgent necessity at the present time.

First, on humanitarian grounds, for the protection of the thousands of children and women who work as seamstresses, lacemakers, and laundry hands in these places. For the protection of the nuns themselves, who have cut themselves adrift from their friends and who are forced morally and spiritually to yield unquestioning obedience to the Superior of their Order, who has not to recognise any external civic or State authority.

Secondly, on health grounds, to obtain information with regard to the health of the inmates and reliable statistics of the prevalence of tubercular disease, mental affections, and other ailments generally associated with such congregations of people living a sedentary, enclosed life, in buildings uninspected by the proper sanitary authorities.

Thirdly, because moral principles are involved.

Nuns are divided into two large classes-the Closed, or Cloistered Order, who give themselves up to a life of perpetual prayer and silence, to the crucifixion of the flesh by scourgings, disciplines and penances; and the Active Order, who are bound by the same perpetual vows of poverty, chastity and obedience, but who lead an active life in the world outside. The majority of the nuns enter upon their novitiate when mere children; they can take final vows at sixteen years of age, after one year's novitiate.

By the vow of poverty the nun surrenders all personal property to the Order she joins. By the vow of chastity she renounces all human love. By the vow of obedience-the most far-reaching of the three-she yields will, conscience, freedom of action, and even thought, to the head of her Order. She is a virtual prisoner behind bolts and bars, by reason of her vows and the regulations she has sworn to obey. The Decrees of the Council of Trent explicitly state: Let no nun come out of her monastery under any pretext whatever, not even for a moment.' Further, 'If any pretend that fear or force compelled them to enter the cloister, or that the profession took place before the appointed age, let