Many books are published for which no reasonable market exists, but as long as education continues to influence the mind there will be found persons who think their ideas are inspired, and they must give them expression in the printed book. There is to-day a larger reading public than ever, and the all-important point is how to get hold of them. On this point much has been written and said. It is of no use discussing the old methods, so much extolled, of how the bookseller formerly lived over his shop and existed with, if not by, his books, and what men of encyclopædic knowledge these ancients were. These times are gone, and the men are gone with them. We must, therefore, deal with events as they are to-day. Every one engaged in the business of bookselling would no doubt confess that he is out, _inter alia_, to try and make money and earn a living, and this is one of the points I wish to discuss. First, the men who constitute the bookselling trade are probably as intelligent and as up to date in knowledge as they were in the past. It has been said that the second-hand bookseller is the only man with a knowledge of books, but this is not so. Unfortunately, the exigence of our social life often prevents him from giving as much attention to his trade as formerly. This has been intensified by the margin of profit not being commensurate with the labour; therefore in many cases other kindred businesses have been added to that of bookselling. Undoubtedly the greatest benefaction which has ever fallen to the book trade was the introduction in January, 1900, of the net system. By this system a reasonable profit was guaranteed, and members of the book trade were brought together and the trade organized and extended in a manner which would have been impossible without some such rallying point as that offered by the net system. This has now obtained such a hold, both upon the trade and the public, that it must remain one of the axioms of the bookselling trade. A similar system was started in America in 1901, and for many years considerably helped the publishers in that country in organizing the trade, and protecting that of the bookseller in his attempt to remedy some of the evils caused by undersellers and unfair competition. Unfortunately, an adverse decision in the American Supreme Court in what is known as the "Macy case," caused the members of the Association to wind up their organization. This was done at the end of 1914.