free fiction ? - why not free films ? are books out of date ? is reading an old-fashioned hobby , like archery ; or a tory vice , like golf ? some of our great national newspapers seem to think so : but the figures are against them . my favourite Sundays record that on a previous day 600,000 people attended the football league matches in England and Wales . on a fine Saturday in January ( with cup ties ) I made it 800,000 . but on every working day in the week 1 million , or more , citizens borrow books from a public library . the total figure - for the year , for the United Kingdom - is about 400 million - 7 1/2 million every week . bar radio , the book may still be the most popular pleasure : and the public library , though a tiny buyer , is much the biggest book-provider in terms of readership . in its inception - and for a long time later - it was a great institution . today , I fear , it is merely a large institution . it has , like one of those frogs , puffed itself out in the wrong places , and has assumed a shape which is both unnatural and inefficient . it is now under fire from three points : ( 1 ) its customers , the readers ; ( 2 ) its servants , the librarians ; and ( 3 ) its suppliers , the book-producers , authors and publishers . the complaint of its customers - and of conscientious head librarians - is that the public library does not buy enough books . the sum expended on the purchase of books is about one quarter of the libraries &apos; total expenditure . in 1959 the Roberts committee laid down , as a rough test of efficiency , an expenditure of at least 2 s per head of the population served . ( the library association wanted to make it 3 s ) . some of the best libraries are well ahead of the 2 s mark : but in 1960 , out of 559 public libraries in the United Kingdom only 137 hit the two-shillings target . the total shortage , I reckon , was about &amp;pound;600,000 . the librarians complain that they have to squeeze , almost by prayer , any addition to their book fund out of the reluctant councillors . the complaint of its staff is that the public library does not pay librarians enough . far back in 1927 the Kenyon committee recommended that the trained librarian should be paid not less than the trained teacher , and the one profession should not be less attractive than the other . the Roberts committee , in 1959 , said : there was a short period between 1946 and 1955 when this parity was in sight , but recent improvements in teachers &apos; salaries have put them ahead again . ( and now , I see , the teachers are asking for more . ) the chief librarian of St Pancras ( a go-ahead library ) writes in his 1958-59 report about the difficulty of recruiting , and more particularly of retaining , suitable junior staff &amp;hellip; . we have lost several junior assistants to the teaching profession in recent years . I do not know exactly what the librarians want , but there are 14,000 of them ; and a rise of the order of &amp;pound;100 all round would mean &amp;pound;1,400,000 a year . the complaint of authors and publishers is that the public library is not paying the book-producers enough . I shall not argue the authors &apos; and publishers &apos; case here : but we believe that our demands are just , and are sure that , in one way or another , they will , in the end , prevail . they will cost between &amp;pound;1 million and &amp;pound;1,500,000 a year - a very modest addition to the paltry five million now spent upon books ( Mr W Hanley Snape , lecturer in librarianship at Liverpool ) . now , if a public institution , created by parliament , is failing to satisfy its customers , its servants , and its suppliers : and if its paymasters are not sufficiently interested to pay for efficiency , parliament should sit up and take notice . failing real reform , the public library , of which so many are traditionally proud , will remain in fact an inefficient , unjust and , here and there , discreditable institution , precariously existing on the reluctant doles of local authorities and the abused good will of librarians and book-producers . reform , in fact , is , rather feebly , on the wing . the Roberts committee recommended this and that ; the Minister of education has talked about a bill ; and now he has appointed two working parties to study some technical implications of the Roberts report . but that report was vague about the librarians and did not mention the book-producers at all . all this , then , is merely fiddling . the statesman , at this point , should see the public library as a whole and consider the three demands I have set out together . they all mean money - perhaps &amp;pound;4 million a year in all . but who is going to provide the money ? the government will n&apos;t - I have heard the Minister say so . ( why literature should not rank with the fine arts for some assistance I do not know - but there it is . ) at the moment the only possible source is the rates . well , &amp;pound;4 million may be a mere flea-bite on the vast body of the ratepayer , who suffers about &amp;pound;500 million a year already . but there are new flea-bites everywhere ( the police , for example ) , and every flea-bite hurts . moreover , there are millions of ratepayers who do not use the public library at all , never borrow a book . if the ratepayer wants to have a properly conducted public library , he must accept the responsibility . but he can easily be relieved . there is an enormous untapped source of income , other than the rates , which only parliament can make available . section 11 of the public libraries act 1892 said that no charge shall be made ( 1 ) for admission to a public library or ( 2 ) in the case of a lending library , for the use thereof by the inhabitants &amp;hellip; . I would not interfere with ( 1 ) - with free admissions . what is done and enjoyed on the premises - the proper functions of a library - should remain perfectly free . but the vast modern book distribution - the 400 million loans per annum - never imagined by the founders , or parliament - should now be made revenue-producing . I - and my committee of authors and publishers - would give each local authority the option of charging the borrower . high-minded authorities could stick to the rates , if they liked ; all could excuse old age pensioners , or whom they wished . the average borrower takes out 30 books a year - but in the metropolitan boroughs the average is 40 ( St Pancras 45 , and Finsbury 55 ) . twopence a book ( on 400 million lending issues ) would gross , in theory , &amp;pound;3,300,000 a year . threepence a book ( some of the little tobacconist-libraries charge 4 d ) would yield &amp;pound;5 million . deduct 10 per cent for possible diminution of readers , etc , and we have &amp;pound;4,500,000 - &amp;pound;1,500,000 each for ( a ) purchase of books and general library purposes ; ( b ) increase of staff and salaries ; ( c ) the book-producers . pennies-in-the-slot would be one way to collect . but I should prefer a charge of 5 s ( or 7 s 6 d ) on the ticket issued to the registered reader at the beginning of the year . after paying this modest entrance fee he would be as free as he was before - and could borrow 30 , 50 , 60 books a year without putting his hand in his pocket again . five shillings , I believe , is the average weekly investment in the pools . well , why not ? because , at present , the scotfree library is a sacred cow to which most members of parliament , without much thought , bow down . but it is out of date and illogical . it was designed , a hundred years ago , for the education of labourer and artisan . it has become a free book-shop for all and sundry . at St Pancras 66 per cent of the issues are fiction ; at Shoreditch 68 per cent ; at Stepney 69 per cent ; at Stoke Newington 70 per cent ; at Hackney 76 per cent . well , some fiction can educate , especially mine : but so can some films . why not free films ? the sacred cow has been betrayed already . the Roberts report recommends that charges should be permitted for admission to meetings and other functions , for retention of books , and for notifications . the Holborn library in 1958-59 charged reservation fees of 4 d to 22,301 readers . the Westminster library netted &amp;pound;8,991 from library receipts ( fines , catalogues , etc ) . you have to pay for municipal concerts and plays . why should borrowed novels - or any other books - be free ? anyone who objects on principle to charging the borrower must stop complaining about a charge on the rates . for , one way or another , these reforms must come ; and there is no good reason why authors and librarians should be butchered to make a public library . here , at least , is a practical , constructive line of thought ; and no minister , librarian or councillor has offered any other . Latin American future . revolution of rising expectations . Buffon , two centuries ago , put forward the theory of the immaturity of the new world . this theory he based on the absence there of the greater mammals and on the fact that , as he believed himself to have ascertained , animals transplanted from Europe or common to both sides of the Atlantic without exception showed in America a falling-off from European standards . whatever its scientific validity , Buffon &apos;s theory coincides closely enough with the view of Latin American human affairs generally held in this country and in the United States . Anglo-Saxons do not doubt that the twenty Latin American republics are immature ; and they are ever ready to detect fallings-off from the best European political and economic standards . it may be that this attitude owes less to Buffon than to persistent underestimation , not to say misrepresentation , of the American empires of Spain and Portugal . yet , after all , the English may find it worth while to remember that Columbus set out on his first voyage when they were barely through with the wars of the roses . Cort&amp;eacute;s was busy subduing the Aztecs a year before the field of the cloth of gold . considerable churches , with services fully supported by choir and organ , were to be found in Spanish America ( and they stand today ) many years before the sailing of the Mayflower , for before the end of the 16th century there were 200,000 Spaniards ( to say nothing of the many Portuguese ) established in the new world . yet , much more than the chance that the Spaniards arrived first , the fact that they had come with different motives and a different concept of settlement was to have results that are still working themselves out in the Latin America of today . Spain , if not Portugal in Brazil , certainly did not conquer and occupy America from California to Cape Horn in a fit of absence of mind . once the Spaniards had digested the fact of Columbus &apos;s original miscalculation , they set about the subjugation and occupation of their new territories with care and method . in contrast with the later Anglo-Saxon settlers farther north , the conquistadores were animated both by a desire for wealth and a zeal for the propagation of their faith ; and their empire-building was on something of the pattern set by the Romans . each expedition usually set out only after it had been officially sanctioned . each new colony was founded with due deliberation and ceremony , and was eventually incorporated in a system of kingdoms , all of equal status in their relation to the Spanish crown . it followed that Spain should seek to govern America as Spain itself was governed . yet , being bereft equally of any religious or intellectual tolerance , of the spirit of compromise , and of any conception of government as the art of teaching men to govern themselves , Spain was not in a position to transplant these qualities to the new world . in the economic sphere no less than in the political , the Spaniards regarded their American lands as part of Spain itself . they utilised and spread through Europe the precious metals and other products of the Americas , just as if these derived from Castile or Andalusia . similarly , they insisted that their American possessions , no less than the Spanish home provinces , should supply their needs from or through Spanish sources . here , in these parallel political and economic attitudes , lay the reasons why Spain strove to preserve the frontiers of Spanish America inviolate from foreign penetration as if they were Spain &apos;s own . 