Meeting for the Removal of Trade Restrictions on the Commerce of Literature

Speech at the Meeting for the Removal of Trade Restrictions on the Commerce of Literature (4 May 1852).

Dickens, Charles

Dickens, Charles. 'Speech at the Meeting for the Removal of Trade Restrictions on the Commerce of Literature' (4 May 1852). Dickens Search. Eds. Emily Bell and Lydia Craig. Accessed [date]. https://dickenssearch.com/speeches/1852-05-04_Speech_Meeting-for-the-Removal-of-Trade-Restrictions.

On being requested to take the Chair, he said, he had in the first instance declined, on the ground that they had met to discuss what was a bookseller's question, and not an author's question. But further consideration suggested that he might, as being necessarily impartial in a contention between different classes of booksellers and publishers. He was, on principle, most strongly opposed to any system, in any commercial direction, of exclusion or restriction. He held that every man, whatever his calling, must be left to the fair and free exercise of his own honest thrift and enterprise. Holding that he was there tonight to make a protest against a particular system of restriction, and he trusted that a satisfactory result would be obtained.