PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE
Reference :-
C.O. 885
22 PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE, LONDON
ALLY WITHOUT PERMISSION OF THE BE REPRODUCED PHOTOGRAPHIC-| COPYRIGHT PHOTOGRAPH-NOT TO
34
me whether you would recommend that some higher fee, which would give a reason- able profit, should be fixed for the hiring of the Committee's slides.
38135/11
No. 62.
I am, &c.,
A. BERRIEDALE KEITH.
MESSRS. NEWTON & COMPANY, LTD., to VISUAL INSTRUCTION
COMMITTEE,
(Received 15 December, 1912.)
New Lantern Slide Gallery, 37, King Street, Covent Garden,
DEAR SIR,
London, W.C., December 14th, 1912. In reply to your letter of December 12th,* concerning the delay in supplying the Visual Instruction Committee's sets of slides, we have to admit that there has been considerable delay, and there is no doubt that the delay in this matter is detrimental.
The greater part of the delay has been caused by the length of time it took us to get the slides from the two companies which manufacture the maps and the three- colour-process slides in your sets. We believe these firms have been very busy, and their processes in any case are, we understand, rather slow. Several sets of slides have been waiting here in our gallery complete, as far as our own pictures made in our works are concerned, but wanting the slides from these two companies, although they were put in hand at the same time as our own slides. This portion of the delay, we think, would be obviated, as we had suggested to Sir Charles Lucas a little while ago, by our keeping one complete set of all your work in stock. This we promised Sir Charles that we would do. If there are reasonable sales, as we quite anticipate, Should there, how- we can bear the expense of this without any reference to you. ever, be any distinct loss involved, we feel sure that the Committee would do whatever was fair to help bear it. Indeed, Sir Charles was good enough to say as much.
As to the delays which have also taken place connected with our own slides in some cases, we believe we have already arranged a perfect remedy for this. delay took place in connection with slides which are reduced from large negatives in the camera, and for these we have been dependent upon daylight, of which there is very little at this time of year. For some months we have been negotiating for new premises, and have just bought a large freehold house in South Kensington, to which we have already transferred, this week, our reducing department. Here it will be worked by special electric lights and we shall no longer be dependent on day- light. We expect to more than treble the output of this department within the next week or two, so no more delay is likely to take place from this cause with your sets.
The
May we say that we believe the sales are likely to show a considerable upward tendency, owing to the increase in the numbers of sets you are publishing. Every set helps the sale of the others. We had great difficulty at first, in fact, found it almost impossible, to persuade headmasters of large schools even to look at the slides when they heard the geographical set was confined to India and the United King- dom. They seemed to have an idea that if it was good for anything it should take in very much more of the world. Already the increased number of sets published is bringing orders, and by the time you have two or three more sets on the market we think you will find the sales materially increased.
We are at present preparing for the printers a new catalogue of educational slides, in which, for the first time, your sets will appear in extenso, and as this will be sent to schools, colleges, and universities all over the world we hope it may bring in some more orders.
It is very advisable that as many sets as possible should be included in this catalogue, and we hope you will be able to let us have the titles of the two new sets We hope to write which are in preparation in time to be included with the others. you to-morrow in reply to your other lettert re hire of these slides.
We remain, &c.,
NEWTON & COMPANY.
36499/10
35
No. 63.
MESSRS. NEWTON & COMPANY, LTD., to VISUAL INSTRUCTION
DEAR SIR,
COMMITTEE.
(Received 17 December, 1912.)
[Answered by No. 83.]
New Lantern Slide Gallery,
37, King Street, Covent Garden,
London, W.C., December 16th, 1912. re Hire of Slides.
In reply to your letter of December 12th,* the question of hire is not an easy one, for several reasons. There is no doubt whatever that to let such sets of slides on hire, at a low price, greatly injures the sale in the United Kingdom, although it does not greatly affect sales abroad. Besides which, the expense of sending slides on hire, and conducting the necessarily heavy correspondence, is so considerable that the whole of the fees are taken in the costs and expenses, whereas in the present case we not only require payment of all expenses, but a reasonable interest for the considerable amount of money locked up in such sets, some profit for ourselves, and some profit for the Visual Instruction Committee. It is not possible, in our opinion, to obtain these from low fees.
If there is any considerable response of the hiring scheme, further sets of slides would be required to be held in readiness to cope with the demands, which means, again, more capital. We gather also from the interviews we have had with Sir Charles Lucas and Mr. Noall, and from your letters, that the Committee would not wish to provide further capital for the provision of such sets, and for that reason we have already undertaken to provide one complete set of each course of lectures, and to hold them in stock ready for supply.
The only plan seems to be to fix a higher rental for the slides. This, if suffi- ciently high, would be a deterrent to the larger schools and colleges hiring the slides in cases where they ought to purchase them, and would also provide a profit which, we think, would be quite a reasonable one.
In view of the above facts we would suggest that the hiring fee should be 10s. per lecture, and that 25 per cent. of that be paid by us to the Visual Instruction Committee. At first, and until the demands developed, we should propose to work that one set of slides' in stock, which, as you will see, would enable a number of classes to be given concurrently, and a number more to be given if they were started .on different days of the week or different weeks of the term. Then, in order to pro- vide against contingencies such as unexpected demands or sudden sales, we should propose to purchase from the Diagram Company, Sanger-Shepherd and Company, and the other firms who supply some of the slides in your sets, a complete series of all their work to hold in readiness, so that we can get out a fresh, complete series of all the sets, simply by adding the slides produced in our own works, which in future we shall be able to make very rapidly owing to the improvements now going on in the equipment of our new studios.
We think this arrangement would obviate the difficulties we have hitherto had in supplying orders within a reasonable time, and also enable us to cope with the demand for hire. The conditions would then be such that we think we could always supply sets for purchase within a week of receiving the order, even if a second order for exactly the same series should follow closely upon the first.
You will see this involves some expense on our part, as the slides procured from other firms for one complete set means practically an expenditure of £50 by us before we commence to make our own slides in the set. We think we ought to be able, at the prices quoted, to stand the necessary capital expenditure, as we under- stand you are circularising, next year, all the schools in the United Kingdom, and this ought to produce a fairly good result for next season.
May we suggest that it would be well not to send out the circulars too early in the year, as schools do not use lanterns in the midsummer term to any extent, and the effect would be largely discounted if they were sent early in the spring and the lectures were not wanted until the winter.
We remain, &c.,
NEWTON & COMPANY.
• No. 60.
† No. 61.
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