MY DEAR NORTON,

I am about to write to you upon a subject which very much concerns the authors of our two nations: it is the subject of International Copyright.

The reason why I address you, is that I know of no man who takes a greater interest in the literature both of Great Britain and America than you do. Moreover you have added to that literature. Your father, as a distinguished theologian, also did the same thing; and you are allied by birth and by good fellowship to most of the eminent men of letters in your country. Besides, we have you here; and it is a great advantage to be able to talk to a man, as well as to write to him, when one wishes to impress upon him one's own particular views upon an important subject.

I am for placing this matter upon a basis which it has not occupied since the days of Queen Anne. I am for making copyright in literary, scientific, or artistic work, as much a species of inalienable and indefeasible possession as land, houses, or chattels of any description.

You may, or you may not, agree with me in this desire of mine, and I admit No. 116.-VOL. XX.

that there are some strong, but not, I think, convincing arguments to be adduced against it. What, however, I have to say to you, as an American, rests upon a different basis, and does not depend upon the peculiar rights and privileges granted by our respective nations to the writers of original literary, artistic, or scientific works. I am only going to try and argue out the question of international copyright.

Now, I begin by saying, that as regards this matter we are substantially one nation. For my own part, I never feel that there is any distinction worthy of much notice between an American and a Britisher. We must not look upon ourselves as foreigners to one another. The essence of the characteristics of both nations is identical. We love liberty, you love liberty; we abide by law, you abide by law. We are essentially alike, and we differ from many other races, in this most important respect. We are at variance, we will say, in our respective nations about some great political matter. There is great difference of opinion. Every known force, except that of arms, is brought to bear upon this opinion. We come at last to a vote upon it. After that, in both of our nations, there is peace for a time. We understand what it is to beat, or to be beaten, in civil

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contest. We have learnt the great art, the result of much statesmanship in our ancestors, of acquiescing in the decision of a majority. We hate conspiracies, and so do you; and we have learnt to abide by decisions openly taken by the people at large.

Your great Civil War, it may be contended, was an exception to this rule; but, nevertheless, the rule, as a rule, holds good.

Well, now I think I have said enough to show that the two nations of America and Great Britain are sufficiently alike to allow of their acting in concert in such a matter as international copyright.

I proceed to show the mischief that is inherent in the present state of things. I begin by saying that it is desirable that authors should be able to live. Men of the world might reply that they do not see the necessity; but you, at any rate, will not agree with them. I admit that lighter literature supports itself and its authors; but history, scientific research, and theology (unless it be controversial), do not. It would be a very great advantage for literary and scientific men if they derived some measure of support from all those countries where the language is spoken in which their historical or scientific books are written. There are no patrons for literature or science but the public; and authors would be able to afford more outlay of time and money than they can do now, if they had a larger public to appeal to. Books written in the English language ought, at the present moment, to be able to repay a greater expenditure of time and labour and money on the part of their authors than similar books written in any other language. Whereas, I believe that, owing to the want of international copyright between America and Great Britain, the books written in English are at a great disadvantage in comparison with those written in French.

now

I spoke just now of expenditure of money. The world probably thinks that very little money is expended, especially by the author, in the production even of

great works. But this is a signal error. Take, for instance, the production of maps to illustrate some ancient or modern history. None but those who have had this kind of work to encounter, know how costly it is. Days are spent by the author, or by some one whom he employs, in determining the relative distances of cities, some of which perhaps are not now in existence. Voluminous correspondence has to be undertaken in order to verify doubtful points. Designers and engravers have to be employed. The map is made, and inserted in a work published in London or New York, and is copied at once in a reprint of that work published in New York, or London, at about a thirtieth part of its original expense.

What I have said above relates chiefly to the interests of authors, and only indirectly to the interests of literature and science. But what I am going to say now, touches closely those latter and greater interests. The books themselves in these reprinted (I suppose I must not say pirated) editions, which are published in countries in which the author has no power, are often very inferior. I will give an instance of this, which must, I should think, often

occur.

A work is published in England, bit by bit, in some magazine. As it approaches to its termination in the serial form, the author gives a final correction to it, and probably a most valuable correction. What happens in America with this book? It is, we will say, the work of a popular and well-known author. The American publisher, fearing lest the English edition should enter at all into the American market, has the bulk of the work got up in type within a month of the time when the last section of it will be printed in the magazine; and then, a few days after a copy of the magazine, containing the last number of the serial work in question, is received in New York, the whole work, with all its imperfections on its head, is published and circulated amongst the American public. This, independently of the injustice to the

author, is a real injury to literature--by giving circulation to an imperfect work.

I have ever had a horror of legalized infamies, and of the infamies which law cannot, or can scarcely, touch. They are the worst of all. You can tolerate, and even have some sympathy with, a good honest thief. You know where you are with him. He is at open war with you and with the rest of society. He means to break into your house if he can, and you mean to prevent him if you can, or to shoot at him if you find him there in the small hours of the night. But the piratical fellow, who keeping on the safe side of the law, yet violates every principle of justice and humanity, is my aversion. These are the men who safely dust the pepper, sand the sugar, simulate coffeebeans in clay, cocculus-indicise the beer, adulterate drugs, and stuff safetybelts with unseaworthy material.

Do not think me over-harsh, but I cannot view a publisher, who publishes a work, either on our side or on your side of the water, for which he has paid nothing to the author, as differing essentially from the above-named gentry.

I know perfectly well what may be said in such a man's defence. He is acting completely within the compass of the law of his own country. He has no feeling for science, literature, or art. He is perhaps a man of unctuous respectability. If he is on your side of the water, he has, I dare say, a most comfortable house in the suburb that corresponds to our Clapham or Peckham. He pays his rent; he pays his rates; he is kind to the young vultures in his nest, whom he feeds from the proceeds of the labour of others. But I do not think it would be well to have good fortune upon such terms, and I think he must have an occasional twinge of what with him stands for conscience, when, amidst all his wealth and comfort, he reflects (if he ever does reflect), that some of that wealth has been attained by defrauding, quite legally-yes, quite legally-certain poor men who speak his own language; but who happen to be divided from him by some thousands of miles of water.

No State was ever ruined by what I call its downright honest thieves, however numerous they might be; but perhaps no State was ever ruined unless it nourished in its bosom a large number of those people whom I have ventured to class with piratical publishers. There has seldom been a heavier blow aimed at civilization than when some man, of a character equally mimic and rapacious, first laid down the maxim, "Whatever I can imitate is mine-at least, is mine to imitate."

If any other class were as ill-treated as British authors are, they would worry the lives out of men in power with remonstrances and deputations. Let farmers, or graziers, or butchers, have any grievance which they think that men in power might remedy,— see how readily they combine to enforce their views on the Government. And what a deputation we could make! There would be Tennyson and Browning, and other poets, great and small, who would express our grievances with all the force and flow of poetical language. Then there are the historiansCarlyle, Grote, Froude, Merivale, and others. Accustomed as they are to make long speeches for their historical characters, they would be ugly customers for a minister to receive in a deputation. Besides, we should have Lord Derby, Mr. Gladstone, and Mr. Disraeli to assist at this deputation, not in their usual character of the receivers of deputations, but as the received.

Then, in other branches and in other ways, how powerful we should be. Think of the great novelists, Dickens, Lord Lytton, and Trollope; of the ladies who would assist us, such as "George Eliot " and Miss Mulock; not to speak of those who write what are called sensational novels, which the world devours largely -I know I do; don't you, notwithstanding these writings have the ill name of "sensational?" What a subject for sensation, too, they might choosea poor author, ruined in fame, defrauded in pocket, and driven into madness by an incorrect and slovenly