convention George Eliot would have lost a copyright across the Atlantic in Scenes of Clerical Life. Nor would this be an exceptional case. It frequently happens that an author's first book becomes popular owing to the publication of his second or third, and it would be grossly unfair if this tardy recognition of his merits had the consequence of hindering him from deriving any pecuniary profit in the United States. Indeed, a limitation of term during which republication is compulsory would be fraught with possible injustice. It would be fairer to provide that the author's monetary payment should date from the time of republication. Under the proposed arrangement his actual copyright would last for a few months only, and, by waiting for the expiry of the brief period, the United States publisher might enter into possession of his labours. It is even for the interest of the latter that the English author's copyright should subsist as long as possible, inasmuch as the system of cutthroat competition which now paralyses the book trade in the United States would continue in the event of any one being at liberty to reprint books three months after their appearance in England. By reprinting them with the protection of copyright, the United States publisher would obtain that security which he desires, and without which his business degenerates into a lottery.

Many United States publishers appear to dread competition with English publishers. There is a marked inconsistency in their utterances on this score. Some of them deprecate such a copyright as would throw open their market to books printed in England, and they do so on the ground that these books would be sold at such a high price as would render them inaccessible to purchasers in their country. It is true that no citizen of the United States would buy an English novel in three volumes at the cost of 1. 118. 6d. Indeed, no sane English collector purchases a novel at such a price. If he desire to read the novel, he obtains it from a circulating library. When he adds the book to his library, he buys the cheap and compact edition which is issued of all successful novels. If the United States market were open to English publishers, they would be entirely destitute of the shrewdness with which authors credit them were they to attempt to offer dear books to a public which would alone buy cheap ones. But the fear that without some special protection the United States publishers could not possibly compete with the English is quite as common as the fear that they would raise the price of literature. In either case the danger of competition is the bugbear. No country can better afford to compete with the whole world than the United States; the people of no country are more ready than they to vaunt their superiority; yet, when the matter is brought to the test, no people take greater precautions against the possibility of foreign competition. British authors have not been exacting on this head. They have asked for international copyright, but

they have never made it a condition that their books should all be printed in their own country. It matters nothing to an author where his book is printed, provided the workmanship be good, nor where it is sold, provided he get an adequate return for his labour. If Congress were to treat the alien author with the same liberality as the alien inventor, and provide that any alien might procure copyright in the United States on the same terms as a citizen of the country, the book trade of the land might easily be protected against all external competition. A patentee cannot import his invention into the United States without paying a duty which is almost if not altogether prohibitive. If he would profit by his patent, he must work it in the country itself. In like manner such a duty might be imposed upon books imported from Europe as would compel the alien author to arrange with a United States publisher for the reproduction of his work.

Hitherto international copyright with the United States has been regarded and discussed as a question altogether affecting England. It has been overlooked that other countries, amongst which France and Germany are the chief, have nearly as great an interest as England in desiring justice to be accorded to alien authors. Three works of special merit concerning the United States have been written by an Italian, a Frenchman, and a German. Botta's History of the country is a notable work; De Tocqueville's Democracy in America is a classic; Dr. von Holst's Constitutional History of the Great Republic, now in course of publication, promises to be as valuable in its way as Hallam's well-known work on England. Each of these books is largely read in a translation by the people of the land whereof it treats; yet Botta, De Tocqueville, Dr. von Holst, and their heirs have not the slightest right to demand any share in the profits yielded by the widely circulated translations of their works. It is, then, the interest of Italy, Germany, and France, quite as much as England, to obtain international copyright with the United States.

It is a noteworthy sign of the times that authors in nearly all civilized countries have agreed to work together for the advancement of their common interests. They have formed an International Literary Association, which held its fourth congress last month at Vienna. At that congress the subject of international copyright was elaborately discussed. Dr. Weichel, of Berlin, informed the congress that most German books are now reprinted in the United States shortly after their appearance in Germany, and that the original authors obtain no remuneration from the United States publishers. French authors complained that their works are translated across the Atlantic to their detriment, both Germans and Frenchmen agreeing that an international copyright with the United States is as much required for their protection as it is for that of English authors. A resolution adopted by the congress was couched in this sense, and it

enunciated the principle that, in any copyright convention, the advantage of authors rather than the enrichment of publishers was the chief object to be attained. The congress affirmed the decision of a previous one to the effect that, in any copyright convention, there ought not to be any requirement as to re-registration, but that compliance with the formalities attending the publication of a book in one country ought to suffice to secure for its author copyright in another.

It is clear that authors in all civilized countries are united as they have never been before in upholding what they deem their rights. With the influence which they can legitimately exercise, they ought to succeed in obtaining their moderate demands. Whether conventions between nations are the best means for securing international copyright is open to question. If each nation in legislating for native authors extended the like rights to foreigners, no conventions would be necessary. This is the English practice. English law does not discriminate against the foreign author. A citizen of the United States can secure copyright in England even though no English author has any protection in the United States. Just as Congress has legislated so as to confer upon alien inventors the rights enjoyed by citizens of the country, so Congress may admit alien authors to the privileges of citizenship.

I hold it to be of primary importance that international copyright should be established by the legislation of Congress. If a settlement is to be effected, let it be one which shall not be a pretext for future controversy and heartburning. Now it is doubtful whether a convention on the subject of international copyright would be held to be constitutional, and it is probable that the Supreme Court would be called to decide this point. It has been decided that the treatymaking power can override an Act of Congress; it has also been decided that an Act of Congress can supersede a treaty. Whether a convention which not only overrides an Act of Congress, but overrides one passed in conformity with a power expressly conferred by a clause in the Constitution, would be valid, is an open and arguable question.

English authors can afford to wait till their desires are gratified. No change in their existing condition can do them harm. Happily the delusions which have long prevailed in the United States are passing away; the bitterest opponents of international copyright have become its warmest advocates; the people are slowly awakening to the truth that they can enjoy cheap literature without denying to its authors any legal right or certain reward. These authors will not be the sole gainers by equitable treatment. The people of the United States will benefit as well as honour themselves by according justice to alien authors.

W. FRASER RAE

THE FUTURE CATHEDRAL OF

LIVERPOOL.

I NOTICED the other day without surprise, but with much satisfaction, that in the programme of subjects for the first conference of the newly constituted diocese of Liverpool the future cathedral occupies a leading place. On the evening of the first day the Dean of Chester, intimately connected with Liverpool by long residence as the VicePrincipal and Principal of its Collegiate School, as well as by family ties, will propose the question for discussion, 'Ought the Diocese of Liverpool to have a Cathedral?' To this, of course, there can be but one answer. Indeed, in a strict sense, it has been answered already. The Church knows of no bishop without a see, and that see is not, according to the loose inexact usage of modern times, his ⚫ diocese, but his seat of office, or throne-sedes, siége-on which he is placed at installation, or more properly, enthronisation. To contain this seat, the bishop's-stool, as our Anglo-Saxon forefathers called it, there must be a church. And wherever that seat or throne is placed, the church that contains it, however small or mean, becomes at once the see-church, or, from the Greek name of this official seat,-xa0édpa, cathedra, ecclesia cathedralis, or cathedral church.' The same Act therefore, which created the bishopric of Liverpool, created a cathedral church. It did not erect or order the erection of a new building, but simply declared that one of the existing parish churches of the new city, that of St. Peter's, should thenceforward be the cathedral church of the diocese; because within its walls, until by lawful authority it should be transferred elsewhere, was hereafter to stand the see, throne, or cathedra of its bishop. On the removal of the cathedra to some other more appropriate edifice, as, in early times, that of Elmham was removed to Thetford and from Thetford again to Norwich, and that of Selsea was transferred to Chichester, and that of Dorchester to Lincoln, the deserted church will sink in the ecclesiastical scale, and become once more a mere parish church, its dignity passing with the episcopal seat to the other building. This simple statement shows the absurdity of the term pro-cathedral, by which it has become the fashion-not in our communion alone, for do we not read of the Cardinal Archbishop of Westminster officiating in

the pro-cathedral at Brompton?'-to designate the church which serves temporarily as the episcopal church of the diocese. Either a church is a cathedral church or it is not. However unworthy it may be, in dimensions or architecture, of so high a title, so long as it shelters the bishop's cathedra-so long as the bishop takes his official seat within its walls, even if these walls, as in the present temporary cathedral of Truro, be merely of wood, and there performs his episcopal acts so long, in the true and strict sense of the word, it is a cathedral; not a substitute, but a real independent existence.

It is plain, therefore, that it is rather late in the day to ask whether the diocese of Liverpool ought to have a cathedral.' That question, strictly speaking, is identical with Ought it to have a bishop?' The affirmative answer which the one has received has involved a similar answer to the other. Liverpool has a bishop, and, pari ratione, Liverpool has a cathedral. It is no question of 'ought' or ought not,' but of fact. Liverpool churchmen may be, and I hope are, thoroughly ashamed of their existing cathedral. They may try to blink the fact of its miserable unworthiness by calling it the pro-cathedral. But facts are stubborn things,' and it is a fact for which the Act of Parliament,' or 'Order in Council,' creating the see will vouch, that St. Peter's Church, mean, shabby, and ugly as it is a kind of pauper first cousin of St. Clement Danes in the Strand is the cathedral church of the second city of the empire, and must remain such until her merchant princes combine under the leadership of its vigorous, energetic, and generally popular bishop, to build a church as worthy in magnitude, in stateliness, and in beauty, of the untold wealth gathered in its docks, quays, and warehouses, as the Cathedral of St. Paul's is of the city and diocese of London; and in which Bishop Ryle, and the canons with whom he is surrounding himself, as his Diocesan council, may take their seats, without feeling utterly humbled by their pitiful surroundings.

Nor can this day be far distant. What John Gregg was able to effect so magnificently at Cork, John Ryle can have no difficulty in effecting still more magnificently on the shores of the Mersey. Liverpool with its population of more than 500,000, exceeding by no fewer than 200,000 the whole population of the county of Cornwall, will not be slow to follow, and may readily soon surpass, the noble example set by Truro with its handful of 10,000 souls. All that is needed is a first impulse; and that impulse the pointed question to be put by Dean Howson at the first gathering of the Diocesan conference will furnish.

No one knows better than Dr. Howson that Liverpool does already possess a cathedral, nor can we doubt that the meaning he would desire to be read into his question is, 'Ought not such a cathedral in its outward aspect to symbolise its high destination; surpassing in vastness of size, in stateliness of architecture, and in