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LETTERS

INTERNATIONAL COPYRIGHT:

H. C. CAREY,

SECOND EDITION.

NEW YORK:

PUBLISHED BY HURD AND HOUGHTON,

RIVERSIDE, CAMBRIDGE:

PRINTED BY H. O. HOUGHTON AND COMPANY.

PREFACE

Throughout those years, nevertheless, the effort to obtain from the legislative authority a decree to that effect had proved an utter failure. Time and again had the case been up for trial, but as often had the plaintiffs' counsel wholly failed to agree among themselves as to the consequences that might reasonably be expected to result from recognition of their clients' so-called rights. Northern and Eastern advocates, representing districts in which schools and colleges abounded, insisted that perpetuity and universality of privilege must result in giving the defendants cheaper books. Southern counsel, on the contrary, representing districts in which schools were rare, and students few in number, insisted that extension of privilege would have the effect of giving to planters handsome editions of the works they needed, while preventing the publication of "cheap and nasty" editions, fitted for the "mudsills" of Northern States. Failing thus to agree among themselves they failed to convince the jury, mainly representing, as it did, the Centre and the West, as a consequence of which, verdicts favorable to the defendants had, on each and every occasion, been rendered.

The issue that was then evaded is now again presented, eminent counsel having been employed, and the opening speech having just now been made. Having read it carefully, we find in it, however, nothing beyond a labored effort at reducing the literary profession to a level with those of the grocer and the tallow-chandler. It is an elaborate reproduction of Oliver Twist's cry for "more! more!"--a new edition of the "Beggar's Petition," perusal of which must, as we think, have affected with profound disgust many, if not even most, of the eminent persons therein referred to. In it, we have presented for consideration the sad case of one distinguished writer and admirable man who, by means of his pen alone, had been enabled to pass through a long life of most remarkable enjoyment, although his money receipts had, by reason of the alleged injustice of the consumers of his products, but little exceeded 0,000; that of a lady writer who, by means of a sensational novel of great merit and admirably adapted to the modes of thought of the hour, had been enabled to earn in a single year, the large sum of ,000, though still deprived of two hundred other thousands she is here said to have fairly earned; of a historian whose labors, after deducting what had been applied to the creation of a most valuable library, had scarcely yielded fifty cents per day; of another who had had but 00 per month; and, passing rapidly from the sublime to the ridiculous, of a school copy-book maker who had seen his improvements copied, without compensation to himself, for the benefit of English children.

These may and perhaps should be regarded as very sad facts; but had not the picture a brighter side, and might it not have been well for the eminent counsel to have presented both? Might he not, for instance, have told his readers that, in addition to the 0,000 above referred to, and wholly as acknowledgment of his literary services, the eminent recipient had for many years enjoyed a diplomatic sinecure of the highest order, by means of which he had been enabled to give his time to the collection of materials for his most important works? Might he not have further told us how other of the distinguished men he had named, as well as many others whose names had not been given, have, in a manner precisely similar, been rewarded for their literary labors? Might he not have said something of the pecuniary and societary successes that had so closely followed the appearance of the novel to whose publication he had attributed so great an influence? Might he not, and with great propriety, have furnished an extract from the books of the "New York Ledger," exhibiting the tens and hundreds of thousands that had been paid for articles which few, if any, would care to read a second time? Might he not have told his readers of the excessive earnings of public lecturers? Might he not, too, have said a word or two of the tricks and contrivances that are being now resorted to by men and women--highly respectable men and women too--for evading, on both sides of the Atlantic, the spirit of the copyright laws while complying with their letter? Would, however, such a course of proceeding have answered his present purpose? Perhaps not! His business was to pass around the hat, accompanying it with a strong appeal to the charity of the defendants, and this, so far as we can see, is all that thus far has been done.

Might not, however, a similar, and yet stronger, appeal now be made in behalf of other of the public servants? At the close of long lives devoted to the public service, Washington, Hamilton, Clay, Clayton, and many other of our most eminent men have found themselves largely losers, not gainers, by public service. The late Governor Andrew's services were surely worth as much, per hour, as those of the authoress of "Uncle Tom's Cabin," yet did he give five years of his life, and perhaps his life itself, for far less than half of what she had received for the labors of a single one. Deducting the expenses incident to his official life, Mr. Lincoln would have been required to labor for five and twenty years before he could have received as much as was paid to the author of the "Sketch Book." The labors of the historian of Ferdinand and Isabella have been, to himself and his family, ten times more productive than have been those of Mr. Stanton, the great war minister of the age.--Turning now, from civil to military life, we see among ourselves officers who have but recently rendered the largest service, but who are now quite coolly whistled down the wind, to find where they can the means of support for wives and children. Studying the lists of honored dead, we find therein the names of men of high renown whose widows and children are now starving on pensions whose annual amount is less than the monthly receipt of any one of the authors above referred to.

"Great and wealthy" as they are here said to be, and as they certainly are, we are assured that even they have serious troubles, against which they greatly need to be protected. In common with many heretofore competing railroad companies they have found that, however competition among themselves might benefit the public, it would tend rather to their own injury, and therefore have they, by means of most stringent rules, established a "courtesy" copyright, the effect of which exhibits itself in the fact, that the prices of reprinted books are now rapidly approaching those of domestic production. Further advances in that direction might, however, prove dangerous; "courtesy" rules not, as we are here informed, being readily susceptible of enforcement. A salutary fear of interlopers still restrains those "great and wealthy houses," at heavy annual cost to themselves, and with great saving to consumers of their products. That this may all be changed; that they may build up fortunes with still increased rapidity; that they may, to a still greater extent, monopolize the business of publication; and, that the people may be taxed to that effect; all that is now needed is, that Congress shall pass a very simple law by means of which a few men in Eastern cities shall be enabled to monopolize the business of republication, secure from either Eastern or Western competition. That done, readers will be likely to see a state of things similar to that now exhibited at Chicago, where railroad companies that have secured to themselves all the exits and entrances of the city, are, as we are told, at this moment engaged in organizing a combination that shall have the effect of dividing in fair proportion among the wolves the numerous flocks of sheep.

Our people are here assured that Russia, Sweden, and other countries are ready to unite with them in recognizing the "rights" now claimed. So, too, it may be well believed, would it be with China, Japan, Bokhara, and the Sandwich Islands. Of what use, however, would be such an union? Would it increase the facilities for transplanting the ideas of American authors? Are not the obstacles to such transplantation already sufficiently great, and is it desirable that they should be at all increased? Germany has already tried the experiment, but whether or not, when the time shall come, the existing treaties will be renewed, is very doubtful. Where she now pays dollars, she probably receives cents. Discussion of the question there has led to the translation and republication of the letters here now republished, and the views therein expressed have received the public approbation of men whose opinions are entitled to the highest consideration. What has recently been done in that country in reference to domestic copyright, and what has been the effect, are well exhibited in an article from an English journal just now received, a part of which, American moneys having been substituted for German ones, is here given, as follows:

"Until the beginning of this century literary piracy was not prohibited in the German States. As, however, protection of literary productions was, at last, emphatically urged, the Acts of the Confederation contained a passage to the effect, that the Diet should, at its first meeting, consider the necessity of uniform laws for securing the rights of literary men and publishers. The Diet moved in the matter in the year 1818, appointing a commission to settle this question; and, thanks to that supreme profoundness which was ever applied to the affairs of the father-land by this illustrious body, after twenty-two years of deliberation, on the 9th of Nov., 1837, decreed the law, that the rights of authorship should be acknowledged and respected, at least, for the space of ten years; copyright for a longer period, however, being granted for voluminous and costly works, and for the works of the great German poets.

"In the course of time, however, a copyright for ten years proved insufficient even for the commonest works; it was therefore extended by a decree of the Diet, dated June 19, 1845, over the natural term of the author's life and for thirty years after his death. With respect to the works of all authors deceased before the 9th of November, 1837-- including the works of the poets enumerated above--the Diet decided that they could all be protected until the 9th of November, 1867.

"Another publisher, A. H. Payne, of Leipzig, announces a complete edition of Schiller's works, including some unpublished pieces, for 75 cts.

The reward of literary service, and the estimation in which literary men are held, both grow with growth in that power of combination which results from diversification of employments; from bringing consumers and producers close together; and from thus stimulating the activity of the societary circulation. Both decline as producers and consumers become more widely separated and as the circulation becomes more languid, as is the case in all the countries now subjected to the British free trade influence. Let American authors then unite in asking of Congress the establishment of a fixed and steady policy which shall have the effect of giving us that industrial independence without which there can be neither political nor literary independence. That once secured, they would thereafter find no need for asking the establishment of a system of taxation which would prove so burdensome to our people as, in the end, to be ruinous to themselves.

H. C. C.

LETTERS

INTERNATIONAL COPYRIGHT.

Dear Sir:--You ask for information calculated to enable you to act understandingly in reference to the international copyright treaty now awaiting the action of the Senate. The subject is an important one, more so, as I think, than is commonly supposed, and being very glad to see that it is now occupying your attention, it will afford me much pleasure to comply, as far as in my power, with your request.

Independently of the principle involved, it seems to me that the course now proposed to be pursued is liable to very grave objection. It is an attempt to substitute the action of the Executive for that of the Legislature, and in a case in which the latter is fully competent to do the work. For almost twenty years, Congress has been besieged with applications on the subject, but without effect. Senate Committees have reported in favor of the measure, but the lower House, composed of the direct representatives of the people, has remained unmoved. In despair of succeeding under any of the ordinary forms of proceeding, its friends have invoked the legislation of the Executive power, and the result is seen in the fact, that the Senate, as a branch of the Executive, is now called upon to sanction a law, in the enactment of which the House of Representatives could not be induced to unite. This may be, and doubtless is, in accordance with the letter of the Constitution, but it is so decidedly in opposition to its spirit that, even were there no other objection, the treaty should be rejected. That, however, is but the smallest of the objections to it.

If the people required such a law, nothing could be more easy than to act in this case as we have done before in similar ones. When we desired to arrange for reciprocity in relation to navigation, we fixed the terms, and declared that all the other nations of the earth might accede to them if they would. No treaty was needed, and we therefore became bound to no one. It was in our power to repeal the law when we chose. So, again, in regard to patents. Foreigners exercise the power of patenting their inventions, but they do so under a law that is liable to repeal at the pleasure of Congress. In both of these cases, the bills underwent public discussion, and the people that were to be subjected to the law, saw, and understood, and amended the bills before they became laws. Contrast, I beg of you, this course of proceeding with the one now proposed to be pursued in reference to one of the largest branches of our internal trade. Finding that no bill that could be prepared could stand the ordeal of public discussion, a treaty has been negotiated, the terms of which seem to be known to none but the negotiators, and that treaty has been sent to your House of Congress, there to be discussed in secret session by a number of gentlemen, most of whom have given little attention to the general principle involved, while not even a single one can be supposed qualified to judge of the practical working of the provisions by whose aid the principle is to be carried out. Once confirmed, the treaty can be changed only with the consent of England. Here we have secrecy in the making of laws, and irrevocability of the law when made; whereas, in all other cases, we have had publicity and revocability. Legislation like that now proposed would seem to be better suited to the monarchies of Europe, than to the republic of the United States. The reason why this extraordinary course has been adopted is, that the people have never required the passage of such a law, and could not be persuaded to sanction it now, were it submitted to them.

The French and English copyright treaty has, as I understand, caused great deterioration in the value of property that had been accumulated in France under the system that had before existed, and such may prove to be the case with the one now under consideration. Should it be so, the deterioration would prove to be fifty times greater in amount than it was in France. Will it do so? No one knows, because those whose interests are to be affected by the law are not permitted to read the law that is to be made. They know well that they have not been consulted, and equally well do they know that the negotiator is not familiar with the trade that is to be regulated, and is liable, therefore, to have given his assent to provisions that will work injury never contemplated by him at the time the treaty had been made. Again, provisions may have been inserted, with a view to prevent injury to the publishers, or to the public, that would be found in practice to be utterly futile, or even to augment the difficulty instead of remedying it. That such result would follow the adoption of some of those whose insertion has been urged, I can positively assert. In this state of things, it would seem to be proper that we should know whether the provisions of the treaty were submitted to the examination of any of the parties interested for or against it, and if so, to whom. So far as I can learn, none of those opposed to it have had any opportunity afforded them of reading the law, and if any advice has been taken, it must have been of those publishers who are in favor of it. Those gentlemen, however, are precisely the persons likely most to profit by the adoption of the principle recognized by the treaty; and the more disadvantageous to others the provisions for carrying that principle into effect, the greater must be the advantage to themselves. They, therefore, can be regarded as little more than the exponents of the wishes of their English friends, who were counselling the British Minister on the one hand, while on the other they were, through their friends here, counselling the American one. A treaty negotiated under such circumstances, would seem little likely to provide for the general interests of the American people.

When, in 1837, the attempt was first made to secure for English authors the privilege of copyright, a large number of them united in an agreement declaring a certain New York house to be "the sole authorized publishers and issuers" of their works. Now, had that house volunteered its advice to the Secretary of State of that day, he would scarcely have regarded it as sufficiently disinterested to be qualified for the office it had undertaken; and yet, if any advice in the present case has been asked, it would seem that it must have been from houses that now look forward to filling the place then occupied by that single one, and that cannot, therefore, be regarded as fitted for the office of counsellors to the Secretary of the present day. Recollect, I am, as is everybody else, entirely in the dark. No one knows who furnished advice as to the treaty, nor does any one know what is to be the law when it shall have been confirmed. Neither can any one tell how the errors that may now be made will be corrected. With a law regularly passed through both Houses of Congress, these difficulties could not arise. They are a natural consequence of this attempt to substitute the will of the Executive for that of the people, as expressed by the House of Representatives, and should, as I think, weigh strongly on the minds of Senators when called to vote upon the treaty. Their constituents have a right to see, and to discuss, the laws that are proposed before those laws are finally made, and whenever it is attempted, as in the present case, to stifle discussion, we may reasonably infer that wrong is about to be done. This is, I believe, the first case in which, on account of the unpopularity of the law proposed, it has been attempted to deprive the popular branch of Congress of its constitutional share in legislation, and if this be sanctioned it is difficult to see what other interests may not be subjected to similar action on the part of the Executive. In all such cases, it is the first step that is most difficult, and before making the one now proposed, you should, as I think, weigh well the importance of the precedent about to be established. No one can hold in greater respect than I do, the honorable gentleman who negotiated this treaty; but in thus attempting to substitute the executive will for legislative action, he seems to me to have made a grave mistake.

The facts or ideas contained in a book constitute its body. The language in which they are conveyed to the reader constitute the clothing of the body. For the first no copyright is allowed. Humboldt spent many years of his life in collecting facts relative to the southern portion of this continent; yet so soon as he gave them to the light they ceased to be his, and became the common property of all mankind. Captain Wilkes and his companions spent several years in exploring the Southern Ocean, and brought from there a vast amount of new facts, all of which became at once common property. Sir John Franklin made numerous expeditions to the North, during which he collected many facts of high importance, for which he had no copyright. So with Park, Burkhard, and others, who lost their lives in the exploration of Africa. Captain McClure has just accomplished the Northwest Passage, yet has he no exclusive right to the publication of the fact. So has it ever been. For thousands of years men like these-- working men, abroad and at home--have been engaged in the collection of facts; and thus there has been accumulated a vast body of them, all of which have become common property, while even the names of most of the men by whom they were collected have passed away. Next to these come the men who have been engaged in the arrangement of facts and in their comparison, with a view to deduce therefrom the laws by which the world is governed, and which constitute science. Copernicus devoted his life to the study of numerous facts, by aid of which he was at length enabled to give to the world a knowledge of the great fact that the earth revolved around the sun; but he had therein, from the moment of its publication, no more property than had the most violent of his opponents., The discovery of other laws occupied the life of Kepler, but he had no property in them. Newton spent many years of his life in the composition of his "Principia," yet in that he had no copyright, except for the mere clothing in which his ideas were placed before the world. The body was common property. So, too, with Bacon and Locke, Leibnitz and Descartes, Franklin, Priestley, and Davy, Quesnay, Turgot, and Adam Smith, Lamarck and Cuvier, and all other men who have aided in carrying science to the point at which it has now arrived. They have had no property in their ideas. If they labored, it was because they had a thirst for knowledge. They could expect no pecuniary reward, nor had they much reason even to hope for fame. New ideas were, necessarily, a subject of controversy; and cases are, even in our time, not uncommon, in which the announcement of an idea at variance with those commonly recorded has tended greatly to the diminution of the enjoyment of life by the man by whom it has been announced. The contemporaries of Harvey could scarcely be made to believe in the circulation of the blood. Mr. Owen might have lived happily in the enjoyment of a large fortune had he not conceived new views of society. These he gave to the world in the form of a book, that led him into controversy which has almost lasted out his life, while the effort to carry his ideas into effect has cost him his fortune. Admit that he had been right, and that the correctness of his views were now fully established, he would have in them no property whatever; nor would his books be now yielding him a shilling, because later writers would be placing them before the world in other and more attractive clothing. So is it with the books of all the men I have named. The copyright of the "Principia" would be worth nothing, as would be the case with all that Franklin wrote on electricity, or Davy on chemistry. Few now read Adam Smith, and still fewer Bacon, Leibnitz, or Descartes. Examine where we may, we shall find that the collectors of the facts and the producers of the ideas which constitute the body of books, have received little or no reward while thus engaged in contributing so largely to the augmentation of the common property of mankind.

Let us turn now, for a moment, to the producers of works of fiction. Sir Walter Scott had carefully studied Scottish and Border history, and thus had filled his mind with facts preserved, and ideas produced, by others, which he reproduced in a different form. He made no contribution to knowledge. So, too, with our own very successful Washington Irving. He drew largely upon the common stock of ideas, and dressed them up in a new, and what has proved to be a most attractive form. So, again, with Mr. Dickens. Read his "Bleak House" and you will find that he has been a most careful observer of men and things, and has thereby been enabled to collect a great number of facts that he has dressed up in different forms, but that is all he has done. He is in the condition of a man who had entered a large garden and collected a variety of the most beautiful flowers growing therein, of which he had made a fine bouquet. The owner of the garden would naturally say to him: "The flowers are mine, but the arrangement is yours. You cannot keep the bouquet, but you may smell it, or show it for your own profit, for an hour or two, but then it must come to me. If you prefer it, I am willing to pay you for your services, giving you a fair compensation for your time and taste." This is exactly what society says to Mr. Dickens, who makes such beautiful literary bouquets. What is right in the individual, cannot be wrong in the mass of individuals of which society is composed. Nevertheless, the author objects to this, insisting that he is owner of the bouquet itself, although he has paid no wages to the man who raised the flowers. Were he asked to do so, he would, as I shall show in another letter, regard it as leading to great injustice.

The historian would say: "Mr. Senator, if you persist in this course, you will never again see histories like mine. Here are hundreds of people scattered over the country, industriously engaged in disinterring facts relating to our early history. They are enthusiasts, and many of them are very poor. Some of them contrive to publish, in the form of books, the results of their researches, while others give them to the newspapers, or to the historical societies, and thus they are enabled to come before the world. Few people buy such things, and it not unfrequently happens that men who have spent their lives in the collection of important facts, waste much of their small means in giving them to an ungrateful nation. Nevertheless, they have their reward in the consciousness that they are thus enabling others to furnish the world with accurate histories of their country. I find them of infinite use. They are my hewers of wood and drawers of water, and they never look for payment for their labor. Deprive me of their services, and I shall be obliged to abandon the production of books, and return to the labors of my profession--and they will be deprived of fame, while the public will be deprived of knowledge."

The medical writer would say: "Mr. Senator, should you succeed in carrying out the idea with which you have commenced, you will, I fear, be the cause of great injury to our profession, and probably of great loss of life, for you will thereby arrest the dissemination of knowledge. We have, here and abroad, thousands of industrious and thoughtful men, more intent upon doing good than upon pecuniary profit, who give themselves to the study of particular diseases, furnishing the results to our journals, and not unfrequently publishing monographs of the highest value. The sale of these is always small, and their publication not unfrequently makes heavy drafts on the small means of their authors. Such men are of infinite use to me, for it is by aid of their most valuable labors that I have found myself enabled to prepare the numerous and popular works that I have given to the world. Look at them. There are several volumes of each, of which I sell thousands annually, to my great profit. Deprive me of the power to avail myself of the brains of the working men of the profession and my books will soon cease to be of any value, and I shall lose the large income now realized from them, while the public will suffer in their health by reason of the increased difficulty of disseminating information."

The professor would ask you to look at his lectures and satisfy yourself that they contained no single idea that had originated with himself. "How," he would ask, "could these valuable lectures have been produced, had I been deprived of the power to avail myself of the facts collected by the working-men, and the principles deduced from them by the thinkers of the world? I have no leisure to collect facts or analyze them. For many years past, these lectures have yielded me a large income, and so will they continue to do, provided I be allowed to do in future as in time past I have done, appropriate to my own use all the new facts and new ideas I meet with, crediting their authors or not as I find it best to suit my purpose. Abandon your idea, my dear sir; it cannot be carried out. The men who work, and the men who think, must content themselves with fame, and be thankful if the men who write books and deliver lectures do not appropriate to themselves the entire credit of the facts they use, and the ideas they borrow."

"Here, you will observe, you waive altogether the question of right which you so strongly enforce in regard to yourselves. It may be that you have reason; but if so, how do you yourselves stand in your relations with the great mass of human beings whose right to this common property is equal with your own? For thousands of years working men, collectors of facts and philosophers, have been contributing to the common stock, and the treasure accumulated is now enormously great; and yet the mass of mankind remain still ignorant, and are poor, depraved, and wretched, because ignorant. Under such circumstances, justice would seem to require of the legislator that he should sanction no measure tending to throw unnecessary difficulty in the way of the dissemination of knowledge. To do so, would be to deprive the many of the power to profit by their interest in the common property. To do so, would be to deprive the men who have contributed to the accumulation of this treasure of even the reward to which, as you admit, they justly may make a claim. If they are to be satisfied with fame, we must do nothing tending to limit the dissemination of their ideas, because to do so would be to limit their power to acquire fame. If they are to be satisfied with the idea of doing good to their fellow-men, we must avoid every thing tending to limit the knowledge of their discoveries, because to do so would be to deprive them of much of their small reward. The state of the matter is, as I conceive, as follows: On one side of you stand the contributors to the vast treasure of knowledge that mankind has accumulated, and is accumulating--men who have, in general, labored without fee or reward; on the other side of you stand the owners of this vast treasure, desirous to have it fashioned in a manner to suit their various tastes and powers, that all may be enabled to profit by its possession. Between them stand yourselves, middlemen between the producers and the consumers. It is your province to combine the facts and ideas, as does the manufacturer when he takes the raw materials of cloth, and, by the aid of the skill of numerous working men, past and present, elaborates them into the beautiful forms that so much gratify our eyes in passing through the Crystal Palace. For this service you are to be paid; but to enable you to receive payment you need the aid of the legislator, as the common law grants no more copyright for the form in which ideas are expressed than for the ideas themselves. In granting this aid he is required to see that, while he secures that you have justice, he does no injustice to the men who produce the raw material of your books, nor to the community whose common property it is. In granting it, he is bound to use his efforts to attain the knowledge needed for enabling him to do justice to all parties, and not to you alone. The laws which elsewhere govern the distribution of the proceeds of labor, must apply in your case with equal force. Looking at them, we see that, with the growth of population and of wealth, there is everywhere a tendency to diminution in the proportion of the product that is allowed to the men who stand between the producer and the consumer. In new settlements, trade is small and the shopkeeper requires large profits to enable him to live; and, while the consumer pays a high price, the producer is compelled to be content with a low one. In new settlements, the miller takes a large toll for the conversion of corn into flour, and the spinner and weaver take a large portion of the wool as their reward for converting the balance into cloth. Nevertheless, the shopkeeper, the miller, the spinner, and the weaver are poor, because trade is small. As wealth and population grow, we find the shopkeeper gradually reducing his charge, until from fifty it falls to five per cent.; the miller reducing his, until he finds that he can afford to give all the flour that is yielded by the corn, retaining for himself the bran alone; and the spinner and weaver contenting himself with a constantly diminishing proportion of the wool; and now it is that we find shopkeepers, millers, and manufacturers grow rich, while consumers are cheaply supplied because of the vast increase of trade. In your case, however, the course of proceeding has been altogether different. Half a century since, when our people were but four millions in number, and were poor and scattered, gentlemen like you were secured in the monopoly of their works for fourteen years, with a power of renewal for a similar term. Twenty years since, when the population had almost tripled, and their wealth had sixfold increased, and when the facilities of distribution had vastly grown, the term was fixed at twenty-eight years, with renewal to widow or children for fourteen years more. At the present moment, you are secured in a monopoly for forty-two years, among a population of twenty-six millions of people, certain, at the close of twenty years more, to be fifty millions and likely, at the close of another half century, to be a hundred millions, and with facilities, for the disposal of your products, growing at a rate unequaled in the world. With this vast increase of market, and increase of power over that market, the consumer should be supplied more cheaply than in former times; yet such is not the case. The novels of Mrs. Rowson and Charles B. Brown, and the historical works of Dr. Ramsay, persons who then stood in the first rank of authors, sold as cheaply as do now the works of Fanny Fern, the 'Reveries' of Ik Marvel, or the history of Mr. Bancroft; and yet, in the period that has since elapsed, the cost of publication has fallen probably twenty-five per cent. We have here an inversion of the usual order of things, and it is with these facts before us that you claim to have your monopoly extended over another thirty millions of people; in consideration of which, our people are to grant to the authors of foreign countries a monopoly of the privilege of supplying them with books produced abroad. This application strikes me as unwise. It tends to produce inquiry, and that will, probably, in its turn, lead rather to a reduction than an extension of your privileges. Can it be supposed that when, but a few years hence, our population shall have attained a height of fifty millions, with a demand for books probably ten times greater than at present, the community will be willing to continue to you a monopoly, during forty-two years, of the right of presenting a body that is common property, as compensation for putting it in a new suit of clothing? I doubt it much, and would advise you, for your own good, to be content with what you have. Aesop tells us that the dog lost his piece of meat in the attempt to seize a shadow, and such may prove to be the case on this occasion. So, too, may it be with the owners of patents. The discoverers of principles receive nothing, but those who apply them enjoy a monopoly created by law for their use. Everybody uses chloroform, but nobody pays its discoverer. The man who taught us how to convert India rubber into clothing has not been allowed even fame, while our courts are incessantly occupied with the men who make the clothing. Patentees and producers of books are incessantly pressing upon Congress with claims for enlargement of their privileges, and are thus producing the effect of inducing an inquiry into the validity of their claim to what they now enjoy. Be content, my friends; do not risk the loss of a part of what you have in the effort to obtain more."

The length of time for which the building should be thus granted would depend upon the number of persons that would be likely to use the rooms, and the prices they would be willing to pay. If lodgers were likely to be few and poor, a long time would be required to be given; but if, on the contrary, the community were so great and prosperous as to render it certain that all the rooms would be occupied every day in the year, and at such prices as would speedily repay the labor and skill that had been required, the time allowed would be short. Here, as we see, the course of things would be entirely different from that which is observed in regard to books, the monopoly of which has increased in length with the growth, in wealth and number, of the consumers, and is now attempted, by the aid of international copyright, to be extended over millions of men who are yet exempt from its operation.

"There are now living in Europe two very distinguished men, barons, both very eminent in their line, both known to the whole civilized world; one is Baron Rothschild, and the other Baron Humboldt; one distinguished for the accumulation of wealth, the other for the accumulation of knowledge. What are the possessions of the philosopher? Why, sir, I heard a gentleman whom I have seen here this afternoon, say that, on a recent visit to Europe, he paid his respects to that distinguished philosopher, and was admitted to an audience. He found him, at the age of 84 years, fresh and vigorous, in a small room, nicely sanded, with a large deal table uncovered in the midst of that room, containing his books and writing apparatus. Adjoining this, was a small bed-room, in which he slept. Here this eminent philosopher received a visitor from the United States. He conversed with him; he spoke of his works. 'My works,' said he, 'you will find in the adjoining library, but I am too poor to own a copy of them. I have not the means to buy a full copy of my own works.'"

After having furnished to the gentlemen who produce books more of the material of which books are composed than has ever been furnished by any other man, this illustrious man finds himself, at the close of life, altogether dependent on the bounty of the Prussian government, which allows him, as I have heard, less than five hundred dollars a year. In what manner, now, would Humboldt be benefited by international copyright? I know of none; but it is very plain to see that Dumas, Victor Hugo, and George Sand, might derive from it immense revenues. In confirmation of this view, I here ask you to review the names of the persons who urge most anxiously the change of system that is now proposed, and see if you can find in it the name of a single man who has done any thing to extend the domain of knowledge. I think you will not. Next look and see if you do not find in it the names of those who furnish the world with new forms of old ideas, and are largely paid for so doing. The most active advocate of international copyright is Mr. Dickens, who is said to realize ,000 per annum from the sale of works whose composition is little more than amusement for his leisure hours. In this country, the only attempt that has yet been made to restrict the right of translation is in a suit now before the courts, for compensation for the privilege of converting into German a work that has yielded the largest compensation that the world has yet known for the same quantity of literary labor.

We are constantly told that regard to the interests of science requires that we should protect and enlarge the rights of authors; but does science make any such claim for herself? I doubt it. Men who make additions to science know well that they have, and can have, no rights whatever. Cuvier died very poor, and all the copyright that could have been given to him or Humboldt would not have enriched either the one or the other. Laplace knew well that his great work could yield him nothing. Our own Bowditch translated it as a labor of love, and left by his will the means required for its publication. The gentlemen who advocate the interests of science are literary men who use the facts and ideas furnished by scientific men, paying nothing for their use. Now, literature is a most honorable profession, and the gentlemen engaged in it are entitled not only to the respect and consideration of their fellow-men, but also to the protection of the law; but in granting it, the legislator is bound to recollect, that justice to the men who furnish the raw materials of books, and justice to the community that owns those raw materials, require that protection shall not, either in point of space or time, be greater than is required for giving the producer of books a full and fair compensation for his labor. How the present system operates in regard to English and American authors, I propose to consider in another letter.

We are assured that justice requires the admission of foreign authors to the privilege of copyright, and in support of the claim that she presents are frequently informed of the extreme poverty of many highly popular English writers. Mrs. Inchbald, so well known as author of the "Simple Story" and other novels, as well as in her capacity of editor, dragged on, as we are told, to the age of sixty, a miserable existence, living always in mean lodgings, and suffering frequently from want of the common comforts of life. Lady Morgan, so well known as Miss Owenson, a brilliant and accomplished woman, is now to some extent dependent upon the public charity, administered in the form of a pension of less than five hundred dollars a year. Mrs. Hemans, the universally admired poetess, lived and died in poverty. Laman Blanchard lost his senses and committed suicide in consequence of being compelled, by his extreme poverty, to the effort of writing an article for a periodical while his wife lay a corpse in the house. Miss Mitford, so well known to all of us, found herself, after a life of close economy, so greatly reduced as to have been under the necessity of applying to her American readers for means to extricate her little property from the rude hands of the sheriff. Like Lady Morgan, she is now a public pensioner. Leigh Hunt is likewise dependent on the public charity. Tom Hood, so well known by his "Song of a Shirt"--the delight of his readers, and a mine of wealth to his publishers; a man without vices, and of untiring industry--lived always from day to day on the produce of his labor. On his death-bed, when his lungs were so worn with consumption that he could breathe only through a silver tube, he was obliged to be propped up with pillows, and, with shaking hand and dizzy head, force himself to the task of amusing his readers, that he might thereby obtain bread for his unhappy wife and children. With all his reputation, Moore found it difficult to support his family, and all the comfort of his declining years was due to the charity of his friend, Lord Lansdowne. In one of his letters from Germany, Campbell expresses himself transported with joy at hearing that a double edition of his poems had just been published in London. "This unexpected fifty pounds," says he, "saves me from jail." Haynes Bayley died in extreme poverty. Similar statements are furnished us in relation to numerous others who have, by the use of their pens, largely contributed to the enjoyment and instruction of the people of Great Britain. It would, indeed, be difficult to find very many cases in which it had been otherwise with persons exclusively dependent on the produce of literary labor. With few and brilliant exceptions, their condition appears to have been, and to be, one of almost hopeless poverty. Scarcely any thing short of this, indeed, would induce the acceptance of the public charity that is occasionally doled out in the form of pensions on the literary fund.

This is certainly an extraordinary state of things, and one that makes to our charitable feelings an appeal that is almost irresistible. Nevertheless, before giving way to such feelings, it would be proper to examine into the real cause of all this poverty, with a view to satisfy ourselves if real charity would carry us in the direction now proposed. The skilful physician always studies the cause of disease before he determines on the remedy, and this course is quite as necessary in prescribing for moral as for physical disorder. Failing to do this, we might increase instead of diminishing the evil, and might find at last that we had been taxing ourselves in vain.

The "Edinburgh Review" has become to all intents and purposes an English journal, and "Blackwood" has lost all those characteristics by which it was in former times distinguished from the magazines published south of the Tweed.

Seeing these facts, we can scarcely fail to agree with the Review already quoted, in the admission that there are "probably fewer leading individual thinkers and literary guides in Scotland at present than at any other period of its history since the early part of the last century," since the day when Scotland itself lost its individuality. The same journal informs us that "there is now scarcely an instance of a Scotchman holding a learned position in any other country," and farther says that "the small number of names of literary Scotchmen known throughout Europe for eminence in literature and science is of itself sufficient to show to how great an extent the present race of Scotchmen have lost the position which their ancestors held in the world of letters."

How, indeed, could it be otherwise? Centralization tends to carry to London all the wealth and all the expenditure of the kingdom, and thus to destroy everywhere the local demand for books or newspapers, or for men capable of producing either. Centralization taxes the poor people of the north of Scotland, and their complaints of distress are answered by an order for their expulsion, that place may be made for sheep and shepherds, neither of whom make much demand for books. Centralization appropriates millions for the improvement of London and the creation of royal palaces and pleasure-grounds in and about that city, while Holyrood, and all other of the buildings with which Scottish history is connected, are allowed to go to ruin. Centralization gives libraries and museums to London, but it refuses the smallest aid to the science or literature of Scotland. Centralization deprives the people of the power to educate themselves, by drawing from them more than thirty millions of dollars, raised by taxation, and it leaves the professors in the colleges of Scotland in the enjoyment of chairs, the emoluments of many of which are but ,200 per annum. Whence, then, can come the demand for books, or the power to compensate the people who make them? Not, assuredly, from the mass of unhappy people who occupy the Highlands, whose starving condition furnishes so frequent occasion for the comments of their literary countrymen; nor, as certainly, from the wretched inhabitants of the wynds of Glasgow, or from the weavers of Paisley. Centralization is gradually separating the people into two classes--the very rich, who live in London, and the very poor, who remain in Scotland; and with the progress of this division there is a gradual decay in the feeling of national pride, that formerly so much distinguished the people of Scotland. The London "Leader" tells its readers that "England is a power made up of conquests over nationalities;" and it is right. The nationality of Scotland has disappeared; and, however much it may annoy our Scottish friends to have the energetic and intelligent Celt sunk in the "slow and unimpressible" Saxon, such is the tendency of English centralization, everywhere destructive of that national feeling which is essential to progress in civilization.

Passing towards England we may for a moment look to Wales, and then, if we desire to find the effects of centralization and its consequent absenteeism, in neglected schools, ignorant teachers, decaying and decayed churches, and drunken clergymen with immoral flocks, our object will be accomplished by studying the pages of the "Edinburgh Review" In such a state of things as is there described there can be little tendency to the development of intellect, and little of either ability or inclination to reward the authors of books. In my next, I will look to England herself.

Arrived in England, we find there everywhere the same tendency towards centralization. Of the 200,000 small landed proprietors of the days of Adam Smith but few remain, and of even those the number is gradually diminishing. Great landed estates have everywhere absentees for owners, agents for managers, and day laborers for workmen. The small landowner was a resident, and had a personal interest in the details of the neighborhood, not now felt by either the owner or the laborer. This state of things existed to a considerable extent five-and-thirty years ago, but it has since grown with great rapidity. At that time Great Britain could exhibit to the world perhaps as large a body of men and women of letters, with world-wide reputation, as ever before existed in any country or nation, as will be seen from the following list:--

Byron, Wilson, Clarkson, Moore, Hallam, Landor, Scott, Roscoe, Wellington, Wordsworth, Malthus, Robert Hall, Rogers, Ricardo, Taylor, Campbell, Mill, Romilly, Joanna Baillie, Chalmers, Edgeworth, Southey, Coleridge, Hannah More, Gifford, Heber, Dalton, Jeffrey, Bentham, Davy, Sydney Smith, Brown, Wollaston, Brougham, Mackintosh, The Herschels, Horner, Stewart, Dr. Clarke.

DeQuincey was then just coming on the stage. Crabbe, Shelley, Keats, Croly, Hazlitt, Lockhart, Lamb, Hunt, Galt, Lady Morgan, Miss Mitford, Horace Smith, Hook, Milman, Miss Austen, and a host of others, were already on it. Many of these appear to have received rewards far greater than fall now to the lot of some of the most distinguished literary men. Crabbe is said to have received 3,000 guineas, or ,000, for his "Tales of the Hall," and Theodore Hook 2,000 guineas for "Sayings and Doings," and, if the facts were so, they prove that poets and novelists were far more valued then than now. At that time, Croker, Barrow, and numerous other men of literary reputation co-operated with Southey and Gifford in providing for the pages of the "Quarterly." All these, men and women, were the product of the last century, when the small landholders of England yet counted by hundreds of thousands.

Since then, centralization has made great progress. The landholders now amount, as we are informed, to only 30,000, and the gulf which separates the great proprietor from the cultivator has gradually widened, as the one has become more an absentee and the other more a day laborer. The greater the tendency towards the absorption of land by the wealthy banker and merchant, or the wealthy cotton-spinner like Sir Robert Peel, the greater is the tendency towards its abandonment by the small proprietor, who has an interest in local self government, and the greater the tendency towards the centralization of power in London and in the great seats of manufacture. In all those places, it is thought that the prosperity of England is dependent upon "a cheap and abundant supply of labor." The "Times" assures its readers that it is "to the cheap labor of Ireland that England is indebted for all her great works;" and that note is repeated by a large portion of the literary men of England who now ask for protection in the American market against the effects of the system they so generally advocate.

The more the people of Scotland can be driven from the land to take refuge in Glasgow and Paisley, the cheaper must be labor. The more those of Ireland can be driven to England, the greater must be the competition in the latter for employment, and the lower must be the price of labor. The more the land of England can be centralized, the greater must be the mass of people seeking employment in London, Liverpool, Manchester, and Birmingham, and the cheaper must labor be.

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