arrangement with an American publisher at its first issue, secure the privileges and benefits of copyright. The second section contains a paragraph to which some exception may, we think, fairly be taken. It says:

"If an American publisher shall neg"lect, for the space of three months, to keep "the book so published by him on sale, or "obtainable at his publishing house, then it "may be imported or reprinted, the same as "might have been done before the passage of "this Act."

There is an element of sharp practice in this stipulation that seems to be a contradiction of the general principle of the proposed measure. The object to be attained is, as we take it, to secure the foreign author in what are now conceded to be his rights, and to place him on the same footing in the United States as in his own country, where no such restrictions are imposed. If a book is in large demand, it is true such a lapse in the production is not very likely to occur, and, therefore, the necessity for the proviso can scarcely exist. But it might happen that, where laborious revision is required by the author, or commercial embarrassments supervene on the part of the publisher, not to speak of many other possible temporary hindrances to the issue of a new edition, it would be most unjust to peril the copyright by enforcing so stringent and exceptional a rule. Before noticing further the terms of the bills we have above described, it may be well to observe that the conference was far from unanimous in adopting the last named measure. According to the Tribune "The whole body of Boston and Philadelphia publishers, as well as those of New York, had been invited. No one appeared from Philadelphia, the tradesmen of that city having declared themselves opposed to all international copyright; and only fifteen prominent city houses were represented, the Harpers and nearly all the school book publishers being absent. All the gentlemen in attendance were desirous of an international

copyright law, but their opinions differed widely as to its construction. Mr. W. H. Appleton presented the report of the Committee of five appointed to frame a bill, which was approved by all members of the committee with the exception of Mr. Seymour, of the firm of Charles Scribner & Co." From this statement we may safely conclude that the question of granting the foreign author the protection he demands at the hands of the American Government and people is still of very uncertain accomplishment. The dissenting member of the committee presented a minority report strongly combating several of the provisions of the bill, which he declared "was not an international copyright law at all, but an Act to protect American publishers such as they have no right to demand, and one that the British Government would not recognize as giving any claim to reciprocity." The report of the majority was adopted by nine to five, two delegates refusing to vote, and others, while favourable to the general principle, suggesting amendments. We now know, therefore, what is the utmost extent of the boon that, if Congress be not far more liberal than the traders most directly interested, the people of America may be expected at present to grant to the foreign authors-to whose labours they are so largely indebted, and for which they have hitherto paid so little.

It is strictly and exclusively an authors' copyright that is proposed to be conceded. But if, whilst offering a tardy measure of justice to the English author, the Bill erects a "Chinese wall" between the American and the foreign publisher in the interest of the latter, such a course is not without a certain degree of justification. At the conference we have just mentioned a letter was read from a number of eminent English authors in which a very strong argument was presented in favour of the position assumed by the American publishers. After expressing the opinion that the interests of the British author and those of the British publisher are

separate and distinct, and that they should be so regarded in any attempt at negotiation, the writers go on to say:-"Americans dis-, tinguish between the author, as producing the ideas, and the publisher, as producing the material vehicle by which these ideas are conveyed to readers. They admit the claim of the British author to be paid by them for his brain-work. The claim of the British book manufacturer to a monopoly of their book market they do not admit. To give the British author a copyright is simply to agree that the American publisher shall pay him for work done. To give the British publisher a copyright is to open the American market to him on terms which prevent the American publisher from competing. Without dwelling on the argument of the Americans that such an arrangement would not be free trade, but the negation of free trade, and merely noticing their further argument that, while their protective system raises the prices of all the raw materials, free competition with the British book manufacturer would be fatal to the American book manufacturer, it is clear that the Americans have strong reasons for refusing to permit the British publisher to share in the copyright which they are willing to grant to the British author." To this important document, amongst many other distinguished names, are appended those of John Stuart Mill, Herbert Spencer, Sir John Lubbock, G. A. Lewes, J. A. Froude, Thomas Carlyle, and John Morley.

The broadest application of free trade does not go further than to place the home and foreign producer on an equality. Its advocates certainly never demanded that the foreigner should be secured in a monopoly of the home market. The most practical argument, however, for the limitation of the right of protection to the author is the essential difference between the book manufacture of the two countries. The publisher in Great Britain manufactures for the libraries, the publisher of New York for the

people. The English are the greatest bookborrowers in the world, the Americans the most eager book-purchasers. To place the monopoly of the American market in foreign hands would be, it is argued, to ensure the introduction of a higher priced article (even leaving fiscal imposts out of consideration) thus circumscribing the sale and actually limiting the educational advantages derivable from a cheap literature. An objection to excluding the foreign publisher from copyright privileges has been put forward on the ground that, where the books contain expensive plates and illustrations, a considerable loss would be incurred by the production of duplicate editions. The author must suffer, it is said, if the initial expense of illustrations, setting up the type, and possibly stereotyping, is repeated in each country. As the ability of the publisher to pay the author depends on the margin of profit between the cost of production and the selling price, by doubling the former you reduce the chances of the author's remuneration. But is not the probability in favour of the author receiving more under such circumstances than he does at present? If the work is so unique in its costliness and beauty as to defy reproduction, it will carry on its face its own copyright; if, on the other hand, it can easily be reproduced and its illustrations imitated, even though perhaps coarsely, the author will receive all the benefit of the article being adapted to the foreign market and pushed with that energy the interest of the foreign publisher will induce him to bestow upon it. It may seem hard to the British publisher that he should be "left out in the cold" in these arrangements. But the bargain is not wholly one-sided. It is true that the American publishers will be the largest gainers, just as it is they who are making at the present time the largest payments, prompted on either side by a spirit of fair dealing and justice. With the author, however, lies the vested right in the commodity which is the object of negotiation; he is

entitled to make the best terms for himself that he can, and, with some modifications in detail, may be very well contented to accept such a measure as that before Congress. We have, lastly, to notice the position, in regard to international copyright, of the Dominion of Canada. The existing Copyright Law of the Dominion has been already mentioned, and we have incidentally referred, in passing, to the special arrangement by which American reprints of English works are allowed to be imported into this country. By the Act of 1847 (10 and 11 Vic., c. 95)| Her Majesty was enabled, by Order in Council, to suspend the enactment contained in the Copyright Act of 1842 against the importation into any part of Her Majesty's dominions of foreign reprints of English copyright works. But such Order in Council was not to be made as to any colony, &c., unless, by local legislation, such colony had, in the opinion of Her Majesty, so far as foreign reprints were concerned, made due provision for protecting the rights of British authors there. The Legislature of the Province of Canada at once passed an Act, still in force, admitting foreign reprints on payment of a duty of twelve and a half per cent. on the published price of the works, such duty to be paid over to the owners of the original copyright who might take the trouble to register their works in Canada as being entitled to share in the benefits of the Act. It has sometimes been contended that the Act of 1868 was an evidence of colonial selfishness, whilst, on the other hand, the wholesale introduction into Canada of reprints which paid the author nothing, was held to be a glaring illustration of the unfair advantage taken on this side the Atlantic of British authors and publishers. Certainly the Act of 1847, under which those reprints are admitted, is a most powerful argument in favour of such a measure as we have in our foregoing remarks been advocating. Here was, as we have seen, legislative sanction to a presumptive right on the part of the Am

ericans to reprint British books; but with it an acknowledgment of the paramount claim of the authors, as shown by the toll levied in their interest on the works the publishers, often without payment, had appropriated. But in practice the Act is all but a dead letter. The necessary steps to secure the exaction of the duty are seldom taken by the authors; there is no check on a slovenly or partial performance of its duties by the custom house; book parcels are generally mixed, and the number of copies of a particular work may be so small as hardly to repay the trouble of charging them with duty; and, lastly, it is idle to expect the Canadian publisher to be a ready assistant in carrying out the law in the face of the system prevailing on the other side of the line, to which we have been adverting. The Canadian Act of 1868 has been in certain cases invoked as a protection against the reprints. The validity of that statute, however, has not been tested, and a nice point might be raised as to whether it was competent for the Canadian Parliament, by its statute in 1868, to override the Act of the Provincial Assembly of 1847, with the consequent Imperial Order in Council, having itself the force of an Act, under which reprints were admitted. Canada has lately been promised, by certain American journals of bellicose tendencies, the exhilarating sensation of becoming a battle-ground for the settlement of a great international quarrel. She is already the battle-ground of British and American editions of works imported from either Great Britain or the United States, the former having lawfully paid the author for producing them, the latter possibly having paid nothing. Yet, if the American reprints do pay the twelve and a half per cent., and the originals only five per cent., the reprints win the day. The fiscal legislation of Canada is liberal enough, and no one can complain of a five per cent. ad valorem duty as a serious grievance. Under it there is an enormous importation of British books into the Dominion. The growth of the book

trade is one of the most remarkable and gratifying circumstances in the social history of the country. If the author desires to obtain copyright in Canada, the Act of 1868 gives it him. If Canada were geographically isolated, the British author need with her have literally no grievance. But Canada is not isolated; her relations with the neighbouring country are close and intimate, and it is simply a necessity that, in any negotiations between Great Britain and the United States on this question, the position of Canada towards the latter should be fully recognized.

We have said that the validity of the Act of 1868 may be called in question. The power to make laws affecting copyright is expressly conceded to the Dominion by the British North America Act of 1867. But it is contended by some that this would apply only to native productions, and can have no force against the Imperial Act of 1842, especially in a retroactive sense. If this view be correct, the Canadian publisher who reprints an English copyrighted work is liable to all the pains and penalties of the Act last mentioned, whilst he is compelled to see, under the authority of the joint legislation of Great Britain and Canada, American reprints, with which he could often successfully compete, flooding the country, and practically paying nothing, either in New York or at the frontier, for the privilege. The contrast is made all the broader by the fact that, in the very year (1868) which saw the Canadian publisher, as he imagined, protected by an Act of his own Parliament, another Act was passed at Ottawa giving the Executive power to increase the duty on American reprints to twenty per cent, which is just as much a dead letter as its predecessor of 1847.

Business ingenuity and energy, however, are generally equal to the occasion, and they are likely, in this instance, to solve the difficulty more promptly than appeals to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council. Nearly opposite to Montreal, on the Ameri

side of the boundary line, which there approaches very near to the St. Lawrence, lies Rouse's Point. At this place Mr. John Lovell, of Montreal, one of the most honourable of Canadian publishers, has set up a press and the other machinery and appliances needed for book printing. Thither he sends his types, prints the sheets of British copyright works, pays the twelve and a half per cent. duty on "American reprints at the custom house, and, having thus complied with an Act passed in the interest of the British author, can circulate the book in Canada with safety and profit. There has been some outcry at what is called this evasion of the law. We fail, however, to see the transaction in that light. It is more than probable that Mr. Lovell might print many of the books in question at Montreal and circulate them in Canada with impunity. We doubt much if, in the present anomalous state of legislation on this subject, a Canadian jury would sustain an action or prosecution against him. But he does well not to infringe upon any Act, local or imperial, that may be fairly construed to impose restrictions upon him and his confreres of the publishing trade. His arrangements appear to be not merely in honest compliance with the law, but posi tively advantageous to the British copyright holder. His experience tells him what style and price of book are best adapted to the Canadian market: the sale is, therefore, correspondingly large, and, on the whole, he pays a very fair royalty to the author or the author's representatives, not one dollar of which would they probably obtain if the books were imported into Canada by an American bookseller. It may be well for our countrymen at home to take this illustration of the effect of the present state of the law into very serious consideration. What Mr. Lovell is doing at Rouse's Point a Toronto publisher may do at Buffalo or elsewhere. We may depend upon it that the Americans will offer all possible facilities for arrangements that bring any class of productive in.