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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 14295 ***
+
+LETTERS
+
+ON
+
+INTERNATIONAL COPYRIGHT:
+
+BY
+
+H. C. CAREY,
+
+AUTHOR OF "PRINCIPLES OF SOCIAL SCIENCE," ETC. ETC.
+
+SECOND EDITION.
+
+NEW YORK:
+
+PUBLISHED BY HURD AND HOUGHTON,
+
+459 BROOME STREET.
+
+1868.
+
+RIVERSIDE, CAMBRIDGE:
+
+PRINTED BY H. O. HOUGHTON AND COMPANY.
+
+
+
+
+
+PREFACE.
+
+
+At the date, now fourteen years since, of the first publication of these
+letters, the important case of authors _versus_ readers--makers of books
+_versus_ consumers of facts and ideas--had for several years been again
+on trial in the high court of the people. But few years previously the
+same plaintiffs had obtained a verdict giving large extension of _time_ to
+the monopoly privileges they had so long enjoyed. Not content therewith,
+they now claimed greater _space_, desiring to have those privileges so
+extended as to include within their domain the vast population of the
+British Empire. To that hour no one had appeared before the court on the
+part of the defendants, prepared seriously to question the plaintiffs'
+assertion to the effect that literary property stood on the same precise
+footing, and as much demanded perpetual and universal recognition, as
+property in a house, a mine, a farm, or a ship. As a consequence of
+failure in this respect there prevailed, and most especially throughout
+the Eastern States, a general impression that there was really but one
+side to the question; that the cause of the plaintiffs was that of truth;
+that in the past might had triumphed over right; that, however doubtful
+might be the expediency of making a decree to that effect, there could be
+little doubt that justice would thereby be done; and that, while rejecting
+as wholly _inexpedient_ the idea of perpetuity, there could be but slight
+objection to so far recognizing that of universality as to grant to
+British authors the same privileges that thus far had been accorded to our
+own.
+
+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.
+
+A thoroughly adverse popular will having thus been manifested, it was now
+determined to try the Senate, and here the chances for privilege were
+better. With a population little greater than that of Pennsylvania, the
+New England States had six times the Senatorial representation. With
+readers not a fifth as numerous as were those of Ohio, Carolina, Florida,
+and Georgia had thrice the number of Senators. By combining these
+heterogeneous elements the will of the people--so frequently and
+decidedly expressed--might, it was thought, be set aside. To that end,
+the Secretary of State, himself one of the plaintiffs, had negotiated the
+treaty then before the Senate, of the terms of which the defendants had
+been kept in utter ignorance, and by means of which the principle of
+taxation without representation was now to be established.
+
+Such was the state of affairs at the date at which, in compliance with the
+request of a Pennsylvania Senator, the author of these letters put on
+paper the ideas he had already expressed to him in conversation. By him
+and other Senators they were held to be conclusive, so conclusive that the
+plaintiffs were speedily brought to see that the path of safety, for the
+present at least, lay in the direction of abandoning the treaty and
+allowing it to be quietly laid in the grave in which it since has rested.
+That such should have been their course was, at the time, much regretted
+by the defendants, as they would have greatly preferred an earnest and
+thorough discussion of the question before the court. Had opportunity been
+afforded it _would_ have been discussed by one, at least, of the master
+minds of the Senate;[1] and so discussed as to have satisfied the whole
+body of our people, authors and editors, perhaps, excepted, that their
+cause was that of truth and justice; and that if in the past there had
+been error it had been that of excess of liberality towards the plaintiffs
+in the suit.
+
+   [Footnote 1: Senator Clayton of Delaware.]
+
+The issue that was then evaded is now again presented, eminent counsel
+having been employed, and the opening speech having just now been made.[2]
+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 $200,000; 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 $40,000, 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 $1000 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.
+
+   [Footnote 2: See _Atlantic Monthly_ for October.]
+
+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 $200,000 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.
+
+Such being the facts, and, that they are facts cannot be denied, let us
+now suppose a proposition to be made that, with a view to add one, two,
+three, or four thousand dollars to the annual income of ex-presidents, and
+ex-legislators, and half as much to that of the widows and children of
+distinguished officers, there should be established a general pension
+system, involving an expenditure of the public moneys, and consequent
+taxation, to the extent of ten or fifteen millions a year, and then
+inquire by whom it might be supported. Would any single one of the editors
+who are now so earnest in their appeals for further grants of privilege
+venture so to do? Would not the most earnest of them be among the first to
+visit on such a proposition the most withering denunciations? Judging from
+what, in the last two years, we have read in various editorial columns, we
+should say that they would be so. Would, however, any member of either
+house of Congress venture to commit himself before the world by offering
+such a proposition? We doubt it very much. Nevertheless it is now coolly
+proposed to establish a system that would not only tax the present
+generation as many millions annually, but that would grow in amount at a
+rate far exceeding the growth of population, doing this in the hope that
+future essayists might be enabled to count their receipts by half instead
+of quarter millions, and future novelists to collect abroad and at home
+the hundreds of thousands that, as we are assured, are theirs of _right_,
+and that are now denied them. When we shall have determined to grant to
+the widows and children of the men who in the last half dozen years have
+perished in the public service, some slight measure of justice, it may be
+time to consider that question, but until then it should most certainly be
+deferred.
+
+The most active and earnest of all the advocates of literary _rights_
+was, two years since, if the writer's memory correctly serves him, the
+most thorough and determined of all our journalists in insisting on the
+prompt dismissal of thousands and tens of thousands of men who, at their
+country's call, had abandoned the pursuits and profits of civil life. Did
+he, however, ever propose that they should be allowed any extra pay on
+which to live, and by means of which to support their wives and children,
+in the interval between discharge from military service and
+re-establishment in their old pursuits? Nothing of the kind is now
+recollected. Would he now advocate the enactment of a law by means of
+which the widow and children of a major-general who had fallen on the
+field should, so far as pay was concerned, be placed on a level with an
+ordinary police officer? He might, but that he would do so could not with
+any certainty be affirmed. She and they would, nevertheless, seem to have
+claims on the consideration of American men and women fully equal to those
+of the authoress of "Lady Audley's Secret," already, as she is understood
+to be, in the annual receipt from this country of more than thrice the
+amount of the widow's pension, in addition to tens of thousands at home.[1]
+
+   [Footnote 1: The London correspondent of Scribner and Co.'s "_Book
+   Buyer_" says that Miss Braddon's first publisher, Mr. Tinsley (who died
+   suddenly last year), called the elegant villa he built for himself at
+   Putney "Audley House," in grateful remembrance of the "Lady" to whose
+   "Secret" he was indebted for fortune; and Miss Braddon herself, through
+   her man of business, has recently purchased a stately mansion of Queen
+   Anne's time, "Litchfield House," at Richmond.]
+
+It is, however, as we are gravely told, but ten per cent. that she asks,
+and who could or should object to payment of such a pittance? Not many,
+perhaps, if unaccompanied by monopoly privleges that would _multiply the
+ten by ten and make it an hundred!_ Alone, the cost to our readers might
+not now exceed an annual million. Let Congress then pass an act
+appropriating that sum to be distributed among foreign authors whose works
+had been, or might be republished here. _That_ should have the writer's
+vote, but he objects, and will continue to object, to any legislative
+action that shall tend towards giving to already "great and wealthy"
+publishing houses the _nine_ millions that they certainly will charge for
+collecting the single _one_ that is to go abroad.
+
+"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.
+
+On all former occasions Northern advocates of literary monopolies assured
+us that it was in that direction, and in that alone, we were to look for
+the cheapening of books. Now, nothing of this sort is at all pretended. On
+the contrary, we are here told of the extreme impropriety of a system
+which makes it necessary for a New England essayist to accept a single
+dollar for a volume that under other circumstances would sell for half a
+guinea; of the wrong to such essayists that results from the issue of
+cheap "periodicals made up of selections from the reviews and magazines of
+Europe;" of the "abominable extravagance of buying a great and good novel
+in a perishable form for a few cents;" of the increased accessibility of
+books by the "masses of the people" that must result from increasing
+prices; and of the greatly increased facility with which circulating
+libraries may be formed whensoever the "great and wealthy houses" shall
+have been given power to claim from each and every reader of Dickens's
+novels, as their share of the monopoly profits, thrice as much as he now
+pays for the book itself! This, however, is only history repeating itself
+with a little change of place, the argument of to-day, coming from the
+North, being an almost exact repetition of that which, twenty years since,
+came from the South--from the mouths of men who rejoiced in the fact
+that no newspapers were published in their districts, and who well _knew_
+that the way towards preventing the dissemination of knowledge lay in the
+direction of granting the monopoly privileges that had been asked. The
+anti-slavery men of the present thus repeat the argument of the
+pro-slavery men of the past, extremes being thus brought close together.
+
+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:
+
+  "We have so long enjoyed the advantage of unrestricted competition in the
+  production of the works of the best English writers of the past, that we
+  can hardly realize what our position would have been had the right to
+  produce Shakespeare, or Milton, or Goldsmith, or any of our great classic
+  writers, been monopolized by any one publishing-house,--certainly we
+  should never have seen a shilling Shakespeare, or a half-crown Milton;
+  and Shakespeare, instead of being, as he is,' familiar in our mouths as
+  household words,' would have been known but to the scholar and the
+  student. We are far from condemning an enlightened system of copyright,
+  and have not a word to say in favor of unreasoning competition; but we do
+  think that publishers and authors often lose sight of their own interest
+  in adhering to a system of high prices and restricted sale. Tennyson's
+  works supply us with a case in point--here, to possess a set of
+  Tennyson's poems, a reader must pay something like 38_s_. or 40_s_.--in
+  Boston you may buy a magnificent edition of all his works in two volumes
+  for something like 15_s_., and a small edition for some four or five
+  shillings. The result is the purchasers in England are numbered by
+  hundreds, in America by thousands. In Germany we have almost a parallel
+  case. There the works of the great German poets, of Schiller, of Goethe,
+  of Jean Paul, of Wieland, and of Herder, are at the present time 'under
+  the protecting privileges of the most illustrious German Confederation,'
+  and, by special privilege, the exclusive property of the Stuttgart
+  publishing firm of J. G. Cotta. On the forthcoming 9th of November this
+  monopoly will cease, and all the works of the above-mentioned poets will
+  be open to the speculation of German publishers generally. It may be
+  interesting to our readers to learn the history of these peculiar legal
+  restrictions, which have so long prevailed in the German booktrade, and
+  the results likely to follow from their removal.
+
+  "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 (on the
+  reconstruction of Germany in the year 1815) 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.
+
+  "It was to be expected that the firm of J. G. Cotta, favored until now
+  with so valuable a monopoly, would make all possible exertions not to be
+  surpassed in the coming battle of the Publishers, though it is a somewhat
+  curious sight to see this haughty house, after having used its privileges
+  to the last moment, descend now suddenly from its high monopolistic stand
+  into the arena of competition, and compete for public favor with its
+  plebeian rivals. Availing itself of the advantage which the monopoly
+  hitherto attached to it naturally gives it, the house has just commenced
+  issuing a cheap edition of the German classics, under the title
+  'Bibliothek für Alle. Meisterwerke deutscher Classiker,' in weekly parts,
+  6 cts. each; containing the selected works of Schiller, at the price of
+  75 cts., and the selected works of Goethe, at the price of $1.50. And
+  now, just as the monopoly is gliding from their hands, the same firm
+  offers, in a small 16mo edition, Schiller's complete works, 12 vols.,
+  for 75 cts.
+
+  "Another publisher, A. H. Payne, of Leipzig, announces a complete edition
+  of Schiller's works, including some unpublished pieces, for 75 cts.
+
+  "Again, the well-known firm of F. A. Brockhaus holds out a prospectus of
+  a corrected critical edition of the German poets of the eighteenth and
+  nineteenth century, which we have every reason to believe will merit
+  success. A similar enterprise is announced, just now, by the
+  Bibliographical Institution of Hildburghausen, under the title,
+  'Bibliothek der deutschen Nationalliteratur,' edited by Heinr. Kurz, in
+  weekly parts of 10 sheets, at the price of 12 cts. each. Even an
+  illustrated edition of the Classics will be presented to the public, in
+  consequence of the expiration of the copyright. The Grotesche
+  Buchhandlung, of Berlin, is issuing the 'Hausbibliothek deutscher
+  Classiker,' with wood-cut illustrations by such eminent artists as
+  Richter, Thumann, and others; and the first part, just published,
+  containing Louise, by Voss, with truly artistic illustrations, has met
+  with general approbation. But, above all, the popular edition of the
+  poets, issued by G. Hempel, of Berlin, under the general title of
+  'National Bibliothek sämmtlicher deutscher Classiker,' 8vo. in parts, 6
+  cts. each, seems destined to surpass all others in popularity, though not
+  in merit. _Of the first part (already published), containing Bürger's
+  Poems, 300,000 copies have been sold, and 150,000 subscribers' names have
+  been registered for the complete series. This immense sale, unequalled in
+  the annals of the German book-trade, will certainly induce many other
+  publishers to embark in similar enterprises._"--Trübner's _Literary
+  Record_, Oct. 1867.
+
+Judging from this, there will, five years hence, be a million of families
+in possession of the works of Schiller, Bürger, Goethe, Herder and others,
+that thus far have been compelled to dispense with their perusal. Sad to
+think, however, they will be of those cheap editions now so much despised
+by American advocates of monopoly privileges! How much better for the
+German people would it not have been had their Parliament recognized the
+perpetuity of literary _rights_, and thus enabled the "great and wealthy
+house" of Cotta and Co. to carry into full effect the idea that their own
+editions should alone be published, thereby adding other millions to the
+very many of which they already are the owners!
+
+At this moment a letter from Mr. Bayard Taylor advises us that German
+circulating libraries impede the sale of books; that the circulation of
+even highly popular works is limited within 20,000; and that, as a
+necessary consequence, German authors are not paid so well as of right
+they should be.[1] This, however, is precisely the state of things that,
+as we are now assured, should be brought about in this country, prices
+being raised, and readers being driven to the circulating library by
+reason of the deficiency of the means required for forming the private
+one. It is the one that _would_ be brought about should our authors,
+unhappily for themselves, succeed in obtaining what is now demanded.
+
+   [Footnote 1: New York _Tribune_, Nov. 29]
+
+The day has passed, in this country, for the recognition of either
+perpetuity or universality of literary _rights_. The wealthy Carolinian,
+anxious that books might be high in price, and knowing well that monopoly
+privileges were opposed to freedom, gladly cooperated with Eastern authors
+and publishers, anti-slavery as they professed to be. The enfranchised
+black, on the contrary, desires that books may be cheap, and to that end
+he and his representatives will be found in all the future co-operating
+with the people of the Centre and the West in maintaining the doctrine
+that literary _privileges_ exist in virtue of grants from the people who
+own the materials out of which books are made; that those privileges have
+been perhaps already too far extended; that there exists not even a shadow
+of reason for any further extension; and that to grant what now is asked
+would be a positive wrong to the many millions of consumers, as well as an
+obstacle to be now placed in the road towards civilization.
+
+The amount now paid for public service under our various governments is
+more than, were it fairly distributed, would suffice for giving proper
+reward to all. Unfortunately the _distribution_ is very bad, the largest
+compensation generally going to those who render the smallest service. So,
+too, is it with regard to literary employments; and so is it likely to
+continue throughout the future. Grant all that now is asked, and the
+effect will be seen in the fact, that of the vastly increased taxation
+ninety per cent. will go to those who work for money alone, and are
+already overpaid, leaving but little to be added to the rewards of
+conscientious men with whom their work is a labor of love, as is the case
+with the distinguished author of the "History of the Netherlands."
+
+Twenty years ago, Macaulay advised his literary friends to be content,
+believing, as he told them, that the existing "wholesome copyright" was
+likely to "share in the disgrace and danger" of the more extended one
+which they then so much desired to see created. Let our authors reflect on
+this advice! Success now, were it possible that it should be obtained,
+would be productive of great danger in the already not distant future. In
+the natural course of things, most of our authorship, for many years to
+come, will be found east of the Hudson, most of the buyers of books,
+meanwhile, being found south and west of that river. International
+copyright will give to the former limited territory an absolute monopoly
+of the business of republication, the then great cities of the West being
+almost as completely deprived of participation therein as are now the
+towns and cities of Canada and Australia. On the one side, there will be
+found a few thousand persons interested in maintaining the monopolies that
+had been granted to authors and publishers, foreign and domestic. On the
+other, sixty or eighty millions, tired of taxation and determined that
+books shall be more cheaply furnished. War will then come, and the
+domestic author, sharing in the "disgrace and danger" attendant upon his
+alliance with foreign authors and domestic publishers, may perhaps find
+reason to rejoice if the people fail to arrive at the conclusion that the
+last extension of _his own privileges_ had been inexpedient and should be
+at once recalled. Let him then study that well-known fable of Aesop
+entitled "The Dog and the Shadow," and take warning from it!
+
+The writer of these Letters had no personal interest in the question
+therein discussed. Himself an author, he has since gladly witnessed the
+translation and republication of his works in various countries of Europe,
+his sole reason for writing them having been found in a desire for
+strengthening the many against the few by whom the former have so long, to
+a greater or less extent, been enslaved. To that end it is that he now
+writes, fully believing that the _right_ is on the side of the consumer of
+books, and not with their producers, whether authors or publishers.
+Between the two there is, however, a perfect harmony of all real and
+permanent interests, and greatly will he be rejoiced if he shall have
+succeeded in persuading even some few of his literary countrymen that such
+is the fact, and that the path of safety will be found in the direction of
+letting well enough alone.
+
+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.
+
+PHILADELPHIA,_
+Dec_. 1867.
+
+
+
+
+
+LETTERS
+
+ON
+
+INTERNATIONAL COPYRIGHT.
+
+
+
+
+
+LETTER I.
+
+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.
+
+In the claim now made in behalf of English authors, there is great
+apparent justice; but that which is not true, often puts on the appearance
+of truth. For thousands of years, it seemed so obviously true that the sun
+revolved around the earth that the fact was not disputed, and yet it came
+finally to be proved that the earth revolved around the sun. Ricardo's
+theory of the occupation of the earth, the foundation-stone of his system,
+had so much apparent truth to recommend it, that it was almost universally
+adopted, and is now the basis of the whole British politico-economical
+system; and yet the facts are directly the reverse of what Ricardo had
+supposed them to be. Such being the case, it might be that, upon a full
+examination of the subject, we should find that, in admitting the claim of
+foreign authors, we should be doing injustice and not justice. The English
+press has, it is true, for many years been engaged in teaching us that we
+were little better than thieves or pirates; but that press has been so
+uniformly and unsparingly abusive of us, whenever we have failed to grant
+all that it has claimed, that its views are entitled to little weight. At
+home, many of our authors have taken the same side of the question; and
+the only answer that has ever, to my knowledge, been made, has been, that
+if we admitted the claims of foreign authors, the prices of books would be
+raised, and the people would be deprived of their accustomed supplies of
+cheap literature--as I think, a very weak sort of defense. If nothing
+better than this can be said, we may as well at once plead guilty to the
+charge of piracy, and commence a new and more honest course of action.
+Evil may not be done that good may come of it, nor may we steal an
+author's brains that our people may be cheaply taught. To admit that the
+end justifies the means, would be to adopt the line of argument so often
+used by English speakers, in and out of Parliament, when they defend the
+poisoning of the Chinese people by means of opium introduced in defiance
+of their government, because it furnishes revenue to India; or that which
+teaches that Canada should be retained as a British colony, because of the
+facility it affords for violation of our laws; or that which would have us
+regard smugglers, in general, as the great reformers of the age. We stand
+in need of no such morality as this. We can afford to pay for what we
+want; but, even were it otherwise, our motto here, and everywhere, should
+be the old French one: "_Fais ce que doy, advienne que pourra_"--Act
+justly, and leave the result to Providence. Before acting, however, we
+should determine on which side justice lies. Unless I am greatly in error,
+it is not on the side of international copyright. My reasons for this
+belief will now be given.
+
+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.
+
+For what, then, is copyright given? For the clothing in which the body is
+produced to the world. Examine Mr. Macaulay's "History of England" and you
+will find that the body is composed of what is common property. Not only
+have the facts been recorded by others, but the ideas, too, are derived
+from the works of men who have labored for the world without receiving,
+and frequently without the expectation of receiving, any pecuniary
+compensation for their labors. Mr. Macaulay has read much and carefully,
+and he has thus been enabled to acquire great skill in arranging and
+clothing his facts; but the reader of his books will find in them no
+contribution to positive knowledge. The works of men who make
+contributions of that kind are necessarily controversial and distasteful
+to the reader; for which reason they find few readers, and never pay their
+authors. Turn now to our own authors, Prescott and Bancroft, who have
+furnished us with historical works of so great excellence, and you will
+find a state of things precisely similar. They have taken a large quantity
+of materials out of the common stock, in which you, and I, and all of us
+have an interest; and those materials they have so reclothed as to render
+them attractive of purchasers; but this is all they have done. Look to Mr.
+Webster's works, and you will find it the same. He was a great reader. He
+studied the Constitution carefully, with a view to understand what were
+the views of its authors, and those views he reproduced in different and
+more attractive clothing, and there his work ended. He never pretended, as
+I think, to furnish the world with any new ideas; and if he had done so,
+he could have claimed no property in them. Few now read the heavy volumes
+containing the speeches of Fox and Pitt. They did nothing but reproduce
+ideas that were common property, and in such clothing as answered the
+purposes of the moment. Sir Robert Peel did the same. The world would now
+be just as wise had he never lived, for he made no contribution to the
+general stock of knowledge. The great work of Chancellor Kent is, to use
+the words of Judge Story, "but a new combination and arrangement of old
+materials, in which the skill and judgment of the author in the selection
+and exposition, and accurate use of those materials, constitute the basis
+of his reputation, as well as of his copyright." The world at large is the
+owner of all the facts that have been collected, and of all the ideas that
+have been deduced from them, and its right in them is precisely the same
+that the planter has in the bale of cotton that has been raised on his
+plantation; and the course of proceeding of both has, thus far, been
+precisely similar; whence I am induced to infer that, in both cases, right
+has been done. When the planter hands his cotton to the spinner and the
+weaver, he does not say, "Take this and convert it into cloth, and keep
+the cloth;" but he does say, "Spin and weave this cotton, and for so doing
+you shall have such interest in the cloth as will give you a fair
+compensation for your labor and skill, but, when that shall have been
+paid, _the cloth will be mine_." This latter is precisely what society,
+the owner of facts and ideas, says to the author: "Take these raw
+materials that have been collected, put them together, and clothe them
+after your own fashion, and for a given time we will agree that nobody
+else shall present them in the same dress. During that time you may
+exhibit them for your own profit, but at the end of that period the
+clothing will become common property, as the body now is. It is to the
+contributions of your predecessors to our common stock that you are
+indebted for the power to make your book, and we require you, in your
+turn, to contribute towards the augmentation of the stock that is to be
+used by your successors." This is justice, and to grant more than this
+would be injustice.
+
+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.
+
+
+
+
+
+LETTER II.
+
+Let us suppose, now, that you should move, in the Senate, a resolution
+looking to the establishment of the exclusive right of making known the
+facts, or ideas, that might be brought to light, and see what would be the
+effect. You would, as I think, find yourself at once surrounded by the
+gentlemen who dress up those facts and ideas, and issue them in the form
+of books. The geographer would say to you: "My dear sir, this will never
+do. Look at my book, and you will see that it is drawn altogether from the
+works of others, many of whom have sunk their fortunes, while others have
+lost their lives, in pursuit of the knowledge that I so cheaply give the
+world. You will find there the essence of the works of Humboldt, and of
+Wilkes. All of Franklin's discoveries are there, and I am now waiting only
+for the appearance of McClure's voyage in the Arctic regions to give a new
+edition of my book. Reflect, I beseech you, upon what you are about to do.
+Very few persons have leisure to read, or means to pay for the books of
+these travellers. A few hundred copies are sufficient to satisfy the
+demand, and then their works die out. Of mine, on the contrary, the sale
+is ten, fifteen, or twenty thousand annually, and thus is knowledge
+disseminated throughout the world, enabling the men who furnish me with
+facts to reap _a rich harvest of never dying fame_. Grant them a copyright
+to the new ideas they may supply to the world, and at once you put a stop
+to the production of such books as mine, to my great injury and to the
+loss of mankind at large. Facts and ideas are common property, and their
+owners, the public, have a right to use them as they will."
+
+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."
+
+The teacher of natural science would say: "My friend, have you reflected
+on what you are about to do? Look at our collections, and see how they
+have been enlarged within the last half century. Asia and Africa, and the
+islands of the Southern Ocean, have been traversed by indefatigable men
+who, at the hazard of life, and often at the cost of fortune, have
+quadrupled our knowledge of vegetable and animal life. Such men do not ask
+for compensation of any kind. They are willing to work for nothing. Why,
+then, not let them? Look at the vast contributions to geological knowledge
+that have been made throughout the Union by men who were content with a
+bare support, and glad to have the results of their labors published, as
+they have been, at the public cost. Such men ask no copyright. When they
+publish, it is almost always at a loss. Wilson lived and died poor. So did
+Audubon, to whose labors we are indebted for so much ornithological
+knowledge. Morton expended a large sum in the preparation and publication
+of his work on crania. Agassiz did the same with his great work on fishes.
+Cuvier had nothing but fame to bequeath to his family. Lamarck's great
+work on the _invertebratae_ sold so slowly that very many years elapsed
+before the edition was exhausted; but he would have found his reward had
+he lived to see his ideas appropriated without acknowledgment, and
+reclothed by the author of 'Vestiges of Creation,' of which the sale has
+been so large. This, my friend, is the use for which such men as Lamarck
+and Cuvier were intended. They collect and classify the facts, and we
+popularize them to our own profit. Look at my works and see, bulky as they
+are, how many editions have been printed, and think how profitable they
+must have been to the publisher and myself. Look further, and see how
+numerous are the books to which my labors have indirectly given birth. See
+the many school-books in relation to botany and other departments of
+natural science, the authors of which know little of what they undertake
+to teach, except what they have drawn from me and others like myself.
+Again, see how numerous are the 'Flora's Emblems,' and the 'Garlands of
+Flowers,' and the 'Flora's Dictionaries,' and how large is their sale--
+and how large must be the profits of those engaged in their production. To
+recognize in such men as Cuvier and Lamarck the existence of any right to
+either their facts or their deductions would be an act of great injustice
+towards the race of literary men, while most inexpedient as regards the
+world at large, now so cheaply supplied with knowledge. As regards the
+question of international copyright now before the Senate, my views are
+different. Several of my books have been published abroad, and my
+publisher here tells me, that to prevent the republication of others he is
+obliged to supply them cheaply for foreign markets, and thus am I deprived
+of a fair and just reward for my labors. Copyright should be universal and
+eternal, and such, I am persuaded, will be the result at which you will
+arrive when you shall have thoroughly studied the subject."
+
+Having studied it, and having given full consideration to the views that
+they and others had presented, your answer would probably be to the
+following effect: "It is clear, gentlemen, from your own showing, that
+there are two distinct classes of persons engaged in the production of
+books--the men who furnish the body, and those who dress it up for
+production before the world. The first class are generally poor, and
+likely to continue so. They labor without any view to pecuniary advantage.
+They are, too, very generally helpless. Animated to their work solely by a
+desire to penetrate into the secrets of nature the character of their
+minds unfits them for mixing in a money-getting world, while you are
+always in that world, ready to enforce your claims to its consideration.
+As a consequence of this, they are rarely allowed even the credit that is
+due to them. Their discoveries become at once common property, to be used
+by men like yourselves, and for your own individual profit. We have here
+among ourselves a gentleman who has given to astronomy a new and highly
+important law essential to the perfection of the science, the discovery of
+which has cost him the labor of a life, as a consequence of which he is
+poor and likely so to remain. Important as was his discovery, his name is
+already so completely forgotten that there is probably not a single one
+among you that can now recall it, and yet his law figures in all the
+recent books. Is this right? Has _he_ no claim to consideration?"
+
+"In answer, you will say, that 'to admit the existence of any such rights
+is not only impossible, but _inexpedient_, even were it possible.
+Knowledge advances by slow and almost imperceptible steps, and each is but
+the precursor of a new and more important one. Were each discoverer of a
+new truth to be authorized to monopolize the teaching of it millions of
+men, to whom, by our aid, it is communicated, would remain in ignorance of
+it, and thus would farther advance be prevented. In all times past, such
+truths have been regarded as common property; and so,' you will add, 'they
+must continue to be regarded. Rely upon it, the best interests of society
+require that such shall continue to be the case, however great the
+apparent injustice to the discoverer.'
+
+"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 question is often asked: Why should a man not have the same claim to
+the perpetual enjoyment of his book that his neighbor has in regard to the
+house he has built? The answer is, that the rights of the parties are
+entirely different. The man who builds a house quarries the stone and
+makes the bricks of which it is composed, or he pays another for doing it
+for him. When finished, his house is all, materials and workmanship, his
+own. The man who makes a book uses the common property of mankind, and all
+he furnishes is the workmanship. Society permits him to use its property,
+but it is on condition that, after a certain time, the whole shall become
+part of the common stock. To find a parallel case, let it be supposed that
+liberal men should, out of their earnings, place at the disposal of the
+people of your town stone, bricks, and lumber, in quantity sufficient to
+find accommodation for hundreds of people that were unable to provide for
+themselves; next suppose that in this state of things your authorities
+should say to any man or men, "Take these materials, and procure lime in
+quantity sufficient to build a house; employ carpenters, bricklayers, and
+architects, and then, in consideration of having found the lime and the
+workmanship, you shall have a right to charge your own price to every
+person who may, for all times, desire to occupy a room in it "; would this
+be doing justice to the men who had given the raw materials for public
+use? Would it be doing justice to the community by which they had been
+given? Would it not, on the contrary, be the height of injustice?
+Unquestionably it would, and it would raise a storm that would speedily
+displace the men who had thus abused their trust. Their successors would
+then say: "Messrs.---- our predecessors, did what they had no right to
+do. These materials are common property. They were given without fee or
+reward, with a view to benefit the whole people of our town, many of whom
+are badly accommodated, while others are heavily taxed for helping those
+who are unable to help themselves. To carry out the views of the
+benevolent men to whom we are indebted for all these stone, bricks, and
+lumber, they must remain common property. You may, if you will, convert
+them into a house, and, in consideration of the labor and skill required
+for so doing, we will grant you, during a certain time, the privilege of
+letting the rooms, at your own price, to those who desire to occupy them;
+but at the close of that time the building must become common property, to
+be disposed of as we please." This is exactly what the community says to
+the gentlemen who employ themselves in converting its common property into
+books, and to say more would be doing great injustice.
+
+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.
+
+The people of this country own a vast quantity of wild land, which by slow
+degrees acquires a money value, that value being due to the contributions
+of thousands and tens of thousands of people who are constantly making
+roads towards them, and thus facilitating the exchange of such commodities
+as may be raised from them. These lands are common property, but the whole
+body of their owners has agreed that whenever any one of their number
+desires to purchase out the interest of his partners he may do so at $1.25
+per acre. They do not _give_ him any of the common property; they require
+him to purchase and pay for it.
+
+With authors they pursue a more liberal course. They say: "We have
+extensive fields in which hundreds of thousands of men have labored for
+many centuries. They were at first wild lands, as wild as those of the
+neighborhood of the Rocky Mountains, but this vast body of laborers has
+felled the trees and drained the swamps, and has thus removed nearly all
+the difficulties that stood opposed to profitable cultivation. They have
+also' opened mines of incalculable richness; mines of gold, silver, lead,
+copper, iron, and other metals, and all of these are common property. The
+men who executed these important works were our slaves, ill fed, worse
+clothed, and still worse lodged; and thousands of the most laborious and
+useful of them have perished of disease and starvation. Great as are the
+improvements already made, their number is constantly increasing, for we
+continue to employ such slaves--active, intelligent, and useful men--
+in extending them, and scarcely a day elapses that does not bring to light
+some new discovery, tending greatly to increase the value of _our common
+property_. We invite you, gentlemen, to come and cultivate these lands and
+work these mines. They are free to all. During the long period of
+forty-two years you shall have the whole product of your labor, and all we
+shall ask of you, at the close of that period, will be that you leave
+behind the common property of which we are now possessed, increased by the
+addition of such machinery as you may yourselves have made. The corn that
+you may have extracted, and the gold and silver that you may have mined
+during that long period, will be the property of yourselves, your wives,
+and your children. We charge no rent for the use of the lands, no wages
+for the labor of our slaves." Not satisfied with this, however, the
+persons who work these rich fields and mines claim to be absolute owners,
+not only of all the gold and silver they extract, but of all the machinery
+they construct out of the common property; and out of this claim grows the
+treaty now before the Senate.
+
+If justice requires the admission of foreigners to the enjoyment of a
+monopoly of the sale of their books it should be conceded at once to all,
+and it should be declared that no book should be printed here without the
+consent of its author, let him be Englishman, Frenchman, German, Russian,
+or Hindoo. This would certainly greatly increase the difficulty now
+existing in relation to the dissemination of knowledge; but if justice
+does require it let it be done. Would it, however, benefit the men who
+have real claims on our consideration? Let us see. A German devotes his
+life to the study of the history of his country, and at length produces a
+work of great value, but of proportional size. Real justice says that his
+work may not be used without his permission; that the facts he has brought
+to light from among the vast masses of original documents he has examined
+are his property, and can be published by none others but himself. The
+legislation, whose aid is invoked in the name of justice by literary men,
+speaks, however, very differently. It says: "This work is very cumbrous.
+To establish his views this man has gone into great detail. If translated,
+his book will scarcely sell to such extent as to pay the labor. The facts
+are common property. Out of this book you can make one that will be much
+more readable, and that will sell, for it will not be of more than one
+third the size. Take it, then, and extract all you need, and you will do
+well. You will have, too, another advantage. Translation confers no
+reputation; but an _original_ work, such as I now recommend to you, will
+give you such a standing as may lead you on to fortune. Few people know
+any thing of the original work, and it will not be necessary for you to
+mention that all your materials are thence derived." On the other hand, a
+lady who has read the work of this poor German finds in it an episode that
+she expands into a novel, which sells rapidly, and she reaps at home a
+large reward for her labors; while the man who gave her the idea starves
+in a garret. A literary friend of the lady novelist, delighted with her
+success, finds in his countrywoman's treasury of facts the material for a
+poem out of which he, too, reaps a harvest. Both of these are protected by
+international copyright, _because they have furnished nothing but the
+clothing of ideas;_ but the man who supplied them with the ideas finds
+that his book is condensed abroad, and given to the public, perhaps,
+without even the mention of his name.
+
+The whole tendency of the existing system is to give the largest reward to
+those whose labors are lightest, and the smallest to those whose labors
+are most severe; and every extension of it must necessarily look in that
+direction. The "Mysteries of Paris" were a fortune to Eugene Sue, and
+"Uncle Tom's Cabin" has been one to Mrs. Stowe. Byron had 2,000 guineas
+for a volume of "Childe Harold," and Moore 3,000 for his "Lalla Rookh;"
+and yet a single year should have more than sufficed for the production of
+any one of them. Under a system of international copyright, Dumas, already
+so largely paid, would be protected, whereas Thierry, who sacrificed his
+sight to the gratification of his thirst for knowledge, would not.
+Humboldt, the philosopher _par excellence_ of the age, would not, because
+he furnishes his readers with things, and not with words alone. Of the
+books that record his observations on this continent, but a part has, I
+believe, been translated into English, and of these but a small portion
+has been republished in this country, although to be had without claim for
+copyright. In England their sale has been small, and can have done little
+more than pay the cost of translation and publication. Had it been
+required to pay for the privilege of translation, but a small part of
+even those which have been republished would probably have ever seen the
+light in any but the language of the author. This great man inherited a
+handsome property which he devoted to the advancement of science, and what
+has been his pecuniary reward may be seen in the following statement,
+derived from an address recently delivered in New York:--
+
+"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 $70,000 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.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+LETTER III.
+
+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.
+
+What is claimed by English authors is perpetuity and universality of
+property in the clothing they supply for the body that is furnished to the
+world by other and unpaid men; and an examination of the course of
+proceeding in that country for the last century and a half shows that each
+step that has been taken has been in that direction. While denying to the
+producers of facts and ideas any right whatsoever, every act of
+legislation has tended to give more and more control over their
+dissemination to men who appropriated them to their own use, and brought
+them in an attractive form before the reader. Early in the last century
+was passed an act well known as the Statute of Queen Anne, giving to
+authors fourteen years as the period during which they were to have a
+monopoly of the peculiar form of words they chose to adopt in coming
+before the world. The number of persons then living in England and Wales,
+and subjected to that monopoly, was about five millions. Since that time
+the field of its operation has been enlarged, until it now embraces not
+only England and Wales, but Scotland, Ireland, and the British colonies,
+containing probably thirty-two millions of people who use the English
+language. The time, too, has been gradually extended until it now reaches
+forty-two years, or thrice the period for which it was originally granted.
+Nevertheless, no life is more precarious than that of an Englishman
+dependent upon literary pursuits for support. Such men are almost
+universally poor, and leading men among them, Tennyson and Sir Francis
+Head for instance, gladly accept the public charity, in the form of
+pensions for less than five hundred dollars a year. This is not a
+consequence of limitation in the field of action, for that is six times
+greater than it was when Gay netted £1,600 from a single opera, and Pope
+received £6,000 for his "Homer;" five times greater than when Fielding had
+£1,000 for his "Amelia;" and four times more than when Robertson had
+£4,500 for his "Charles V.," Gibbon £5,000 for the second part of his
+history, and McPherson £1,200 for his "Ossian."[1] Since that time money
+has become greatly more abundant and less valuable; and if we desired to
+compare the reward of these authors with those of the present day, the
+former should be trebled in amount, which would give Robertson more than
+sixty thousand dollars for a work that is comprised in three 8vo. volumes
+of very moderate size. It is not a consequence of limitation of time, for
+that has grown from fourteen to forty-two years--more than is required
+for any book except, perhaps, one in five or ten thousand. It should not
+be a consequence of poverty in the nation, for British writers assure us
+that wealth so much abounds that wars are needed to prevent its too rapid
+growth, and that foreign loans are indispensable for enabling the people
+of Britain to find an outlet for all their vast accumulations. What, then,
+is the cause of disease? Why is it that in so wealthy a nation literary
+men and women are so generally poor that it should be required to bring
+their poverty before the world, to aid in the demand for an extension to
+other countries of the monopoly so well secured at home? In that country
+the fortunes of wealthy men count by millions, and, that being the case,
+an average contribution of a shilling a head towards paying for the
+copyright of books, would seem to be the merest trifle to be given in
+return for the pleasure and the instruction derived from the perusal of
+the works of English authors, and yet even that small sum does not appear
+to be paid. Thirty-two millions of shillings make almost eight millions of
+dollars; a sum sufficient to give to six hundred authors more than
+thirteen thousand dollars a year, being more than half the salary of the
+chief magistrate of our Union. Admitting, however, that there were a
+thousand authors worthy to be paid, and that would most certainly cover
+them all, it would give to each eight thousand dollars, or one third more
+than we have been accustomed to allow to men who have devoted their lives
+to the service of the public, and have at length risen to be Secretaries
+of State. If English authors were thus largely paid, it would be deemed an
+absurdity to ask an enlargement of their monopoly; but, as they are not
+thus paid, it is asked. There is probably but a single literary man in
+England that receives $8,000 a year for his labors, and it may be doubted
+if it would be possible to name ten whose annual receipts equal $6,000;
+while those of a vast majority of them are under $1,500, and very many of
+them greatly under it. Even were we to increase the number of authors to
+fifteen hundred, one to every 4,000 males between the ages of 20 and 60 in
+the kingdom, and to allow them, on an average, $2,000 per annum, it would
+require but three millions of dollars to pay them, and that could be done
+by an average contribution of five pence per head of the population, a
+wonderfully small amount to be paid for literary labor by a nation
+claiming to be the wealthiest in the world. A shilling a head would give
+to the whole fifteen hundred salaries nearly equal to those of our
+Secretaries; and yet we see clever and industrious men, writers of
+eminence whose readers are to be found in every part of the civilized
+world, living on in hopeless poverty, and dying with the knowledge that
+they are leaving widows and children to the "tender mercies" of a world in
+which they themselves have shone and starved. Viewing all these facts, it
+may, I think, well be doubted if the annual contributions of the people
+subject to the British copyright act for the support of the persons who
+produce their books, much exceeds three pence, or six cents, per head; and
+here it is that we are to find the real difficulty--one not to be
+removed by us. The home market is the important one, whether for words or
+things, and when that is bad but little benefit can be derived from any
+foreign one; and every effort to extend the latter will, under such
+circumstances, be found to result in disappointment. It can act only as a
+plaster to conceal the sore, while the sore itself becomes larger and more
+dangerous from day to day. To effect a cure, the sore itself must be
+examined and its cause removed. To cure the disease so prevalent among
+British authors we must first seek for the causes why the home market for
+the products of their labor is so very small, and that will be found in
+the steadily growing tendency towards centralization, so obvious in every
+part of the operations of the British empire. Centralization and
+civilization have in all countries, and at all periods of the world, been
+opposed to each other, and that such is here the case can, I think,
+readily be shown.
+
+   [Footnote 1: The several figures here given are from a statement in a
+   British journal. Whether they are perfectly accurate, or not, I have no
+   means of determining.]
+
+Among the earliest cases in which this tendency was exhibited was that of
+the Union by which the kingdom of Scotland was reduced to the condition of
+a province of England, and Edinburgh, from being the capital of a nation,
+to becoming a mere provincial town. By many and enlightened Scotchmen a
+federal union would have been preferred; but a legislative one was formed,
+and from that date the whole public revenue of Scotland tended towards
+London, towards which tended also, and necessarily, all who sought for
+place, power, or distinction. An absentee government produced, of course,
+absentee landholders, and with each step in this direction there was a
+diminution in the demand at home for talent, which thenceforward sought a
+market in the great city to which the rents were sent. The connection
+between the educated classes of Scotland and the Scottish seats of
+learning tended necessarily to decline, while the connection between the
+former and the universities of England became more intimate. These results
+were, of course, gradually produced, but, as is the case with the stone as
+it falls towards the earth, the attraction of centralization grew with the
+growth of the city that was built out of the contributions of distant
+provinces, while the counteracting power of the latter as steadily
+declined, and the greater the decline the more rapid does its progress now
+become. Seventy years after the date of the Union, Edinburgh was still a
+great literary capital, and could then offer to the world the names of
+numerous men of whose reputation any country of the world might have been
+proud: Burns and McPherson; Robertson and Hume; Blair and Kames; Reid,
+Smith, and Stewart; Monboddo, Playfair, and Boswell; and numerous others,
+whose reputation has survived to the present day. Thirty-five years later,
+its press furnished the world with the works of Jeffrey and Brougham;
+Stewart, Brown, and Chalmers; Scott, Wilson, and Joanna Baillie; and with
+those of many others whose reputation was less widely spread, among whom
+were Galt, Hogg, Lockhart, and Miss Ferrier, the authoress of "Marriage."
+The "Edinburgh Review" and "Blackwood's Magazine," then, to a great
+extent, represented Scottish men, and Scottish modes of thought. Looking
+now on the same field of action, it is difficult, from this distance, to
+discover more than two Scottish authors, Alison and Sir William Hamilton,
+the latter all "the more conspicuous and remarkable, as he now," says the
+"North British Review" (Feb. 1853), "stands so nearly alone in the ebb of
+literary activity in Scotland, which has been so apparent during this
+generation." McCulloch and Macaulay were both, I believe, born in
+Scotland, but in all else they are English. Glasgow has recently presented
+the world with a new poet, in the person of Alexander Smith, but, unlike
+Ramsay and Burns, there is nothing Scottish about him beyond his place of
+birth. "It is not," says one of his reviewers, "Scottish scenery, Scottish
+history, Scottish character, and Scottish social humor, that he represents
+or depicts. Nor is there," it continues, "any trace in him of that feeling
+of intense nationality so common in Scottish writers. London," as it adds,
+"a green lane in Kent, an English forest, an English manorhouse, these are
+the scenes where the real business of the drama is transacted."[1]
+
+   [Footnote 1: _North British Review_, Aug. 1863.]
+
+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." [1]
+
+   [Footnote 1: _North British Review_, May, 1853.]
+
+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 $1,200 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[1] 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.
+
+   [Footnote 1: See Blackwood's Magazine, Sept. 1853, art. "Scotland since
+   the Union."]
+
+Looking to Ireland, we find a similar state of things. Seventy years
+since, that country was able to insist upon and to establish its claim for
+an independent government, and, by aid of the measures then adopted, was
+rapidly advancing. From that period to the close of the century the demand
+for books for Ireland was so great as to warrant the republication of a
+large portion of those produced in England. The _kingdom_ of Ireland of
+that day gave to the world such men as Burke and Grattan, Moore and
+Edgeworth, Curran, Sheridan, and Wellington. Centralization, however,
+demanded that Ireland should become a province of England, and from that
+time famines and pestilences have been of frequent occurrence, and the
+whole population is now being expelled to make room for the "slow and
+unimpressible" Saxon race. Under these circumstances, it is matter of
+small surprise that Ireland not only produces no books, but that she
+furnishes no market for those produced by others. Half a century of
+international copyright has almost annihilated both the producers and the
+consumers of books.
+
+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" [2] 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.
+
+   [Footnote 2: April, 1853, art. "The Church in the Mountains."]
+
+
+
+
+
+LETTER IV.
+
+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,[1]
+   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.
+
+
+   [Footnote 1: Wellington's dispatches place him in the first rank of
+    historians.]
+
+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 $15,000, 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."[1] 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.
+
+   [Footnote 1: _North British Review_, November, 1852.]
+
+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.
+
+Low-priced laborers cannot exercise self-government. All they earn is
+required for supplying themselves with indifferent food, clothing, and
+lodging, and they cannot control the expenditure of their wages to such
+extent as to enable them to educate their children, and hence it is that
+the condition of the people of England is as here described:--
+
+"About one half of our poor can neither read nor write. The test of
+signing the name at marriage is a very imperfect absolute test of
+education, but it is a very good relative one: taking that test, how
+stands Leeds itself in the Registrar-General's returns? In Leeds, which is
+the centre of the movement for letting education remain as it is, left
+entirely to chance and charity to supply its deficiencies, how do we find
+the fact? This, that in 1846, the last year to which these returns are
+brought down, of 1,850 marriages celebrated in Leeds and Hunslet, 508 of
+the men and 1,020 of the women, or considerably more than one half of the
+latter, signed their names with marks. 'I have also a personal knowledge
+of this fact--that of 47 men employed upon a railway in this immediate
+neighborhood, only 14 can sign their names in the receipt of their wages;
+and this not because of any diffidence on their part, but positively
+because they cannot write.' And only lately, the "Leeds Mercury" itself
+gave a most striking instance of ignorance among persons from Boeotian
+Pudsey: of 12 witnesses, 'all of respectable appearance, examined before
+the Mayor of Bradford at the court-house there, only one man could sign
+his name, and that indifferently.' Mr. Neison has clearly shown, in
+statistics of crime in England and Wales from 1834 to 1844, that crime is
+invariably the most prevalent in those districts where the fewest numbers
+in proportion to the population can read and write. Is it not, indeed,
+beginning at the wrong end to try and reform men after they have become
+criminals? Yet you cannot begin with children, from want of schools.
+Poverty is the result of ignorance, and then ignorance is again the
+unhappy result of poverty. 'Ignorance makes men improvident and
+thoughtless--women as well as men; it makes them blind to the future--
+to the future of this life as well as the life beyond. It makes them dead
+to higher pleasures than those of the mere senses, and keeps them down to
+the level of the mere animal. Hence the enormous extent of drunkenness
+throughout this country, and the frightful waste of means which it
+involves.' At Bilston, amidst 20,000 people, there are but two struggling
+schools--one has lately ceased; at Millenhall, Darlaston, and Pelsall,
+amid a teeming population, no school whatever. In Oldham, among 100,000,
+but one public day-school for the laboring classes; the others are an
+infant-school, and some dame and factory schools. At Birmingham, there are
+21,824 children at school, and 23,176 at no school; at Liverpool, 50,000
+out of 90,000 at no school; at Leicester, 8,200 out of 12,500; and at
+Leeds itself, in 1841 (the date of the latest returns), some 9,600 out of
+16,400 were at no school whatever. It is the same in the counties. 'I have
+seen it stated that a woman for some time had to officiate as clerk in a
+church in Norfolk, there being no adult male in the parish able to read
+and write.' For a population of 17,000,000 we have but twelve normal
+schools; while in Massachusetts they have three such schools for only
+800,000 of population."
+
+Poverty and ignorance produce intemperance and crime, and hence it is that
+both so much abound throughout England. Infanticide, as we are told,
+prevails to an extent unknown in any other part of the world. Looking at
+all these facts, we can readily see that the local demand for information
+throughout England must be very small, and this enables us to account for
+the extraordinary fact, that in all that country there has been no daily
+newspaper printed out of London. There is, consequently, no local demand
+for literary talent. The weekly papers that are published require little
+of the pen, but much of the scissors. The necessary consequence of this
+is, that every young man who fancies he can write, must go to London to
+seek a channel through which he may be enabled to come before the public.
+Here we have centralization again. Arrived in London, he finds a few daily
+papers, but only one, as we are told, that pays its expenses, and around
+each of them is a corps of writers and editors as ill-disposed to permit
+the introduction of any new laborers in their field as are the
+street-beggars of London to permit any interference with their "beat." If
+he desires to become contributor to the magazines, it is the same. To
+obtain the privilege of contributing his "cheap labor" to their pages, he
+must be well introduced, and if he make the attempt without such
+introduction he is treated with a degree of insolence scarcely to be
+imagined by any one not familiar with the "answers to correspondents" in
+London periodicals. If disposed to print a book he finds a very limited
+number of publishers, each one surrounded with his corps of authors and
+editors, and generally provided with a journal in which to have his own
+books well placed before the world. If, now, he succeeds in gaining
+favorable notice, he finds that he can obtain but a very small proportion
+of the price of his book, even if it sell, because centralization requires
+that all books shall be advertised in certain London journals that charge
+their own prices, and thus absorb the proceeds of no inconsiderable
+portion of the edition. Next, he finds the Chancellor of the Exchequer
+requiring a share of the proceeds of the book for permission to use paper,
+and further permission to advertise his work when printed.[1] Inquiring to
+what purpose are devoted the proceeds of all these taxes, he learns that
+the centralization which it is the object of the British cheap-labor
+policy to establish, requires the maintenance of large armies and large
+fleets which absorb more than all the profits of the commerce they
+protect. The bookseller informs him that he must take the risk of finding
+paper, and of paying the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and the "Times" and
+numerous other journals; that every editor will expect a copy; that the
+interests of science require that he, poor as he is, shall give no less
+than eleven copies to the public; and that the most that can be hoped for
+from the first edition is, that it will not bring him in debt. His book
+appears, but the price is high, for the reason that the taxes are heavy,
+and the general demand for books is small. Cheap laborers cannot buy
+books; soldiers and sailors cannot buy books; and thus does centralization
+diminish the market for literary talent while increasing the cost of
+bringing it before the world. Centralization next steps in, in the shape
+of circulating libraries, that, for a few guineas a year, supply books
+throughout the kingdom, and enable hundreds of copies to do the work that
+should be done by thousands, and hence it is that, while first editions of
+English works are generally small, so very few of them ever reach second
+ones. Popular as was Captain Marryat, his first editions were, as he
+himself informed me, for some time only 1,500, and had not then risen
+above 2,000. Of Mr. Bulwer's novels, so universally popular, the first
+edition never exceeded 2,500; and so it has been, and is, with others.
+With all Mr. Thackeray's popularity, the sale of his books has, I believe,
+rarely gone beyond 6,000 for the supply of above thirty millions of
+people. Occasionally, a single author is enabled to fix the attention of
+the public, and he is enabled to make a fortune--not from the sale of
+large quantities at low prices, but of moderate quantities at high prices.
+The chief case of the kind now in England is that of Mr. Dickens, who
+sells for twenty shillings a book that costs about four shillings and
+sixpence to make, and charges his fellow-laborers in the field of
+literature an enormous price for the privilege of attaching to his numbers
+the advertisements of their works, as is shown in the following paragraph
+from one of the journals of the day:--
+
+"Thus far, no writer has succeeded in drawing so large pecuniary profits
+from the exercise of his talents as Charles Dickens. His last romance,
+"Bleak House," which appeared in monthly numbers, had so wide a
+circulation in that form that it became a valuable medium for advertising,
+so that before its close the few pages of the tale were completely lost in
+sheets of advertisements which were stitched to them. The lowest price for
+such an advertisement was £1 sterling, and many were paid for at the rate
+of £5 and £6. From this there is nothing improbable in the supposition
+that, in addition to the large sum received for the tale, its author
+gained some £15,000 by his advertising sheets. The "Household Words"
+produces an income of about £4,000, though Dickens, having put it entirely
+in the hands of an assistant editor, has nothing to do with it beyond
+furnishing a weekly article. Through his talents alone he has raised
+himself from the position of a newspaper reporter to that of a literary
+Croesus."
+
+   [Footnote 1: The tax on advertisements has just now been repealed, but
+   that tax was a small one when compared with that imposed by
+   centralization.]
+
+Centralization produces the "cheap and abundant supply of labor" required
+for the maintenance of the British manufacturing system, and "cheap labor"
+furnishes Mr. Dickens with his "Oliver Twist," his "Tom-all-alone's," and
+the various other characters and situation by aid of whose delineation he
+is enabled, as a German writer informs us, to have dinners
+
+  "at which the highest aristocracy is glad to be present, and where he
+  equals them in wealth, and furnishes an intellectual banquet of wit and
+  wisdom which they, the highest and most refined circles, cannot
+  imitate."
+
+Centralization enables Mr. Dickens to obtain vast sums by advertising the
+works of the poor authors by whom he is surrounded, most of whom are not
+only badly paid, but insolently treated, while even of those whose names
+and whose works are well known abroad many gladly become recipients of the
+public charity. In the zenith of her reputation, Lady Charlotte Bury
+received, as I am informed, but £200 ($960) for the absolute copyright of
+works that sold for $7.50. Lady Blessington, celebrated as she was, had
+but from three to four hundred pounds; and neither Marryat nor Bulwer ever
+received, as I believe, the selling price of a thousand copies of their
+books as compensation for the copyright.[1] Such being the facts in regard
+to well-known authors, some idea may be formed in relation to the
+compensation of those who are obscure. The whole tendency of the "cheap
+labor" system, so generally approved by English writers, is to destroy the
+value of literary labor by increasing the number of persons who must look
+to the pen for means of support, and by diminishing the market for its
+products. What has been the effect of the system will now be shown by
+placing before you a list of the names of all existing British authors
+whose reputation can be regarded as of any wide extent, as follows:--
+
+
+   Tennyson,  Thackeray,  Grote,       McCulloch,
+   Carlyle,   Bulwer,     Macaulay,    Hamilton,
+   Dickens,   Alison,     J. S. Mill,  Faraday.
+
+
+   [Footnote 1: This I had from Captain Marryat himself.]
+
+This list is very small as compared with that presented in the same field
+five-and-thirty years since, and its difference in weight is still greater
+than in number. Scott, the novelist and poet, may certainly be regarded as
+the counterpoise of much more than any one of the writers of fiction in
+this list. Byron, Moore, Rogers, and Campbell enjoyed a degree of
+reputation far exceeding that of Tennyson. Wellington, the historian of
+his own campaigns, would much outweigh any of the historians. Malthus and
+Ricardo were founders of a school that has greatly influenced the policy
+of the world, whereas McCulloch and Mill are but disciples in that school.
+Dalton, Davy, and Wollaston will probably occupy a larger space in the
+history of science than Sir Michael Faraday, large, even, as may be that
+assigned to him.
+
+Extraordinary as is the existence of such a state of things in a country
+claiming so much to abound in wealth, it is yet more extraordinary that we
+look around in vain to see who are to replace even these when age or death
+shall withdraw them from the literary world. Of all here named,
+Mr. Thackeray is the only one that has risen to reputation in the last ten
+years, and he is no longer young; and even he seeks abroad that reward for
+his efforts which is denied to him by the "cheap labor" system at home. Of
+the others, nearly, if not quite all, have been for thirty years before
+the world, and, in the natural course of things, some of them must
+disappear from the stage of authorship, if not of life. If we seek their
+successors among the writers for the weekly or monthly journals, we shall
+certainly fail to find them. Looking to the Reviews, we find ourselves
+forced to agree with the English journalist, who informs his readers that
+"it is said, and with apparent justice, that the quarterlies are not as
+good as they were." From year to year they have less the appearance of
+being the production of men who looked to any thing beyond mere pecuniary
+compensation for their labor. In reading them we find ourselves compelled
+to agree with the reviewer who regrets to see that the centralization
+which is hastening the decline of the Scottish universities is tending to
+cause the mind of the whole youth of Scotland to be
+
+  "Cast in the mould of English universities, institutions which, from
+  their very completeness, exercise on second-rate minds an influence
+  unfavorable to originality and power of thought."--_North British
+  Review_, May 1853.
+
+Their pupils are, as he says, struck "with one mental die," than which
+nothing can be less favorable to literary or scientific development.
+
+Thirty years since, Sir Humphrey Davy spoke with his countrymen as
+follows:--
+
+  "There are very few persons who pursue science with true dignity; it is
+  followed more as connected with objects of profit than fame."--
+  _Consolation in Travel_.
+
+Since then, Sir John Herschel has said to them:--
+
+  "Here whole branches of continental study are unstudied, and indeed
+  almost unknown by name. It is in vain to conceal the melancholy truth.
+  We are fast dropping behind."--_Treatise on Sound_.
+
+A late writer, already quoted, says that learning is in disrepute. The
+English people, as he informs us, have
+
+  "No longer time or patience for the luxury of a learned treatment of
+  their interests; and a learned lawyer or statesmen, instead of being
+  eagerly sought for, is shunned as an impediment to public business."
+--_North British Review_.
+
+The reviewer is, as he informs us, "far from regarding this tendency,
+unfavorable as it is to present progress, as a sign of social
+retrogression." He thinks that
+
+  "Reference to general principles for rules of immediate action on the
+  part of those actually engaged in the dispatch of business, must, from
+  the delay which it necessarily occasions, come to be regarded as a
+  worse evil than action which is at variance with principle altogether."
+
+Demand tends to procure supply. Destroy the demand, and the supply will
+cease. Science, whether natural or social, is not in demand in Great
+Britain, and hence the diminution of supply. We have here the secret of
+literary and scientific decline, so obvious to all who study English books
+or journals, or read the speeches of English statesmen. Empiricism
+prevails everywhere, and there is a universal disposition to avoid the
+study of principles. The "cheap labor" system, which it is the object of
+the whole British policy to establish, cannot be defended on principle,
+and therefore principles are avoided. Centralization, cheap labor, and
+enslavement of the body and the mind, travel always in company, and with
+each step of their progress there is an increasing tendency towards the
+accumulation of power in the hands of men who should be statesmen, the
+difficulties of whose positions forbid, however, that they should refer to
+scientific principles for their government. Action must be had, and
+immediate action in opposition to principle is preferable to delay; and
+hence it is that real statesmen are "shunned as an impediment to public
+business." The greater the necessity for statesmanship, the more must
+statesmen be avoided. The nearer the ship is brought to the shoal, the
+more carefully must her captain avoid any reference to the chart. That
+such is the practice of those charged with the direction of the affairs of
+England, and such the philosophy of those who control her journals, is
+obvious to all who study the proceedings of the one or the teachings of
+the other. From year to year the ship becomes more difficult of
+management, and there is increasing difficulty in finding responsible men
+to take the helm. Such are the effects upon mind that have resulted from
+that "destruction of nationalities" required for the perfection of the
+British system of centralization.
+
+England is fast becoming one great shop, and traders have, in general,
+neither time nor disposition to cultivate literature. The little
+proprietors disappear, and the day laborers who succeed them can neither
+educate their children nor purchase books. The great proprietor is an
+absentee, and he has little time for either literature or science. From
+year to year the population of the kingdom becomes more and more divided
+into two great classes; the very poor, with whom food and raiment require
+all the proceeds of labor, and the very rich who prosper by the cheap
+labor system, and therefore eschew the study of principles. With the one
+class, books are an unattainable luxury, while with the other the absence
+of leisure prevents the growth of desire for their purchase. The sale is,
+therefore, small; and hence it is that authors are badly paid. In strong
+contrast with the limited sale of English books at home, is the great
+extent of sale here, as shown in the following facts: Of the octavo
+edition of the "Modern British Essayists," there have been sold in five
+years no less than 80,000 volumes. Of Macaulay's "Miscellanies," 3 vols.
+12mo., the sale has amounted to 60,000 volumes. Of Miss Aguilar's
+writings, the sale, in two years, has been 100,000 volumes. Of Murray's
+"Encyclopedia of Geography," more than 50,000 volumes have been sold, and
+of McCulloch's "Commercial Dictionary," 10,000 volumes. Of Alexander
+Smith's poems, the sale, in a few months, has reached 10,000 copies. The
+sale of Mr. Thackeray's works has been quadruple that of England, and that
+of the works of Mr. Dickens counts almost by millions of volumes. Of
+"Bleak House," in all its various forms--in newspapers, magazines, and
+volumes--it has already amounted to several hundred thousands of copies.
+Of Bulwer's last novel, since it was completed, the sale has, I am told,
+exceeded 35,000. Of Thiers's "French Revolution and Consulate," there have
+been sold 32,000, and of Montagu's edition of Lord Bacon's works 4,000
+copies.
+
+If the sales of books were as great in England as they are here, English
+authors would be abundantly paid. In reply it will be said their works are
+cheap here because we pay no copyright. For payment of the authors,
+however, a very small sum would be required, if the whole people of
+England could afford, as they should be able to do, to purchase books. A
+contribution of a shilling per head would give, as has been shown, a sum
+of almost eight millions of dollars, sufficient to pay to fifteen hundred
+salaries nearly equal to those of our Secretaries of State.
+Centralization, however, destroys the market for books, and the sale is,
+therefore, small; and the few successful writers owe their fortunes to the
+collection of large contributions made among a small number of readers;
+while the mass of authors live on, as did poor Tom Hood, from day to day,
+with scarcely a hope of improvement in their condition.
+
+Sixty years since, Great Britain was a wealthy country, abounding in
+libraries and universities, and giving to the world some of the best, and
+best paid, writers of the age. At that time the people of this country
+were but four millions, and they were poor, while unprovided with either
+books or libraries. Since then they have grown to twenty-six millions,
+millions of whom have been emigrants, in general arriving here with
+nothing but the clothing on their backs. These poor men have had every
+thing to create for themselves--farms, roads, houses, libraries,
+schools, and colleges; and yet, poor as they have been, they furnish now a
+demand for the principal products of English mind greater than is found at
+home. If we can make such a market, why cannot they? If they had such a
+market, would it not pay their authors to the full extent of their merits?
+Unquestionably it would; and if they see fit to pursue a system tending to
+cheapen the services of the laborer in the field, in the workshop, and at
+the desk, there is no more reason for calling upon the people of this
+country to make up their deficiencies towards those who contribute to
+their pleasure or instruction by writing books, than there would be in
+asking us to aid in supporting the hundreds of thousands of day laborers,
+their wives and children, whom the same system condemns, unpitied, to the
+workhouse.
+
+But, it will be asked, is it right that we should read the works of
+Macaulay, Dickens, and others, without compensation to the authors? In
+answer, it may be said, that we give them precisely what their own
+countrymen have given to their Dalton, Davy, Wollaston, Franklin, Parry,
+and the thousands of others who have furnished the bodies of which books
+are composed--and more than we ourselves give to the men among us
+engaged in cultivating science--fame. This, it will be said, is an
+unsubstantial return; yet Byron deemed it quite sufficient when he first
+saw an American edition of his works, coming, as it seemed to him, "from
+posterity." Miss Bremer found no small reward for her labors in knowing
+the high regard in which she was held; and it was no small payment when,
+even in the wilds of the West, she met with numerous persons who would
+gladly have her travel free of charge, because of the delight she had
+afforded them. Miss Carlen tells her readers that "of one triumph" she was
+proud. "It was," she says, "when I held in my hand, for the first time,
+one of my works, translated and published in America. My eyes filled with
+tears. The bright dreams of youth again passed before me. Ye Americans had
+planted the seed, and ye also approved of the fruit!" This is the feeling
+of a writer that cultivates literature with some object in view other than
+mere profit. It differs entirely from that of English authors, because in
+England, more than in any other country, book-making is a trade, carried
+on exclusively with a view to profit; and hence it is that the character
+of English books so much declines.
+
+But is it really true that foreign authors derive no pecuniary advantage
+from the republication of their books in this country? It is not. Mr.
+Macaulay has admitted that much of his reputation, and of the sale of his
+books at home, had been a consequence of his reputation here, where his
+Essays were first reprinted. At the moment of writing this, I have met
+with a notice of his speeches, first collected here, from which the
+following is an extract:--
+
+  "We owe much to America. Not content with charming us with the works of
+  her native genius, she teaches us also to appreciate our own. She steps
+  in between the timidity of a British author, and the fastidiousness of
+  the British public, and by using her' good offices' brings both parties
+  to a friendly understanding."--_Morning Chronicle_.
+
+If the people of England are largely indebted to America for being made
+acquainted with the merits of their authors, are not these latter also
+indebted to America for much of their pecuniary reward? Undoubtedly they
+are. Mr. Macaulay owes much of his fortune to American publishers,
+readers, and critics; and such is the case to perhaps a greater extent
+with Mr. Carlyle, whose papers were first collected here, and their merits
+thus made known to his countrymen. Lamb's papers of "Elia" were first
+collected here. It is to the diligence of an American publisher that De
+Quincey owes the publication of a complete edition of his works, now to be
+followed by a similar one in England. The papers of Professor Wilson owe
+their separate republication to American booksellers. The value of Mr.
+Thackeray's copyrights has been greatly increased by his reception here.
+So has it been with Mr. Dickens. All of those persons profit largely by
+their fame abroad, while the men who contribute to the extension of
+knowledge by the publication of facts and ideas never reap profit from
+their publication abroad, and are rarely permitted to acquire even fame.
+Godfrey died poor. The merchants of England gave no fortune to his
+children, and Hadley stole his fame. The people of that country, who
+travel in steam-vessels, have given to the family of Fulton no pecuniary
+reward, while her writers have uniformly endeavored to deprive him of the
+reputation which constituted almost the sole inheritance of his family.
+The whole people of Europe are profiting by the discovery of chloroform;
+but who inquires what has become of the family of its unfortunate
+discoverer? Nobody! The people of England profit largely by the
+discoveries of Fourcroy, Berzelius, and many other of the continental
+philosophers; but do those who manufacture cheap cloth, or those who wear
+it, contribute to the support of the families of those philosophers? Did
+they contribute to their support while alive? Certainly not. To do so
+would have been in opposition to the idea that the real contributors to
+knowledge should be "hewers of wood and drawers of water" for the
+gentlemen who dress up their facts and ideas in an attractive form and
+place them before the world in the form of cloth or books.
+
+We are largely indebted to the labors of literary men, and they should be
+well paid, but their claims to pecuniary reward have been much
+exaggerated, because they have held the pen and have had always a high
+degree of belief in their own deserts. Their right in the books they
+publish is precisely similar to, and no greater than, that of the man who
+culls the flowers and arranges the bouquets; and, when that is provided
+for, their books are entitled to become common property. English authors
+are already secured in a monopoly for forty-two years among a body of
+people so large that a contribution of a shilling a head would enable each
+and all of them to live in luxury; and if British policy prevents their
+countrymen from paying them, it is to the British Parliament they should
+look for redress, and not to our Executive. When they shall awaken to the
+fact that "cheap labor" with the spade, the plough, and the loom, brings
+with it necessarily "cheap labor" with the pen, they will become
+opponents, and cease to be advocates of the system under which they
+suffer. All that, in the mean time, we can say to them is, that we protect
+our own authors by giving them a monopoly of our own immense and rapidly
+growing market, and that if they choose to come and live among us we will
+grant them the same protection. We may now look to the condition of our
+own literary men.
+
+
+
+
+
+LETTER V.
+
+Our system is based upon an idea directly the reverse of the one on which
+rests the English system--that of decentralization; and we may now study
+its effects as shown in the development of literary tendencies and in the
+reward of authors.
+
+Centralization tends towards taxing the people for building up great
+institutions at a distance from those who pay the taxes; decentralization
+towards leaving to the people to tax themselves for the support of common
+and high schools in their immediate neighborhood. The first tends towards
+placing the man who has instruction to sell at a distance from those who
+need to buy it; while the other tends towards bringing the teacher to the
+immediate vicinity of the scholars, and thus diminishing the cost of
+education. The effects of the latter are seen in the fact that the new
+States, no less than the old ones, are engaged in an effort to enable all,
+without distinction of sex or fortune, to obtain the instruction needful
+for enabling them to become consumers of books, and customers to the men
+who produce them. Massachusetts exhibits to the world 182,000 scholars in
+her public schools; New York, 778,000 in the public ones, and 75,000 in
+the private ones; and Iowa and Wisconsin are laying the foundation of a
+system that will enable them, at a future day, to do as much. Boston taxes
+herself $365,000 for purposes of education, while Philadelphia expends
+more than half a million for the same purposes, and exhibits 50,000
+children in her public schools. Here we have, at once, a great demand for
+instructors, offering a premium on intellectual effort, and its effect is
+seen in the numerous associations of teachers, each anxious to confer with
+the others in regard to improvement in the modes of education. School
+libraries are needed for the children, and already those of New York
+exhibit about a million and a half of volumes. Books of a higher class are
+required for the teachers, and here is created another demand leading to
+the preparation of new and improved books by the teachers themselves. The
+scholars enter life and next we find numerous apprentices' libraries and
+mercantile libraries, producing farther demand for books, and aiding in
+providing reward for those to whom the world is indebted for them.
+Everybody must learn to read and write, and everybody _must_ therefore
+have books; and to this universality of demand it is due that the sale of
+those required for early education is so immense. Of the works of Peter
+Parley it counts by millions; but if we take his three historical books
+(price 75 cents each) alone, we find that it amounts to between half a
+million and a million of volumes. Of Goodrich's United States it has been
+a quarter of a million. Of Morse's Geography and Atlas (50 cents) the sale
+is said to be no less than 70,000 per annum. Of Abbott's histories the
+sale is said to have already been more than 400,000, while of Emerson's
+Arithmetic and Reader it counts almost by millions. Of Mitchell's several
+geographies it is 400,000 a year.
+
+In other branches of education the same state of things is seen to exist.
+Of the Boston Academy's collection of sacred music the sale has exceeded
+600,000; and the aggregate sale of five books by the same author has
+probably exceeded a million, at a dollar per volume. Leaving the common
+schools we come to the high schools and colleges, of which latter the
+names of no less than 120 are given in the American Almanac. Here again we
+have decentralization, and its effect is to bring within reach of almost
+the whole people a higher degree of education than could be afforded by
+the common schools. The problem to be solved is, as stated by a recent and
+most enlightened traveller, "How are citizens to be made thinking beings
+in the greatest numbers?" Its solution is found in making of the
+educational fabric a great pyramid, of which the common schools form the
+base and the Smithsonian Institute the apex, the intermediate places being
+filled with high schools, lyceums, and colleges of various descriptions,
+fitted to the powers and the means of those who need instruction. All
+these make, of course, demand for books, and hence it is that the sale of
+Anthon's series of classics (averaging $1) amounts, as I am told, to
+certainly not less than 50,000 volumes per annum, while of the "Classical
+Dictionary" of the same author ($4) not less than thirty thousand have
+been sold. Of Liddell and Scott's "Greek Lexicon" ($5), edited by Prof.
+Drisler, the sale has been not less than 25,000, and probably much larger.
+Of Webster's 4to. "Dictionary" ($6) it has been, I am assured, 60,000, and
+perhaps even 80,000; and of the royal 8vo. one ($3.50), 250,000. Of
+Bolmar's French school books not less than 150,00 volumes have been sold.
+The number of books used in the higher schools--text-books in
+philosophy, chemistry, and other branches of science--is exceedingly
+great, and it would be easy to produce numbers of which the sale is from
+five to ten thousand per annum; but to do so would occupy too much space,
+and I must content myself with the few facts already given in regard to
+this department of literature.
+
+Decentralization, or local self-government, tends thus to place the whole
+people in a condition to read newspapers, while the same cause tends to
+produce those local interests which give interest to the public journals,
+and induce men to purchase them. Hence it is that their number is so
+large. The census of 1850 gives it at 2,625; and the increase since that
+time has been very great. The total number of papers printed can scarcely
+be under 600,000,000, which would give almost 24 for every person, old and
+young, black and white, male and female, in the Union. But recently the
+newspaper press of the United Kingdom was said to require about 160,000
+reams of paper, which would give about 75,000,000 of papers, or two and a
+half per head.
+
+The number of daily papers was returned at 350, but it has greatly
+increased, and must now exceed four hundred. Chicago, which then was a
+small town, rejoices now in no less than 24 periodicals, seven of which
+are daily, and five of them of the largest size. At St. Louis, which but a
+few years since was on the extreme borders of civilization, we find
+several, and one of these has grown from a little sheet of 8 by 12 inches
+to the largest size, yielding to its proprietors $50,000 per annum, while
+Liverpool, Manchester, and Birmingham are still compelled to depend upon
+their tri-weekly sheets. St. Louis itself furnishes the type, and
+Louisville furnishes the paper. Everywhere, the increase in size is
+greater than that in the number of newspapers, and the increase of ability
+in both the city and country press, greater than in either number or size.
+These things are necessary consequences of that decentralization which
+builds school-houses and provides teachers, where centralization raises
+armies and provides generals. The schools enable young men to read, think,
+and write, and the local newspaper is always at hand in which to publish.
+Beginning thus with the daily or weekly journal, the youth of talent makes
+his way gradually to the monthly or quarterly magazine, and ultimately to
+the independent book.
+
+Examine where we may through the newspaper press, there is seen the
+activity which always accompanies the knowledge that men _can rise_ in the
+world _if they will_; but this is particularly obvious in the daily press
+of cities, whose efforts to obtain information, and whose exertions to lay
+it before the public, are without a parallel. Centralization, like that of
+the London "Times," furnishes its readers with brief paragraphs of
+telegraphic news, where decentralization gives columns. The New York
+"Tribune" furnishes, for two cents, better papers than are given in London
+for ten, and it scatters them over the country by hundreds of thousands.
+Decentralization is educating the whole mind of the country, and it is to
+this it is due that the American farmer is furnished with machines which
+are, according to the London "Times," "about twice as light in draught as
+the lightest of English machines of the same description, doing as much,
+if not more work than the best of them, and with much less power; dressing
+the grain, which they do not, and which can be profitably disposed of at
+one half, or at least one third less money than its British rivals"--and
+is thus enabled to purchase books. Centralization, on the other hand,
+furnishes the English farmer, according to the same authority, "with
+machines strong and dear enough to rob him of all future improvements, and
+tremendously heavy, either to work or to draw;" and thus deprives him of
+all power to educate his children, or to purchase for himself either books
+or newspapers.
+
+Religious decentralization exerts also a powerful influence on the
+arrangements for imparting that instruction which provides purchasers for
+books. The Methodist Society, with its gigantic operations; the
+Presbyterian Board of Publication; the Baptist Association; the
+Sunday-school, and other societies, are all incessantly at work creating
+readers. The effect of all these efforts for the dissemination of cheap
+knowledge is shown in the first instance in the number of semi-monthly,
+monthly, and quarterly journals, representing every shade of politics and
+religion, and every department of literature and science.
+
+The number of these returned to the census was 175; but that must, I
+think, have been even then much below the truth. Since then it has been
+much increased. Of two of them, Putnam's and Harper's, the first
+exclusively original, and the latter about two thirds so, the sale is
+about two millions of numbers per annum; while of three others, published
+in Philadelphia, it is about a million. Cheap as are these journals, at
+twenty-five cents each, the sum total of the price paid for them by the
+consumers is about $700,000. The quantity of paper required for a single
+one of them is about 16,000 reams of double medium, being one tenth as
+much as has recently been given as the consumption of the whole newspaper
+press of Great Britain and Ireland. Every pursuit in life, and almost
+every shade of opinion, has its periodical. A single city in Western New
+York furnishes no less than four agricultural and horticultural journals,
+one of them published weekly, with a circulation of 15,000, and the
+others, monthly, with a joint circulation of 25,000. The "Merchants'
+Magazine," which set the example for the one now published in London, has
+a circulation of 3,500. The "Bankers' Magazine" also set the example
+recently followed in England. Medicine and Law have their numerous and
+well supported journals; and Dental Surgery alone has five, one of which
+has a circulation of 5,000 copies, while all Europe has but two, and those
+of very inferior character.[1] North, south, east, and west, the
+periodical press is collecting the opinions of all our people, while
+centralization is gradually limiting the expression of opinion, in
+England, to those who live in and near London. Upon this extensive base of
+cheap domestic literature rests that portion of the fabric composed of
+reproduction of foreign books, the quantities of some of which were given
+in my last. The proportion which these bear to American books has been
+thus given for the six months ending on the 30th of June last:
+
+
+   Republications   169
+   Original         522
+
+                    691
+
+
+   [Footnote 1: It is a remarkable fact that there should be in this
+   country no less than four Colleges of Dental Surgery, while all Europe
+   presents not even a single one.]
+
+Of these last, 17 were original translations.
+
+We see, thus, that the proportion of domestic to foreign products is
+already more than three to one. How the sale of the latter compares with
+that of the former, will be seen by the following facts in relation to
+books of almost all sizes, prices, and kinds; some of which have been
+furnished by the publishers themselves, whilst others are derived from
+gentlemen connected with the trade whose means of information are such as
+warrant entire reliance upon their statements.
+
+Of all American authors, those of school-books excepted, there is no one
+of whose books so many have been circulated as those of Mr. Irving. Prior
+to the publication of the edition recently issued by Mr. Putnam, the sale
+had amounted to some hundreds of thousands; and yet of that edition,
+selling at $1.25 per volume, it has already amounted to 144,000 vols. Of
+"Uncle Tom," the sale has amounted to 295,000 copies, partly in one, and
+partly in two volumes, and the total number of volumes amounts probably to
+about 450,000.
+
+
+                                 _Price per vol._ _Volumes._
+
+
+   Of the two works of Miss Warner,
+    Queechy, and the Wide, Wide World, the
+    price and sale have been.                  $ 88  104,000
+
+   Fern Leaves, by Fanny Fern, in six months.  1 25   45,000
+
+   Reveries of a Bachelor, and other books,
+    by Ike Marvel.                             1 25   70,000
+
+   Alderbrook, by Fanny Forester, 3 vols.        50   33,000
+
+   Northup's Twelve Years a Slave              1 00   20,000
+
+   Novels of Mrs. Hentz, in three years          63   93,000
+
+   Major Jones' Courtship and Travels            50   31,000
+
+   Salad for the Solitary, by a new author,
+    in five months                              1 25   5,000
+
+   Headley's Napoleon and his Marshals, Washington
+    and his Generals, and other works.         1 25  200,000
+
+   Stephen's Travels in Egypt and Greece.        87   80,000
+
+    " " Yucatan and Central America            2 50   60,000
+
+   Kendall's Expedition to Santa Fe            1 25   40,000
+
+   Lynch's Expedition to the Dead Sea, 8vo.   $3 00   15,000
+
+    " " 2mo.                                   1 25    8,000
+
+   Western Scenes                              2 50   14,000
+
+   Young's Science of Government               1 00   12,000
+
+   Seward's Life of John Quincy Adams.         1 00   30,000
+
+   Frost's Pictorial History of the World,
+    3 vols.                                    2 50   60,000
+
+   Sparks' American Biography, 25 vols           75  100,000
+
+   Encyclopaedia Americana, 14 vols.           2 00  280,000
+
+   Griswold's Poets and Prose Writers
+    of America, 3 vols.                        3 00   21,000
+
+   Barnes' Notes on the Gospels, Epistles, &c.,
+    11 vols.                                     75  300.000
+
+   Aiken's Christian Minstrel, in two years.     62   40,000
+
+   Alexander on the Psalms, 3 vols.            1 17   10,000
+
+   Buist's Flower Garden Directory             1 25   10,000
+
+   Cole on Fruit Trees.                          50   18,000
+
+    " Diseases of Domestic Animals               50   34,000
+
+   Downing's Fruits and Fruit Trees.             50   15,000
+
+    " Rural Essays.                            3 50    3,000
+
+    " Landscape Gardening.                     3 50    9,000
+
+    " Cottage Residences.                      2 00    6,250
+
+    " Country Homes.                           4 00    3,500
+
+   Mahan's Civil Engineering.                  3 00    7,500
+
+   Leslie's Cookery and Receipt-books.         1 00   96,000
+
+   Guyot's Lectures on Earth and Man.          1 00    6,000
+
+   Wood and Bache's Medical Dispensatory       5 00   60,000
+
+   Dunglison's Medical Writings,
+    in all 10 vols.                            2 50   50,000
+
+   Pancoast's Surgery, 4to.                   10 00    4,000
+
+   Rayer, Ricord, and Moreau's Surgical Works
+   (translations).                            15 00    5,500
+
+   Webster's Works, 6 vols.                    2 00   46,800
+
+   Kent's Commentaries, 4 vols.                3 38   84,000
+
+
+Next to Chancellor Kent's work comes Greenleaf on Evidence, 3 vols.,
+$16.50; the sale of which has been exceedingly great, but what has been
+its extent, I cannot say.
+
+Of Blatchford's General Statutes of New York, a local work, price $4.50,
+the sale has been 3,000; equal to almost 30,000 of a similar work for the
+United Kingdom.
+
+How great is the sale of Judge Story's books can be judged only from the
+fact that the copyright now yields, and for years past has yielded, more
+than $8,000 per annum. Of the sale of Mr. Prescott's works little is
+certainly known, but it cannot, I understand, have been less than 160,000
+volumes. That of Mr. Bancroft's History, has already risen, certainly to
+30,000 copies, and I am told it is considerably more; and yet even that is
+a sale, for such a work, entirely unprecedented.
+
+Of the works of Hawthorne, Longfellow, Bryant, Willis, Curtis, Sedgwick,
+Sigourney, and numerous others, the sale is exceedingly great; but, as not
+even an approximation to the true amount can be offered, I must leave it
+to you to judge of it by comparison with those of less popular authors
+above enumerated. In several of these cases, beautifully illustrated
+editions have been published, of which large numbers have been sold. Of
+Mr. Longfellow's volume there have been no less than ten editions. These
+various facts will probably suffice to satisfy you that this country
+presents a market for books of almost every description, unparalleled in
+the world.
+
+In reflecting upon this subject, it is necessary to bear in mind that the
+monopoly, granted to authors and their families, is for the term of no
+less than forty-two years, and that in that period the number of persons
+subjected to it is likely to grow to little short of a hundred millions,
+with a power of consumption that will probably be ten times greater than
+now exists. If the Commentaries of Chancellor Kent continue to maintain
+their present position, as they probably will, may we not reasonably
+suppose that the demand for them will continue as great, or nearly so, as
+it is at present, and that the total sale during the period of copyright
+will reach a quarter of a million of volumes? So, too, of the histories of
+Bancroft and Prescott, and of other books of permanent character.
+
+Such being the extent of the market for the products of literary labor, we
+may now inquire into its rewards.
+
+Beginning with the common schools, we find a vast number of young men and
+young women acting as teachers of others, while qualifying themselves for
+occupying other places in life. Many of them rise gradually to become
+teachers in high schools and professors in colleges, while all of them
+have at hand the newspaper, ready to enable them, if gifted with the power
+of expressing themselves on paper, to come before the world. The numerous
+newspapers require editors and contributors, and the amount appropriated
+to the payment of this class of the community is a very large one. Next
+come the magazines, many of which pay very liberally. I have now before me
+a statement from a single publisher, in which he says that to Messrs.
+Willis, Longfellow, Bryant, and Alston, his price was uniformly $50 for a
+poetical article, long or short--and his readers know that they were
+generally very short; in one case only fourteen lines. To numerous others
+it was from $25 to $40. In one case he has paid $25 per page for prose. To
+Mr. Cooper he paid $1,800 for a novel, and $1,000 for a series of naval
+biographies, the author retaining the copyright for separate publication;
+and in such cases, if the work be good, its appearance in the magazine
+acts as the best of advertisements. To Mr. James he paid $1,200 for a
+novel, leaving him also the copyright. For a single number of the journal
+he has paid to authors $1,500. The total amount paid for original matter
+by two magazines--the selling price of which is $3 per annum--in ten
+years, has exceeded $130,000, giving an average of $13,000 per annum. The
+Messrs. Harper inform me that the expenditure for literary and artistic
+labor required for their magazine is $2,000 per month, or $24,000 a year.
+
+Passing upwards, we reach the producers of books, and here we find rewards
+not, I believe, to be paralleled elsewhere. Mr. Irving stands, I imagine,
+at the head of living authors for the amount received for his books. The
+sums paid to the renowned Peter Parley must have been enormously great,
+but what has been their extent I have no means of ascertaining. Mr.
+Mitchell, the geographer, has realized a handsome fortune from his
+schoolbooks. Professor Davies is understood to have received more than
+$50,000 from the series published by him. The Abbotts, Emerson, and
+numerous other authors engaged in the preparation of books for young
+persons and schools, are largely paid. Professor Anthon, we are informed,
+has received more than $60,000 for his series of classics. The French
+series of Mr. Bolmar has yielded him upwards of $20,000. The school
+geography of Mr. Morse is stated to have yielded more than $20,000 to the
+author. A single medical book, of one 8vo. volume, is understood to have
+produced its authors $60,000, and a series of medical books has given to
+its author probably $30,000. Mr. Downing's receipts from his books have
+been very large. The two works of Miss Warner must have already yielded
+her from $12,000 to $15,000, and perhaps much more. Mr. Headley is stated
+to have received about $40,000; and the few books of Ike Marvel have
+yielded him about $20,000; a single one, "The Reveries of a Bachelor,"
+produced more than $4,000 in the first six months. Mrs. Stowe has been
+very largely paid. Miss Leslie's Cookery and Receipt books have paid her
+$12,000. Dr. Barnes is stated to have received more than $30,000 for the
+copyright of his religious works. Fanny Fern has probably received not
+less than $6,000 for the 12mo. volume published but six months since. Mr.
+Prescott was stated, several years since, to have then received $90,000
+from his books, and I have never seen it contradicted. According to the
+rate of compensation generally understood to be received by Mr. Bancroft,
+the present sale of each volume of his yields him more than $15,000, and
+he has the long period of forty-two years for future sale. Judge Story
+died, as has been stated, in the receipt of more than $8,000 per annum;
+and the amount has not, as it is understood, diminished. Mr. Webster's
+works, in three years, can scarcely have paid less than $25,000. Kent's
+Commentaries are understood to have yielded to their author and his heirs
+more than $120,000, and if we add to this for the remainder of the period
+only one half of this sum, we shall obtain $180,000, or $45,000 as the
+compensation for a single 8vo. volume, a reward for literary labor
+unexampled in history. What has been the amount received by Professor
+Greenleaf I cannot learn, but his work stands second only, in the legal
+line, to that of Chancellor Kent. The price paid for Webster's 8vo.
+Dictionary is understood to be fifty cents per copy; and if so, with a
+sale of 250,000, it must already have reached $125,000. If now to this we
+add the quarto, at only a dollar a copy, we shall have a sum approaching
+to, and perhaps exceeding, $180,000; more, probably, than has been paid
+for all the dictionaries of Europe in the same period of time. What have
+been the prices paid to Messrs. Hawthorne, Longfellow, Bryant, Willis,
+Curtis, and numerous others, I cannot say; but it is well known that they
+have been very large. It is not, however, only the few who are liberally
+paid; all are so who manifest any ability, and here it is that we find the
+effect of the decentralizing system of this country as compared with the
+centralizing one of Great Britain. There Mr. Macaulay is largely paid for
+his Essays, while men of almost equal ability can scarcely obtain the
+means of support. Dickens is a literary Croesus, and Tom Hood dies leaving
+his family in hopeless poverty. Such is not here the case. Any
+manifestation of ability is sure to produce claimants for the publication
+of books. No sooner had the story of "Hot Corn" appeared in "The Tribune,"
+than a dozen booksellers were applicants to the author for a book. The
+competition is here for the _purchase_ of the privilege of printing, and
+this competition is not confined to the publishers of a single city, as is
+the case in Britain. Boston, New York, Philadelphia, and even Auburn and
+Cincinnati, present numerous publishers, all anxious to secure the works
+of writers of ability, in any department of literature; and were it
+possible to present a complete list of our well-paid authors, its extent
+could not fail to surprise you greatly, as the very few facts that have
+come to my knowledge in reference to some of the lesser stars of the
+literary world have done by me. You will observe that I have confined
+myself to the question of demand for books and compensation to their
+authors, without reference to that of the ability displayed in their
+preparation. That we may have good books, all that is required is that we
+make a large market for them, which is done here to an extent elsewhere
+unknown.
+
+Forty years since, the question was asked by the "Edinburgh Review," Who
+reads an American book? Judging from the facts here given, may we not
+reasonably suppose that the time is fast approaching, when the question
+will be asked, Who does not read American books?
+
+Forty years since, had we asked where were the _homes of American
+authors_, we should generally have been referred to very humble houses in
+our cities. Those who now inquire for them will find their answer in the
+beautiful volume lately published by Messrs. Putnam and Co., the precursor
+of others destined to show the literary men of this country enjoying
+residences as agreeable as any that had been occupied by such men in any
+part of the world; and in almost every case, those homes have been due to
+the profits of the pen. Less than half a century since, the race of
+literary men was scarcely known in the country, and yet the amount now
+paid for literary labor is greater than in Great Britain and France
+combined, and will probably be, in twenty years more, greater than in all
+the world beside. With the increase of number, there has been a
+corresponding increase in the consideration in which they are held; and
+the respect with which even unknown authors are treated, when compared
+with the disrespect manifested in England towards such men, will be
+obvious to all familiar with the management of the journals of that
+country who read the following in one of our principal periodicals:--
+
+"The editor of Putnam's Monthly will give to every article forwarded for
+insertion in the Magazine a careful examination, and, when requested to do
+so, will return the MS. if not accepted."
+
+Here, the competition is among the publishers to _buy_ the products of
+literary labor, whereas, abroad, the competition is to _sell_ them, and
+therefore is the treatment of our authors, even when unknown, so
+different. Long may it continue to be so!
+
+Such having been the result of half a century, during which we have had to
+lay the foundation of the system that has furnished so vast a body of
+readers, what may not be expected in the next half century, during which
+the population will increase to a hundred millions, with a power to
+consume the products of literary labor growing many times faster than the
+growth of numbers? If this country is properly termed "the paradise of
+women," may it not be as correctly denominated the paradise of authors,
+and should they not be content to dwell in it as their predecessors have
+done? Is it wise in them to seek a change? Their best friends would, I
+think, unite with me in advising that it is not. Should they succeed in
+obtaining what they now desire, the day will, as I think, come, when they
+will be satisfied that their real friends had been, those who opposed the
+confirmation of the treaty now before the Senate.
+
+
+
+
+
+LETTER VI.
+
+We have commenced the erection of a great literary and scientific edifice.
+The foundation is already broad, deep, and well laid, but it is seen to
+increase in breadth, depth, and strength, with every step of increase in
+height; and the work itself is seen to assume, from year to year, more and
+more the natural form of a true pyramid. To the height that such a
+building may be carried, no living man will venture to affix a limit. What
+is the tendency to durability in a work thus constructed, the pyramids of
+Egypt and the mountains of the Andes and of the Himalaya may attest. That
+edifice is the product of decentralization.
+
+Elsewhere, centralization is, as has been shown, producing the opposite
+effect, narrowing the base, and diminishing the elevation. Having
+prospered under decentralization, our authors seek to introduce
+centralization. Failing to accomplish their object by the ordinary course
+of legislation, they have had recourse to the executive power; and thus
+the end to be accomplished, and the means used for its accomplishment, are
+in strict accordance with each other.
+
+We are invited to grant to the authors and booksellers of England, and
+their agent or agents here, entire control over a highly important source
+from which our people have been accustomed to derive their supplies of
+literary food. Before granting to these persons any power here, it might
+be well to inquire how they have used their power at home. Doing this, we
+find that, as is usually the case with those enjoying a monopoly, they
+have almost uniformly preferred to derive their profits from high prices
+and small sales, and have thus, in a great degree, deprived their
+countrymen of the power to purchase books; a consequence of which has been
+that the reading community has, very generally, been driven to dependence
+upon circulating libraries, to the injury of both the authors and the
+public. The extent to which this system of high prices in regard to
+school-books has been carried, and the danger of intrusting such men with
+power, are well shown in the fact that the same government which has so
+recently concluded a copyright treaty with our own, has since entered
+"into the bookselling trade on its own account," competing "with the
+private dealer, who has to bear copyright charges." The subjects of this
+"reactionary step" on the part of a government that so much professes to
+love free trade, are, as we are told, "the famous school-books of the
+Irish national system."[1] A new office has been created, "paid for with a
+public salary," for "the issue of books to the retail dealers;" and the
+centralization of power over this important portion to the trade is, we
+are told,[2] defended in the columns of the "Times," as "tending to bring
+down the price of school-books; for booksellers who possess copyrights,
+now sell their books at exorbitant prices, and, by underselling them, the
+commissioners will be able to beat them." Judging from this, it would seem
+almost necessary, if this treaty is to be ratified, that there should be
+added some provision authorizing our government to appoint commissioners
+for the regulation of trade, and for "underselling" those persons who "now
+sell their books at exorbitant prices." If it be ratified, we shall be
+only entering on the path of centralization; and it may not be amiss that,
+before ratification, we should endeavor to determine to what point it will
+probably carry us in the end.
+
+   [Footnote 1: _Spectator_, June 4, 1853.]
+
+   [Footnote 2: _Ibid_.]
+
+The question is often asked, What difference can it make to the people of
+this country whether they do, or do not, pay to the English author a few
+cents in return for the pleasure afforded by the perusal of his book? Not
+very much, certainly, to the wealthy reader; but as every extra cent is
+important to the poorer one, and tends to limit his power to purchase, it
+may be well to calculate how many cents would probably be required; and,
+that we may do so, I give you here a list[1] of the comparative prices of
+English and American editions of a few of the books that have been
+published within the last few years:--
+
+
+
+                                          _English._ _Amer._
+
+   Brande's Encyclopaedia                      $15 00  $4 00
+
+   Ure's Dictionary of Manufactures             15 00   5 00
+
+   Alison's Europe, cheapest edition            25 00   5 00
+
+   D'Aubignd's Reformation                      11 50   2 25
+
+   Bulwer's "My Novel"                          10 50     75
+
+   Lord Mahon's England                         13 00   4 00
+
+   Macaulay's England, per vol.                  4 50     40
+
+   Campbell's Chief Justices.                    7 50   3 50
+
+    " Lord Chancellors                          25 50  12 00
+
+   Queens of England, 8 vols.                   24 00  10 00
+
+   Queens of Scotland                           15 00   6 00
+
+   Hallam's Middle Ages                          7 50   1 75
+
+   Arnold's Rome                                12 00   3 00
+
+   Life of John Foster                           6 00   1 25
+
+   Layard's Nineveh, complete edition.           9 00   1 75
+
+   Mrs. Somerville's Physical Sciences           2 50     50
+
+   Whewell's Elements of Morality.               7 50   1 00
+
+   Napier's Peninsular War                      12 00   3 25
+
+   Thirlwall's Greece, cheapest edition          7 00   3 00
+
+   Dick's Practical Astronomer                   2 50     50
+
+   Jane Eyre                                     7 50     25
+
+
+   [Footnote 1: Copied from an article in the New York _Daily Times_.]
+
+The difference, as we see, between the selling price in London and in New
+York, of the first book in this list, is no less than eleven dollars, or
+almost three times as much as the whole price of the American edition. To
+what is this extraordinary difference to be attributed? To any excess in
+the cost of paper or printing in London? Certainly not; for paper and
+printers' labor are both cheaper there than here. Is it, then, to the
+necessity for compensating the author? Certainly not; for there are in
+this country fifty persons as fully competent as Mr. Brande for the
+preparation of such a work, who would willingly do it for a dollar a copy,
+calculating upon being paid out of a large sale. As the sale of books in
+England is not large, it might be necessary to allow him two dollars each;
+but even this would still leave nine dollars to be accounted for. Where
+does all this go? Part of it to the Chancellor of the Exchequer, part to
+the "Times," and other newspapers and journals that charge monopoly prices
+for the privilege of advertising, and the balance to the booksellers who
+"possess copyrights," and "sell their books at such exorbitant prices"
+that they have driven the government to turn bookseller, with a view to
+bring down prices; and these are the very men to whom it is now proposed
+to grant unlimited control over the sale of all books produced abroad.
+
+It will, perhaps, be said that the treaty contains a proviso that the
+author shall sell his copyright to an American publisher, or shall himself
+cause his book to be republished here. Such a proviso may be there, but
+whether it is so, or not, no one knows, for every thing connected with
+this effort to extend the Executive power is kept as profoundly secret as
+were the arrangements for the Napoleonic _coup d'etat_ of the 2d of
+December. Secrecy and prompt and decisive action are the characteristics
+of centralized governments--publicity and slow action those of
+decentralized ones. Admit, however, that such limitations be found in the
+treaty, by what right are they there? The basis of such a treaty is the
+absolute right of the author to his book; and if that be admitted, with
+what show of consistency or of justice can we undertake to dictate to him
+whether he shall sell or retain it--print it here or abroad? With none,
+as I think.
+
+Admit, however, that he does print it, does the treaty require that the
+market shall _always_ be supplied? Perhaps it does, but most probably it
+does not. If it does, does it also provide for the appointment of
+commissioners to see that the provision is always complied with? If it
+does not, nothing would seem to be easier than to send out the plates of a
+large book, print off a small edition, and by thus complying with _the
+letter_ of the law, establishing the copyright for the long term of
+forty-two years, the moment after which the plates could be returned to
+the place whence they came, and from that place the consumers could be
+supplied on condition of paying largely to the Chancellor of the
+Exchequer, to the "Times," to the profits of Mr. Dickens' advertising
+sheet, to the author, to the London bookseller, to his agent in America,
+and the retail dealer here. In cases like this, and they would be
+numerous, the "few cents" would probably rise to be many dollars; and no
+way can, I think, be devised to prevent their occurrence, except to take
+one more step forward in centralization by the appointment of
+commissioners in various parts of the Union, to see that the market is
+properly supplied, and that the books offered for sale have been actually
+printed on this side of the Atlantic.
+
+If the treaty does provide for publication here, it probably allows some
+time therefor, say one, two, or three months. It is, however, well-known
+that of very many books the first few weeks' sales constitute so important
+a part of the whole that were the publisher here deprived of them, the
+book would never be republished. No one could venture to print until the
+time had elapsed, and by that time the English publisher would so well
+have occupied the ground with the foreign edition that publication here
+would be effectually stopped. Even under the present _ad valorem_ system
+of duties this is being done to a great extent. One, two, or three hundred
+copies of large works are cheaply furnished, and the market is thus just
+so far occupied as to forbid the printing of an edition of one or more
+thousands--to the material injury of paper-makers, printers, and
+book-binders, and without any corresponding benefit to the foreign author.
+Under the proposed system this would be done to a great extent.
+
+Admit, however, that the spirit of the law be fully complied with, and let
+us see its effects. Mr. Dickens sells his book in England for 21_s_.
+($5.00); and he will, of course, desire to have for it here as large a
+price as it will bear. Looking at our prices for those books which are
+copyright and of which the sale is large, he finds that "Bleak House"
+contains four times as much as the "Reveries of a Bachelor," which sells
+for $1.25, and he will be most naturally led to suppose that $3 is a
+reasonable price. The number of copies of his book that has been supplied
+to American readers, through newspapers and magazines, is certainly not
+less than 250,000, and the average cost has not been' more than fifty
+cents, giving for the whole the sum of
+
+  $125,000
+
+To supply the same number at his price would cost.
+  750,000
+
+Difference
+  $625,000
+
+
+Of Mr. Bulwer's last work, the number that has been supplied to American
+consumers is probably but about two thirds as great, and the difference
+might not amount to more than
+
+  $350,000
+
+Mr. Macaulay would not be willing to sell his book more cheaply than that
+of Mr. Bancroft's is sold, or $2 per volume, and he might ask $2.50.
+Taking it at the former price, the 125,000 copies that have been sold
+would cost the consumer
+  $500,000
+
+They have been supplied for
+  100,000
+
+The difference would be
+  $400,000
+
+
+Mr. Alison's work would make twelve such volumes as those of Mr. Bancroft,
+and his price would not be less than $25. The sale has amounted, as I
+understand, to 25,000 copies, which would give as the cost of the whole
+
+  $625,000
+
+The price at which they have been sold is $5, giving
+  125,000
+
+Difference
+  $500,000
+
+
+Of "Jane Eyre" there have been sold 80,000, and if the price had been
+similar to that of "Fanny Fern," they would have cost the consumers.
+
+
+  $100,000
+
+They have cost about
+  25,000
+
+Difference
+  $75,000
+
+
+Total result of a "few cents" on five books, $1,950,000
+
+Under the system of international copyright, one of two things must be
+done--either the people _must_ be taxed in the whole of this amount for
+the benefit of the various persons, abroad and at home, who are now to be
+invested with the monopoly power, or they must largely diminish their
+purchases of literary food.
+
+The quantity of books above given cannot be regarded as more than one
+twentieth of the total quantity of new ones annually printed. Admit,
+however, that the total were but ten times greater, and that the
+differences were but one fourth as great, it would be required that this
+sum of $1,950,000 should be multiplied two and a half times, and that
+would give about five millions of dollars; which, added to the sum already
+obtained, would make seven millions _per annum_; and yet we have arrived
+only at the commencement of the operation. All these books would require
+to be reprinted in the next year, and the next, and so on, and for the
+long period of forty-two years the payment on old books would require to
+be added to those on new ones, until the sum would become a very startling
+one. To enable us to ascertain what it must become, let us see what it
+would now be had this system existed in the past. Every one of Scott's
+novels would still be copyright, and such would be the case with Byron's
+poems, and with all other books that have been printed in the last
+forty-two years, of which the annual sale now amounts to many millions of
+volumes. To the present price of these let us add the charge of the
+author, and the monopoly charges of the English and American publishers,
+and it will be found quite easy to obtain a further sum of five millions,
+which, added to that already obtained, would make twelve millions _per
+annum_, or enough to give to one in every four thousand males in the
+United Kingdom, between the ages of twenty and sixty, a salary far
+exceeding that of our Secretaries of State. Let this treaty be confirmed,
+and let the consumption of foreign works continue at its present rate, and
+payment of this sum must be made. We can escape its payment only on
+condition of foregoing consumption of the books.
+
+The real cause of difficulty is not to be found in "the few cents"
+required for the author, but in the means required to be adopted for their
+collection. Everybody that reads "Bleak House," or "Oliver Twist," would
+gladly pay their author some cents, however unwilling he might be to pay
+dollars, or pounds. So, too, everybody who uses chloroform would willingly
+pay something to its discoverer; and every one who believes in and profits
+by homeopathic medicines would be pleased to contribute "a few cents" for
+the benefit of Hahnemann, his widow, or his children. A single cent paid
+by all who travel on steam vessels would make the family of Fulton one of
+the richest in the world; but how collect these "few cents"? Grant me a
+monopoly, says the author, and I will appoint an agent, who shall supply
+other agents with my books, and I will settle with him. Grant us a
+monopoly, say the representatives of Hahnemann, and we will grant
+licenses, throughout the Union, to numerous men who shall be authorized to
+practice homeopathically and collect our taxes. Were this experiment
+tried, it would be found that millions would be collected, out of which
+they would receive tens of thousands. Grant us a monopoly, might say the
+representatives of Fulton, and we will permit no vessels to be built
+without license from us, and our agents will collect "a few cents" from
+each passenger, by which we shall be enriched. So they might be; but for
+every cent that reached them the community would be taxed dollars in loss
+of time and comfort, and in extra charges. It is the monopoly privilege,
+and not the "few cents," that makes the difficulty.
+
+We are, however, advised by the advocates of this treaty that English
+authors must be "required" to present their books in American "mode and
+dress," and that regard to their own interests will cause them to be
+presented "at MODERATE PRICES for general consumption." If, however, they
+have acted differently at home, why should they pursue this course here?
+That they have so acted, we have proof in the fact that the British
+government has just been forced to turn bookseller, with a view to
+restrain the owners of copyrights in the exercise of power. Who, again, is
+to determine what prices are really "moderate" ones? The authors? Will Mr.
+Macaulay consent that his books shall be sold for less than those of Mr.
+Bancroft or Mr. Prescott? Assuredly not. The bookseller, then? Will he not
+use his power in reference to foreign books precisely as he does now in
+regard to domestic ones? If he deems it now expedient to sell a 12mo
+volume for a dollar or a dollar and a quarter, is it probable that the
+ratification of this treaty will open his eyes to the fact that it would
+be better for him to sell Mr. Dickens's works at fifty cents than at three
+dollars? Scarcely so, as I think. It is now about thirty years since the
+"Sketch Book" was printed, and the cheapest edition that has yet been
+published sells for one dollar and twenty-five cents. "Jane Eyre" contains
+probably about the same quantity of matter, and sells for twenty-five
+cents. Of the latter, about 80,000 have been printed, costing the
+consumers $20,000; but if they were to purchase the same quantity of the
+former, they would pay for them $100,000; difference, $80,000. What, now,
+would become of this large sum? But little of it would reach the author;
+not more, probably, than $10,000. Of the remaining $70,000, some would go
+to printers, paper-makers, and bookbinders, and the balance would be
+distributed among the publisher, the trade-sale auctioneers, and the
+wholesale and retail dealers; the result being that the public would pay
+five dollars where the author received one, or perhaps the half of one. We
+have here the real cause of difficulty. The monopoly of copyright can be
+preserved only by connecting it with the monopoly of publication. Were it
+possible to say that whoever chose to publish the "Sketch Book" might do
+so, on paying to its author "a few cents," the difficulty of this _double
+monopoly_ would be removed; but no author would consent to this, for he
+could have no certainty that his book might not be printed by unprincipled
+men, who would issue ten thousand while accounting to him for only a
+single thousand. To enable him to collect his dues, he _must_ have a
+monopoly of publication.
+
+It may be said that if he appropriate to his use any of the common
+property of which books are made up, and so misuse his privilege as to
+impose upon his readers the payment of too heavy a tax, other persons may
+use the same facts and ideas, and enter into competition with him. In no
+other case, however, than in those of the owners of patents and
+copyrights, where the public recognizes the existence of exclusive claim
+to any portion of the common property, does it permit the party to fix the
+price at which it may be sold. The right of eminent domain is common
+property. In virtue of it, the community takes possession of private
+property for public purposes, and frequently for the making of roads. Not
+unfrequently it delegates to private companies this power, but it always
+fixes the rate of charge to be made to persons who use the road. This is
+done even when general laws are passed authorizing all who please, on
+compliance with certain forms, to make roads to suit themselves. In such
+cases, limitation would seem to be unnecessary, as new roads could be made
+if the tolls on old ones were too high; and yet it is so well understood
+that the making of roads does carry with it monopoly power, that the rates
+of charge are always limited, and so limited as not to permit the
+road-makers to obtain a profit disproportioned to the amount of their
+investments. In the case of authors there can be no such limitation. They
+must have monopoly powers, and the law therefore very wisely limits the
+time within which they may be exercised, as in the other case it limits
+the price that may be charged. In France, the prices to be paid to
+dramatic authors are fixed by law, and all who pay may play; and if this
+could be done in regard to all literary productions, permitting all who
+paid to print, much of the difficulty relative to copyright would be
+removed; but this course of operation would be in direct opposition to the
+views of publishers who advocate this treaty on the ground that it would
+add to "the security and respectability of the trade." They would
+_prefer_ to pay for the copyright of every foreign book, because it would
+bring with it monopoly prices and monopoly profits, both of which would
+need to be paid by the consumers of books. To the paper-maker, printer,
+and bookbinder, called upon to supply one thousand of a book for _the
+few_, where before they had supplied ten thousand for _the many_, it
+would be small consolation to know that they were thereby building up the
+fortunes of two or three large publishing houses that had obtained a
+monopoly of the business of republication, and were thus adding to the
+"security and respectability of the trade." As little would probably be
+derived from this source by the father of a family who found that he had
+now to pay five dollars for what before had cost but one, and must
+therefore endeavor to borrow, where before he had been accustomed to buy,
+the books required for the amusement and instruction of his children.
+
+Our State of New Jersey levies a transit duty of eight cents per ton on
+all the merchandise that crosses it. Had the imposition of this tax been
+accompanied by a law permitting all who chose to make roads, no one would
+have complained of it, as it would have been little more than a fair tax
+on the property of the railroad and other companies. Unfortunately,
+however, the course was different. To the company that collected it was
+granted a monopoly of the power of transportation, and that power has been
+so used that while the State received but eight cents the transporters
+charged three, five, six, and eight dollars for work that should have been
+done for one. The position in which the authors are necessarily placed is
+precisely the one in which our State has voluntarily placed itself. To
+enable them to collect their dues, some person or persons must have a
+monopoly of publication, and they must and will collect five, ten, and
+often twenty dollars for every one that reaches the author. The Union
+would gain largely by paying into our treasury thrice the sum we receive
+for transit duty, on the simple condition that we abolished the monopoly
+of transportation; and it would gain far more largely by doing the same
+with foreign authors. If justice does really call upon us to pay them, our
+true course would be to do it directly from the Treasury, placing, if
+necessary, a million of dollars annually at the disposal of the British
+government, upon the simple condition that it releases us from all claim
+to the monopoly of publication. Such a release would be cheap, even at two
+millions; enough to give $4,000 a year to five hundred persons, and that
+number would certainly include all who can even fancy us under any
+obligation to them. My own impression is, that no such payment is required
+by justice, either as regards our own authors or foreign ones. Of the
+former, all can be and are well paid, _who can produce books that the
+public are willing to read_, and no law that could be made would secure
+payment to those who cannot. Their monopoly extends over a smaller number
+of persons than does the English one; and if the more than thirty millions
+of people who are subject to the latter cannot support their few writers,
+the cause of difficulty is to be found at home, and there must the remedy
+be applied. Nevertheless, by adopting the course suggested, we should
+certainly free ourselves from any necessity for choosing between the
+payment of many millions annually to authors and the men who stand between
+them and the public, on the one hand, and of dispensing largely with the
+purchase of books, on the other. If the nation must pay, the fewer persons
+through whose hands the money passes the smaller will be the cost to it,
+and the greater the gain to authors.
+
+The ratification of the treaty would impose upon us a very large amount of
+taxation that must inevitably be paid either in money or in abstinence
+from intellectual nourishment; and our authors should be able to satisfy
+themselves that the advantage to them would bear some proportion to the
+loss inflicted upon others. Would it do so? I think not. On the contrary,
+they would find their condition greatly impaired. All publishers prefer
+copyright books, because, having a monopoly, they can charge monopoly
+profits. To obtain a copyright, they constantly pay considerable sums at
+home for editorship of foreign books; but from the moment that this treaty
+shall take effect, the necessity for doing this will cease, and thus will
+our literary men be deprived of one considerable source of profit. Again,
+literary labor in England is cheap, because of want of demand; but
+international copyright, by opening to it our vast market, will quicken
+the demand, and many more books will be produced, the authors of all of
+which will be competitors with our own, who will then possess no
+advantages over them. The rates of American authors will then fall
+precisely as those of the British ones will rise; and this result will be
+produced as certainly as the water in the upper chamber of a canal lock
+will fall as that in the lower one is made to rise. On one side of the
+Atlantic literary labor is well paid, and on the other it is badly paid.
+International copyright will establish a level; and how much reason our
+authors have to desire that it shall be established, I leave it for them
+to determine.
+
+The direct tendency of the system now proposed will be found to be that of
+diminishing the domestic competition for the production of books, and
+increasing our dependence on foreigners for the means of amusement and
+instruction; and yet the confirmation of the treaty is urged on the ground
+that it will increase the first and diminish the last. If it would have
+this latter effect, it is singular that the authors of England should be
+so anxious for the measure as they are. It is not usual for men to seek to
+diminish the dependence of others on themselves.
+
+These, however, are, as I think, but a small part of the inconveniences to
+which our authors are now proposing to subject themselves. They have at
+present a long period allowed them, during which they have an absolute
+monopoly of the particular forms of words they offer to the reading
+public; and this monopoly has, in a very few years, become so productive,
+that authorship offers perhaps larger profits than any other pursuit
+requiring the same amount of skill and capital. Twenty years hence, when
+the market shall be greatly increased, it may, and as I think will, become
+a question whether the monopoly has not been granted for too long a
+period, and many persons may then be found disposed to unite with Mr.
+Macaulay in the belief that the disadvantages of long periods preponderate
+so greatly over their advantages, as to make it proper to retrace in part
+our steps, limiting the monopoly to twenty-one years, or one half the
+present period. The inquiry may then come to be made, what is the present
+value of a monopoly of forty-two years, as compared with what would be
+paid for one of twenty-one years; and when it is found that, in nine
+hundred and ninety-nine cases out of a thousand, one will sell for exactly
+as much as the other, it will perhaps be decided that no reason exists for
+maintaining the present law, even if no change be now made. Suppose,
+however, the treaty to be confirmed, establishing the monopoly of
+foreigners in our market, and that the people who have been accustomed to
+consume largely of cheap literature now find themselves deprived of it,
+would not this tend to hasten the period at which the existing law would
+come under consideration? I cannot but think it would. The common school
+makes a great demand for school-books, and both make a great demand for
+newspapers. All of these combine to make a demand for cheap books among an
+immense and influential portion of our community, that cannot yet afford
+to pay $1.25 for "Fern Leaves" or for the "Reveries of a Bachelor,"
+although they can well afford 25 cents for a number of "Harper's
+Magazine," or for "Jane Eyre." Let us now suppose that the novels of
+Dickens and Bulwer, the books of Miss Aguilar, and those of other authors
+with which they have been accustomed to supply themselves, should at once
+be raised to monopoly prices and thus placed beyond their reach, would it
+not produce inquiry into the cause, and would not the answer be that we
+had given English authors a monopoly in our market to enable our own to
+secure a monopoly in that of England? Would not the sufferers next inquire
+by what process this had been accomplished, seeing that the direct
+representatives of the people had always been so firmly opposed to it; and
+would not the answer be that the literary men of the two countries had
+formed a combination for the purpose of taxing the people of both; and
+that when they had failed to accomplish their object by means of
+legislation, they had induced the Executive to interpose and make a law in
+their favor, in defiance of the well-known will of the House of
+Representatives? Under such circumstances, would it be extraordinary if we
+should, within three years from the ratification of the treaty, see the
+commencement of an agitation for a change in the copyright system? It
+seems to me that it would not.
+
+The time for the arrival of this agitation would probably be hastened by
+an extension of the system of centralization that would next be claimed;
+for the present measure can be regarded as little more than the entering
+wedge for others. France and England profit enormously by setting the
+fashions for the world. New patterns and new articles are invented that
+sell in the first season for treble or quadruple the price at which they
+are gladly supplied in the second; and it is by aid of the perpetual
+changes bf fashion that foreigners so much control our markets. Recently,
+our manufacturers have been enabled to reproduce many new articles in very
+short time, and this has tended greatly to reduce the profits of
+foreigners, who are of course dissatisfied. Copyrights are now granted in
+both those countries for new patterns, new forms of clothing, &c. &c., and
+our next step will be towards the arrangement of a treaty for, securing to
+the inventor of a print, or a new fashion of paletot, the monopoly of its
+production in our markets; and when the claim for this shall be made, it
+will be found to stand on precisely the same ground with that now made in
+behalf of the producers of books, and must be granted. The Frenchman will
+then have the exclusive right of supplying us with new _mousselines de
+laine_, and the Englishman with new carpets and new forms of earthenware;
+and we shall be told that that is the true mode of developing
+manufacturing and artistic skill among ourselves. How much farther the
+system may be carried it is difficult to tell, for, when we shall once
+have established the system of regulating foreign and domestic trade by
+treaty, the House of Representatives will scarcely be troubled with much
+discussion of such affairs. Extremes generally meet, and it will be
+extraordinary, if progress in that direction shall not be followed by
+progress in the other, until our authors shall, at length, become
+perfectly satisfied of the accuracy of Mr. Macaulay, when he told the
+British authors, then claiming an extension of their monopoly to sixty
+years, that "the wholesome copyright" already existing would "share in the
+disgrace and danger of the new copyright" they desired to create.[1] They
+could scarcely do better than study his speech at length. At present, they
+are ill-advised, and their best friends will be those senators who, like
+Mr. Macaulay, shall oppose their literary countrymen.
+
+   [Footnote 1: _Macaulay's Speeches_, vol. i. p. 403.]
+
+Admitting, however, that the measure proposed should not in any manner
+endanger existing privileges, what would be the gain to our authors in
+obtaining the control of the British market, compared with what they would
+lose from surrendering the control of our own? In the former, the sale of
+books is certainly not large. Few have been more popular than Tupper's
+"Proverbial Philosophy," and the price has been, as I learn, only 7_s._,
+or $1,68. Nevertheless, a gentleman fully informed in regard to it assures
+me that in fifteen years the average sale has been but a thousand a year,
+or 15,000 in all.[2] Compare this with the sale of a larger number of the
+"Reveries of a Bachelor," or of thrice the quantity of "Fern Leaves," at
+but little lower prices, in the short period of six months, and it will be
+seen how inferior is the foreign market to the domestic one. Were it
+otherwise--were the market of Britain equal to our own--could it be
+that we should so rarely hear of her literary men, dependent on their own
+exertions, but as being poor and anxious for public employment? Were it
+otherwise, should we need now to be told of the "utter destitution" of the
+widow and children of Hogg, so widely known as author of "The Queen's
+Wake," and as "The Shepherd" of "Blackwood's Magazine?" Assuredly not. Had
+literary ability been there in the demand in which it now is here, he
+would have written thrice as much, would have been thrice as well paid,
+and would have provided abundantly for his widow and his children.
+Nevertheless, our authors desire to trade off this great market for the
+small one in which he shone and left his family to starve, and thus to
+make an exchange similar to that of Glaucus when he gave a suit of golden
+armor for one of brass.
+
+   [Footnote 2: The sale here has been 200,000, at an average price of 50
+   cents. Had it been copyright, the price would have been double, and
+   the "few cents" would have made a difference on this single book of
+   $100,000. The same gentleman to whom I am indebted for the above facts
+   informs me that he has paid to the author of a 12mo volume of 200 pages
+   more than $23,000, and could not now purchase the copyright for
+   $10,000; that for another small 12mo volume he has paid $7,000, and
+   Expects to pay as much more; that to a third author his payments for
+   the year have been $2500, and are likely to continue at that rate for
+   years to come; and that it would be easy to furnish other and numerous
+   cases of similar kind.]
+
+
+What, however, are the prospects for the future? Will the British market
+grow? It would seem not, for death and emigration are diminishing the
+population, and the people who remain are in a state of constant warfare
+with their employers, who promised "cheap food" that they might obtain
+"cheap labor," and now offer low wages in connection with high-priced corn
+and beef. The people who receive such wages cannot buy books. Hundreds of
+thousands of persons are now out "on strike," or are "locked out" by the
+gentlemen who advocate this "cheap labor" system; and the result of all
+this extraordinary cessation from labor can be none other than the
+continued growth of poverty, intemperance, and crime. The picture that is
+presented by that country is one of unceasing discord between _the few_
+and _the many_, in which the former always triumph; and a careful
+examination of it cannot result in leading us to expect an increase in the
+desire to purchase books, or in the ability to pay for them.
+
+Having looked upon that picture, let our authors next look to the one now
+presented by this country, as compared with that which could have been
+offered forty, thirty, or even twenty years since, and to obtain aid in
+understanding the facts presented to their view, let them read the
+following extract from a speech recently delivered by Mr. Cobden:--
+
+  "You cannot point to an instance in America, where the people are more
+  educated than they are here, of total cessation from labor by a whole
+  community or town, given over, as it were, to desolation. When I came
+  through Manchester the other day, I found many of the most influential
+  of the manufacturing capitalists talking very carefully upon a report
+  which had reached them from a gentleman who was selected by the
+  government to go out to America, to report upon the great exhibition in
+  New York. That gentleman was one of the most eminent mechanicians and
+  machine-makers in Manchester, a man known in the scientific world, and
+  appreciated by men of science, from the astronomer royal downwards. He
+  has been over to America, to report upon the progress of manufactures
+  and the state of the mechanical arts in the United States, and he has
+  returned. No report from him to the government has yet been published.
+  But it has oozed out in Manchester that he found in America a degree of
+  intelligence amongst the manufacturing operatives, a state of things in
+  the mechanical arts, which has convinced him that if we are to hold our
+  own, if we are not to fall back in the rear of the race of nations we
+  must educate our people to put them upon a level with the more educated
+  artisans of the United States. We shall all have the opportunity of
+   judging when that report is delivered; but sufficient has already oozed
+  out to excite a great interest, and I might almost say some alarm."
+
+
+Having done this, let them next ask themselves what have been the causes
+of the vast change in the relative positions of the two countries. Doing
+this, will not the answer be, common schools, cheap school-books, cheap
+newspapers, and cheap literature? Has not each and every one of these
+aided in making authors, and in creating a market for their products?
+Having thus laid the foundation of a great edifice, are we likely to stop
+in the erection of the walls? Having in so brief a period created a great
+market for literature, is it not certain that it must continue to grow
+with increased rapidity? Assuredly it is; and yet it is that vast market
+that our authors desire to barter for one in which Hood was permitted
+almost to starve, in which Leigh Hunt, Lady Morgan, Miss Mitford,
+Tennyson, and Sir Francis Head even now submit to the degradation of
+receiving the public charity to the extent of a hundred pounds a year! The
+law as it now exists, invites foreign authors to come and live among us,
+and participate in our advantages. The treaty offers to tax ourselves for
+the purpose of offering them a bounty upon staying at home and increasing
+their numbers and their competition with the well-paid literary labor of
+this country. Were Belgrave Square to make a treaty with Grub Street,
+providing that each should have a plate at the tables of the other, the
+population of the latter would probably grow as rapidly as the dinners of
+the former would decline in quality, and it might be well for our authors
+to reflect if such might not be the result of the treaty now proposed.
+
+Its confirmation is, as I understand, urged on some senators on the ground
+that consistency requires it. Being in favor of protection elsewhere, they
+are told that it would be inconsistent to refuse it here. In reply to
+this, it might fairly be retorted that nearly all the supporters of
+international copyright are advocates of the system called, in England,
+Free Trade; and that it is quite inconsistent in them to advocate
+protection here. To do this would however be as unnecessary as it would be
+unphilosophical. Both are perfectly consistent. Protection to the farmer
+and planter in their efforts to draw the artisan to their side, looks to
+carrying out the doctrine of decentralization by the annihilation of the
+monopoly of manufactures established in Britain; and our present copyright
+system looks to the decentralization of literature by offering to all who
+shall come and live among us the same perfect protection that we give to
+our own authors. What is called free trade looks to the maintenance of the
+foreign monopoly for supplying us with cloth and iron; and international
+copyright looks to continuing the monopoly which Britain has so long
+enjoyed of furnishing us with books; and both tend towards centralization.
+
+The rapid advance that has been made in literature and science is the
+result of the _perfect protection_ afforded by decentralization. Every
+neighborhood collects taxes to be expended for purposes of education, and
+it is from among those who would not otherwise be educated, and who are
+thus protected in their efforts to obtain instruction, that we derive many
+of our most thoughtful and intelligent men, and our best authors. The
+advocates of free trade and international copyright are, to a great
+extent, disciples in that school in which it is taught that it is an
+unjust interference with the rights of property to compel the wealthy to
+contribute to education of the poor. Common schools, and a belief in the
+duty of protection, are generally found together. Decentralization, by the
+production of local interests, _protects_ the poor printer in his efforts
+to establish a country newspaper, and thus affords to young writers of the
+neighborhood the means of coming before the world. Decentralization next
+raises money for the establishment of colleges in every part of the Union,
+and thus _protects_ the poor but ambitious student in his efforts to
+obtain higher instruction than can be afforded by the common school.
+Decentralization next _protects_ him in the manufacture of school-books,
+by creating a large market for the productions of his pen, very much of
+which is paid for out of the product of taxes the justice of which is
+denied by those who advocate the British policy. Rising to the dignity of
+author of books for the perusal of already instructed men and women he
+finds himself _protected_ by an absolute monopoly, having for its object
+to enable him to provide for himself, his wife, and his children. Of all
+the people of the Union, none enjoy such perfect protection as those
+connected with literature; yet many of them oppose protection to all
+others, while actively engaged in enlarging and extending the monopoly
+they themselves enjoy. It will scarcely answer for them to charge
+inconsistency on others.
+
+How far the protection already granted has favored the development of
+literary tendencies, may be judged after looking to the single case of
+dramatic writers, who are not protected against representation without
+their consent; and, as that is their mode of publication, it follows that
+they do not enjoy the advantages granted to other authors. The consequence
+is, that we make so little progress in that department of literature,
+while advancing rapidly in every other. Permit me, my dear sir, to suggest
+that this is a matter worthy of your attention. There would seem to be no
+good reason for refusing to one class of authors what we grant so freely
+to all others.
+
+Whether or not I shall have convinced you that international copyright
+should not be established, I cannot say, but I feel quite safe in
+believing that you must be convinced it is a question which requires to be
+publicly and fully discussed before we adopt any action looking in that
+direction. It is not a case of urgency. If the treaty be not confirmed,
+the only inconvenience to the authors will be delay, and this should be
+afforded, were it only to enable them to reflect at leisure upon the
+probable consequences of the measure in aid of which they have invoked the
+Executive power. Should they continue to believe their interests likely to
+be promoted by the adoption of such a measure as that which has been so
+pertinaciously urged the doors of Congress will always be open to them,
+and justice, though it may be delayed, will assuredly be done. Let them
+proceed in a constitutional way, and then, should their desires be
+gratified, they will have the satisfaction of knowing that their rights
+have been admitted after full and fair discussion before the people.
+Should they now succeed in obtaining, in secret session, the confirmation
+of a treaty negotiated in private, and in haste, they will, I think,
+"repent at leisure;" but repentance may, and probably will, come too late.
+The mischief will then have been done.
+
+Having now, my dear sir, to the best of my ability, complied with your
+request, I remain,
+
+Yours, very respectfully,
+
+                                             HENRY C. CAREY.
+                                _Burlington_, Nov. 28, 1853.
+
+Hon. James Cooper.
+
+
+
+
+
+NOTE.
+
+                                           December 31, 1867.
+
+Mr. Dickens's tale of "No Thoroughfare" is now being reprinted here in
+daily and weekly journals, and to such extent as to warrant the belief
+that the number in the hands of readers of the Union, will speedily exceed
+a million; obtained, too, at a cost so small as scarcely to admit of
+calculation. Under a system of International Copyright a similar number
+would, at the least, have cost $500,000. At 50 cents, however, the sale
+would not have exceeded 50,000, yielding to author and publisher probably
+$10,000. Would it be now expedient that, to enable these latter to divide
+among themselves this small amount, the former should tax themselves in
+one so greatly larger? Would it be right or proper that they should so do
+in the hope that American novelists and poets-should in like manner be
+enabled to tax the British people? Outside of the class of gentlemen who
+live by the use of their pens, there are few who, having examined the
+question, would, it is believed, be disposed to give to these questions an
+affirmative reply.
+
+Of all living authors there is none that, in his various capacities of
+author, editor, and lecturer, is, in both money and fame, so largely paid
+as Mr. Dickens. That he and others are not doubly so is due to the fact
+that British policy, from before the days of Adam Smith, has tended
+uniformly to the division of society, at home and abroad, into two great
+classes, the very poor becoming daily more widely separated from the very
+rich, and daily more and more unfitted for giving support to British
+authors. That the reader may understand this fully, let him turn to recent
+British journals and study the accounts there given of "an agricultural
+gang system," whose horrors, as they tell their readers, "make the British
+West Indies almost an Arcadia" when compared with many of the home
+districts. Next, let him study in the "Spectator," now but a fortnight
+old, the condition of the 630,000 wretched people inhabiting Eastern
+London; and especially that of the 70,000 mainly dependent on ship and
+engine building, "too poor to go afield for employment, too poor to
+emigrate, too poor to do any thing but die," and wholly dependent on a
+weekly allowance per house, of front twenty to forty cents and a loaf of
+bread; that allowance, wretched as it is, to be obtained only at the cost
+of "standing hours among crowds made brutal by misery and privation."
+Further, let him read in the same journal its description of the almost
+universal dishonesty which has resulted from a total repudiation of the
+idea that international morality could exist; and then determine for
+himself if, under a different system, Britain might not have made at home
+a market for her authors that would far more than have compensated for
+deprivation of that one they now so anxiously covet abroad.
+
+Seeking further evidence in reference to this important question, let him
+then turn to the "North British Review" for the current month and study
+the social sores of Britain.
+
+For more than a century she has been sowing the wind, carrying, and in the
+direct ratio of their connection with her, poverty and slavery into
+important countries of the earth. She is now only reaping the whirlwind.
+When her literary men shall have begun to teach her people this--when
+they shall have said to them that public immorality and private morality
+cannot co-exist--when they shall have commenced to repudiate the idea
+that the end sanctifies the means--then, _but not till then_, the time
+may, perhaps, have come for lecturing the world on the moral side of the
+question of International Copyright. To this moment, so far as the
+writer's memory serves him, no one of them has yet entered on the
+performance of this important work.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Letters on International Copyright;
+Second Edition, by Henry C. Carey
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 14295 ***
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+Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for
+eBook #14295 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/14295)
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Letters on International Copyright; Second
+Edition, by Henry C. Carey
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Letters on International Copyright; Second Edition
+
+Author: Henry C. Carey
+
+Release Date: December 7, 2004 [EBook #14295]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK INTERNATIONAL COPYRIGHT ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by A Project Gutenberg Volunteer
+
+
+
+
+LETTERS
+
+ON
+
+INTERNATIONAL COPYRIGHT:
+
+BY
+
+H. C. CAREY,
+
+AUTHOR OF "PRINCIPLES OF SOCIAL SCIENCE," ETC. ETC.
+
+SECOND EDITION.
+
+NEW YORK:
+
+PUBLISHED BY HURD AND HOUGHTON,
+
+459 BROOME STREET.
+
+1868.
+
+RIVERSIDE, CAMBRIDGE:
+
+PRINTED BY H. O. HOUGHTON AND COMPANY.
+
+
+
+
+
+PREFACE.
+
+
+At the date, now fourteen years since, of the first publication of these
+letters, the important case of authors _versus_ readers--makers of books
+_versus_ consumers of facts and ideas--had for several years been again
+on trial in the high court of the people. But few years previously the
+same plaintiffs had obtained a verdict giving large extension of _time_ to
+the monopoly privileges they had so long enjoyed. Not content therewith,
+they now claimed greater _space_, desiring to have those privileges so
+extended as to include within their domain the vast population of the
+British Empire. To that hour no one had appeared before the court on the
+part of the defendants, prepared seriously to question the plaintiffs'
+assertion to the effect that literary property stood on the same precise
+footing, and as much demanded perpetual and universal recognition, as
+property in a house, a mine, a farm, or a ship. As a consequence of
+failure in this respect there prevailed, and most especially throughout
+the Eastern States, a general impression that there was really but one
+side to the question; that the cause of the plaintiffs was that of truth;
+that in the past might had triumphed over right; that, however doubtful
+might be the expediency of making a decree to that effect, there could be
+little doubt that justice would thereby be done; and that, while rejecting
+as wholly _inexpedient_ the idea of perpetuity, there could be but slight
+objection to so far recognizing that of universality as to grant to
+British authors the same privileges that thus far had been accorded to our
+own.
+
+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.
+
+A thoroughly adverse popular will having thus been manifested, it was now
+determined to try the Senate, and here the chances for privilege were
+better. With a population little greater than that of Pennsylvania, the
+New England States had six times the Senatorial representation. With
+readers not a fifth as numerous as were those of Ohio, Carolina, Florida,
+and Georgia had thrice the number of Senators. By combining these
+heterogeneous elements the will of the people--so frequently and
+decidedly expressed--might, it was thought, be set aside. To that end,
+the Secretary of State, himself one of the plaintiffs, had negotiated the
+treaty then before the Senate, of the terms of which the defendants had
+been kept in utter ignorance, and by means of which the principle of
+taxation without representation was now to be established.
+
+Such was the state of affairs at the date at which, in compliance with the
+request of a Pennsylvania Senator, the author of these letters put on
+paper the ideas he had already expressed to him in conversation. By him
+and other Senators they were held to be conclusive, so conclusive that the
+plaintiffs were speedily brought to see that the path of safety, for the
+present at least, lay in the direction of abandoning the treaty and
+allowing it to be quietly laid in the grave in which it since has rested.
+That such should have been their course was, at the time, much regretted
+by the defendants, as they would have greatly preferred an earnest and
+thorough discussion of the question before the court. Had opportunity been
+afforded it _would_ have been discussed by one, at least, of the master
+minds of the Senate;[1] and so discussed as to have satisfied the whole
+body of our people, authors and editors, perhaps, excepted, that their
+cause was that of truth and justice; and that if in the past there had
+been error it had been that of excess of liberality towards the plaintiffs
+in the suit.
+
+   [Footnote 1: Senator Clayton of Delaware.]
+
+The issue that was then evaded is now again presented, eminent counsel
+having been employed, and the opening speech having just now been made.[2]
+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 $200,000; 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 $40,000, 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 $1000 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.
+
+   [Footnote 2: See _Atlantic Monthly_ for October.]
+
+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 $200,000 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.
+
+Such being the facts, and, that they are facts cannot be denied, let us
+now suppose a proposition to be made that, with a view to add one, two,
+three, or four thousand dollars to the annual income of ex-presidents, and
+ex-legislators, and half as much to that of the widows and children of
+distinguished officers, there should be established a general pension
+system, involving an expenditure of the public moneys, and consequent
+taxation, to the extent of ten or fifteen millions a year, and then
+inquire by whom it might be supported. Would any single one of the editors
+who are now so earnest in their appeals for further grants of privilege
+venture so to do? Would not the most earnest of them be among the first to
+visit on such a proposition the most withering denunciations? Judging from
+what, in the last two years, we have read in various editorial columns, we
+should say that they would be so. Would, however, any member of either
+house of Congress venture to commit himself before the world by offering
+such a proposition? We doubt it very much. Nevertheless it is now coolly
+proposed to establish a system that would not only tax the present
+generation as many millions annually, but that would grow in amount at a
+rate far exceeding the growth of population, doing this in the hope that
+future essayists might be enabled to count their receipts by half instead
+of quarter millions, and future novelists to collect abroad and at home
+the hundreds of thousands that, as we are assured, are theirs of _right_,
+and that are now denied them. When we shall have determined to grant to
+the widows and children of the men who in the last half dozen years have
+perished in the public service, some slight measure of justice, it may be
+time to consider that question, but until then it should most certainly be
+deferred.
+
+The most active and earnest of all the advocates of literary _rights_
+was, two years since, if the writer's memory correctly serves him, the
+most thorough and determined of all our journalists in insisting on the
+prompt dismissal of thousands and tens of thousands of men who, at their
+country's call, had abandoned the pursuits and profits of civil life. Did
+he, however, ever propose that they should be allowed any extra pay on
+which to live, and by means of which to support their wives and children,
+in the interval between discharge from military service and
+re-establishment in their old pursuits? Nothing of the kind is now
+recollected. Would he now advocate the enactment of a law by means of
+which the widow and children of a major-general who had fallen on the
+field should, so far as pay was concerned, be placed on a level with an
+ordinary police officer? He might, but that he would do so could not with
+any certainty be affirmed. She and they would, nevertheless, seem to have
+claims on the consideration of American men and women fully equal to those
+of the authoress of "Lady Audley's Secret," already, as she is understood
+to be, in the annual receipt from this country of more than thrice the
+amount of the widow's pension, in addition to tens of thousands at home.[1]
+
+   [Footnote 1: The London correspondent of Scribner and Co.'s "_Book
+   Buyer_" says that Miss Braddon's first publisher, Mr. Tinsley (who died
+   suddenly last year), called the elegant villa he built for himself at
+   Putney "Audley House," in grateful remembrance of the "Lady" to whose
+   "Secret" he was indebted for fortune; and Miss Braddon herself, through
+   her man of business, has recently purchased a stately mansion of Queen
+   Anne's time, "Litchfield House," at Richmond.]
+
+It is, however, as we are gravely told, but ten per cent. that she asks,
+and who could or should object to payment of such a pittance? Not many,
+perhaps, if unaccompanied by monopoly privleges that would _multiply the
+ten by ten and make it an hundred!_ Alone, the cost to our readers might
+not now exceed an annual million. Let Congress then pass an act
+appropriating that sum to be distributed among foreign authors whose works
+had been, or might be republished here. _That_ should have the writer's
+vote, but he objects, and will continue to object, to any legislative
+action that shall tend towards giving to already "great and wealthy"
+publishing houses the _nine_ millions that they certainly will charge for
+collecting the single _one_ that is to go abroad.
+
+"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.
+
+On all former occasions Northern advocates of literary monopolies assured
+us that it was in that direction, and in that alone, we were to look for
+the cheapening of books. Now, nothing of this sort is at all pretended. On
+the contrary, we are here told of the extreme impropriety of a system
+which makes it necessary for a New England essayist to accept a single
+dollar for a volume that under other circumstances would sell for half a
+guinea; of the wrong to such essayists that results from the issue of
+cheap "periodicals made up of selections from the reviews and magazines of
+Europe;" of the "abominable extravagance of buying a great and good novel
+in a perishable form for a few cents;" of the increased accessibility of
+books by the "masses of the people" that must result from increasing
+prices; and of the greatly increased facility with which circulating
+libraries may be formed whensoever the "great and wealthy houses" shall
+have been given power to claim from each and every reader of Dickens's
+novels, as their share of the monopoly profits, thrice as much as he now
+pays for the book itself! This, however, is only history repeating itself
+with a little change of place, the argument of to-day, coming from the
+North, being an almost exact repetition of that which, twenty years since,
+came from the South--from the mouths of men who rejoiced in the fact
+that no newspapers were published in their districts, and who well _knew_
+that the way towards preventing the dissemination of knowledge lay in the
+direction of granting the monopoly privileges that had been asked. The
+anti-slavery men of the present thus repeat the argument of the
+pro-slavery men of the past, extremes being thus brought close together.
+
+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:
+
+  "We have so long enjoyed the advantage of unrestricted competition in the
+  production of the works of the best English writers of the past, that we
+  can hardly realize what our position would have been had the right to
+  produce Shakespeare, or Milton, or Goldsmith, or any of our great classic
+  writers, been monopolized by any one publishing-house,--certainly we
+  should never have seen a shilling Shakespeare, or a half-crown Milton;
+  and Shakespeare, instead of being, as he is,' familiar in our mouths as
+  household words,' would have been known but to the scholar and the
+  student. We are far from condemning an enlightened system of copyright,
+  and have not a word to say in favor of unreasoning competition; but we do
+  think that publishers and authors often lose sight of their own interest
+  in adhering to a system of high prices and restricted sale. Tennyson's
+  works supply us with a case in point--here, to possess a set of
+  Tennyson's poems, a reader must pay something like 38_s_. or 40_s_.--in
+  Boston you may buy a magnificent edition of all his works in two volumes
+  for something like 15_s_., and a small edition for some four or five
+  shillings. The result is the purchasers in England are numbered by
+  hundreds, in America by thousands. In Germany we have almost a parallel
+  case. There the works of the great German poets, of Schiller, of Goethe,
+  of Jean Paul, of Wieland, and of Herder, are at the present time 'under
+  the protecting privileges of the most illustrious German Confederation,'
+  and, by special privilege, the exclusive property of the Stuttgart
+  publishing firm of J. G. Cotta. On the forthcoming 9th of November this
+  monopoly will cease, and all the works of the above-mentioned poets will
+  be open to the speculation of German publishers generally. It may be
+  interesting to our readers to learn the history of these peculiar legal
+  restrictions, which have so long prevailed in the German booktrade, and
+  the results likely to follow from their removal.
+
+  "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 (on the
+  reconstruction of Germany in the year 1815) 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.
+
+  "It was to be expected that the firm of J. G. Cotta, favored until now
+  with so valuable a monopoly, would make all possible exertions not to be
+  surpassed in the coming battle of the Publishers, though it is a somewhat
+  curious sight to see this haughty house, after having used its privileges
+  to the last moment, descend now suddenly from its high monopolistic stand
+  into the arena of competition, and compete for public favor with its
+  plebeian rivals. Availing itself of the advantage which the monopoly
+  hitherto attached to it naturally gives it, the house has just commenced
+  issuing a cheap edition of the German classics, under the title
+  'Bibliothek für Alle. Meisterwerke deutscher Classiker,' in weekly parts,
+  6 cts. each; containing the selected works of Schiller, at the price of
+  75 cts., and the selected works of Goethe, at the price of $1.50. And
+  now, just as the monopoly is gliding from their hands, the same firm
+  offers, in a small 16mo edition, Schiller's complete works, 12 vols.,
+  for 75 cts.
+
+  "Another publisher, A. H. Payne, of Leipzig, announces a complete edition
+  of Schiller's works, including some unpublished pieces, for 75 cts.
+
+  "Again, the well-known firm of F. A. Brockhaus holds out a prospectus of
+  a corrected critical edition of the German poets of the eighteenth and
+  nineteenth century, which we have every reason to believe will merit
+  success. A similar enterprise is announced, just now, by the
+  Bibliographical Institution of Hildburghausen, under the title,
+  'Bibliothek der deutschen Nationalliteratur,' edited by Heinr. Kurz, in
+  weekly parts of 10 sheets, at the price of 12 cts. each. Even an
+  illustrated edition of the Classics will be presented to the public, in
+  consequence of the expiration of the copyright. The Grotesche
+  Buchhandlung, of Berlin, is issuing the 'Hausbibliothek deutscher
+  Classiker,' with wood-cut illustrations by such eminent artists as
+  Richter, Thumann, and others; and the first part, just published,
+  containing Louise, by Voss, with truly artistic illustrations, has met
+  with general approbation. But, above all, the popular edition of the
+  poets, issued by G. Hempel, of Berlin, under the general title of
+  'National Bibliothek sämmtlicher deutscher Classiker,' 8vo. in parts, 6
+  cts. each, seems destined to surpass all others in popularity, though not
+  in merit. _Of the first part (already published), containing Bürger's
+  Poems, 300,000 copies have been sold, and 150,000 subscribers' names have
+  been registered for the complete series. This immense sale, unequalled in
+  the annals of the German book-trade, will certainly induce many other
+  publishers to embark in similar enterprises._"--Trübner's _Literary
+  Record_, Oct. 1867.
+
+Judging from this, there will, five years hence, be a million of families
+in possession of the works of Schiller, Bürger, Goethe, Herder and others,
+that thus far have been compelled to dispense with their perusal. Sad to
+think, however, they will be of those cheap editions now so much despised
+by American advocates of monopoly privileges! How much better for the
+German people would it not have been had their Parliament recognized the
+perpetuity of literary _rights_, and thus enabled the "great and wealthy
+house" of Cotta and Co. to carry into full effect the idea that their own
+editions should alone be published, thereby adding other millions to the
+very many of which they already are the owners!
+
+At this moment a letter from Mr. Bayard Taylor advises us that German
+circulating libraries impede the sale of books; that the circulation of
+even highly popular works is limited within 20,000; and that, as a
+necessary consequence, German authors are not paid so well as of right
+they should be.[1] This, however, is precisely the state of things that,
+as we are now assured, should be brought about in this country, prices
+being raised, and readers being driven to the circulating library by
+reason of the deficiency of the means required for forming the private
+one. It is the one that _would_ be brought about should our authors,
+unhappily for themselves, succeed in obtaining what is now demanded.
+
+   [Footnote 1: New York _Tribune_, Nov. 29]
+
+The day has passed, in this country, for the recognition of either
+perpetuity or universality of literary _rights_. The wealthy Carolinian,
+anxious that books might be high in price, and knowing well that monopoly
+privileges were opposed to freedom, gladly cooperated with Eastern authors
+and publishers, anti-slavery as they professed to be. The enfranchised
+black, on the contrary, desires that books may be cheap, and to that end
+he and his representatives will be found in all the future co-operating
+with the people of the Centre and the West in maintaining the doctrine
+that literary _privileges_ exist in virtue of grants from the people who
+own the materials out of which books are made; that those privileges have
+been perhaps already too far extended; that there exists not even a shadow
+of reason for any further extension; and that to grant what now is asked
+would be a positive wrong to the many millions of consumers, as well as an
+obstacle to be now placed in the road towards civilization.
+
+The amount now paid for public service under our various governments is
+more than, were it fairly distributed, would suffice for giving proper
+reward to all. Unfortunately the _distribution_ is very bad, the largest
+compensation generally going to those who render the smallest service. So,
+too, is it with regard to literary employments; and so is it likely to
+continue throughout the future. Grant all that now is asked, and the
+effect will be seen in the fact, that of the vastly increased taxation
+ninety per cent. will go to those who work for money alone, and are
+already overpaid, leaving but little to be added to the rewards of
+conscientious men with whom their work is a labor of love, as is the case
+with the distinguished author of the "History of the Netherlands."
+
+Twenty years ago, Macaulay advised his literary friends to be content,
+believing, as he told them, that the existing "wholesome copyright" was
+likely to "share in the disgrace and danger" of the more extended one
+which they then so much desired to see created. Let our authors reflect on
+this advice! Success now, were it possible that it should be obtained,
+would be productive of great danger in the already not distant future. In
+the natural course of things, most of our authorship, for many years to
+come, will be found east of the Hudson, most of the buyers of books,
+meanwhile, being found south and west of that river. International
+copyright will give to the former limited territory an absolute monopoly
+of the business of republication, the then great cities of the West being
+almost as completely deprived of participation therein as are now the
+towns and cities of Canada and Australia. On the one side, there will be
+found a few thousand persons interested in maintaining the monopolies that
+had been granted to authors and publishers, foreign and domestic. On the
+other, sixty or eighty millions, tired of taxation and determined that
+books shall be more cheaply furnished. War will then come, and the
+domestic author, sharing in the "disgrace and danger" attendant upon his
+alliance with foreign authors and domestic publishers, may perhaps find
+reason to rejoice if the people fail to arrive at the conclusion that the
+last extension of _his own privileges_ had been inexpedient and should be
+at once recalled. Let him then study that well-known fable of Aesop
+entitled "The Dog and the Shadow," and take warning from it!
+
+The writer of these Letters had no personal interest in the question
+therein discussed. Himself an author, he has since gladly witnessed the
+translation and republication of his works in various countries of Europe,
+his sole reason for writing them having been found in a desire for
+strengthening the many against the few by whom the former have so long, to
+a greater or less extent, been enslaved. To that end it is that he now
+writes, fully believing that the _right_ is on the side of the consumer of
+books, and not with their producers, whether authors or publishers.
+Between the two there is, however, a perfect harmony of all real and
+permanent interests, and greatly will he be rejoiced if he shall have
+succeeded in persuading even some few of his literary countrymen that such
+is the fact, and that the path of safety will be found in the direction of
+letting well enough alone.
+
+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.
+
+PHILADELPHIA,_
+Dec_. 1867.
+
+
+
+
+
+LETTERS
+
+ON
+
+INTERNATIONAL COPYRIGHT.
+
+
+
+
+
+LETTER I.
+
+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.
+
+In the claim now made in behalf of English authors, there is great
+apparent justice; but that which is not true, often puts on the appearance
+of truth. For thousands of years, it seemed so obviously true that the sun
+revolved around the earth that the fact was not disputed, and yet it came
+finally to be proved that the earth revolved around the sun. Ricardo's
+theory of the occupation of the earth, the foundation-stone of his system,
+had so much apparent truth to recommend it, that it was almost universally
+adopted, and is now the basis of the whole British politico-economical
+system; and yet the facts are directly the reverse of what Ricardo had
+supposed them to be. Such being the case, it might be that, upon a full
+examination of the subject, we should find that, in admitting the claim of
+foreign authors, we should be doing injustice and not justice. The English
+press has, it is true, for many years been engaged in teaching us that we
+were little better than thieves or pirates; but that press has been so
+uniformly and unsparingly abusive of us, whenever we have failed to grant
+all that it has claimed, that its views are entitled to little weight. At
+home, many of our authors have taken the same side of the question; and
+the only answer that has ever, to my knowledge, been made, has been, that
+if we admitted the claims of foreign authors, the prices of books would be
+raised, and the people would be deprived of their accustomed supplies of
+cheap literature--as I think, a very weak sort of defense. If nothing
+better than this can be said, we may as well at once plead guilty to the
+charge of piracy, and commence a new and more honest course of action.
+Evil may not be done that good may come of it, nor may we steal an
+author's brains that our people may be cheaply taught. To admit that the
+end justifies the means, would be to adopt the line of argument so often
+used by English speakers, in and out of Parliament, when they defend the
+poisoning of the Chinese people by means of opium introduced in defiance
+of their government, because it furnishes revenue to India; or that which
+teaches that Canada should be retained as a British colony, because of the
+facility it affords for violation of our laws; or that which would have us
+regard smugglers, in general, as the great reformers of the age. We stand
+in need of no such morality as this. We can afford to pay for what we
+want; but, even were it otherwise, our motto here, and everywhere, should
+be the old French one: "_Fais ce que doy, advienne que pourra_"--Act
+justly, and leave the result to Providence. Before acting, however, we
+should determine on which side justice lies. Unless I am greatly in error,
+it is not on the side of international copyright. My reasons for this
+belief will now be given.
+
+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.
+
+For what, then, is copyright given? For the clothing in which the body is
+produced to the world. Examine Mr. Macaulay's "History of England" and you
+will find that the body is composed of what is common property. Not only
+have the facts been recorded by others, but the ideas, too, are derived
+from the works of men who have labored for the world without receiving,
+and frequently without the expectation of receiving, any pecuniary
+compensation for their labors. Mr. Macaulay has read much and carefully,
+and he has thus been enabled to acquire great skill in arranging and
+clothing his facts; but the reader of his books will find in them no
+contribution to positive knowledge. The works of men who make
+contributions of that kind are necessarily controversial and distasteful
+to the reader; for which reason they find few readers, and never pay their
+authors. Turn now to our own authors, Prescott and Bancroft, who have
+furnished us with historical works of so great excellence, and you will
+find a state of things precisely similar. They have taken a large quantity
+of materials out of the common stock, in which you, and I, and all of us
+have an interest; and those materials they have so reclothed as to render
+them attractive of purchasers; but this is all they have done. Look to Mr.
+Webster's works, and you will find it the same. He was a great reader. He
+studied the Constitution carefully, with a view to understand what were
+the views of its authors, and those views he reproduced in different and
+more attractive clothing, and there his work ended. He never pretended, as
+I think, to furnish the world with any new ideas; and if he had done so,
+he could have claimed no property in them. Few now read the heavy volumes
+containing the speeches of Fox and Pitt. They did nothing but reproduce
+ideas that were common property, and in such clothing as answered the
+purposes of the moment. Sir Robert Peel did the same. The world would now
+be just as wise had he never lived, for he made no contribution to the
+general stock of knowledge. The great work of Chancellor Kent is, to use
+the words of Judge Story, "but a new combination and arrangement of old
+materials, in which the skill and judgment of the author in the selection
+and exposition, and accurate use of those materials, constitute the basis
+of his reputation, as well as of his copyright." The world at large is the
+owner of all the facts that have been collected, and of all the ideas that
+have been deduced from them, and its right in them is precisely the same
+that the planter has in the bale of cotton that has been raised on his
+plantation; and the course of proceeding of both has, thus far, been
+precisely similar; whence I am induced to infer that, in both cases, right
+has been done. When the planter hands his cotton to the spinner and the
+weaver, he does not say, "Take this and convert it into cloth, and keep
+the cloth;" but he does say, "Spin and weave this cotton, and for so doing
+you shall have such interest in the cloth as will give you a fair
+compensation for your labor and skill, but, when that shall have been
+paid, _the cloth will be mine_." This latter is precisely what society,
+the owner of facts and ideas, says to the author: "Take these raw
+materials that have been collected, put them together, and clothe them
+after your own fashion, and for a given time we will agree that nobody
+else shall present them in the same dress. During that time you may
+exhibit them for your own profit, but at the end of that period the
+clothing will become common property, as the body now is. It is to the
+contributions of your predecessors to our common stock that you are
+indebted for the power to make your book, and we require you, in your
+turn, to contribute towards the augmentation of the stock that is to be
+used by your successors." This is justice, and to grant more than this
+would be injustice.
+
+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.
+
+
+
+
+
+LETTER II.
+
+Let us suppose, now, that you should move, in the Senate, a resolution
+looking to the establishment of the exclusive right of making known the
+facts, or ideas, that might be brought to light, and see what would be the
+effect. You would, as I think, find yourself at once surrounded by the
+gentlemen who dress up those facts and ideas, and issue them in the form
+of books. The geographer would say to you: "My dear sir, this will never
+do. Look at my book, and you will see that it is drawn altogether from the
+works of others, many of whom have sunk their fortunes, while others have
+lost their lives, in pursuit of the knowledge that I so cheaply give the
+world. You will find there the essence of the works of Humboldt, and of
+Wilkes. All of Franklin's discoveries are there, and I am now waiting only
+for the appearance of McClure's voyage in the Arctic regions to give a new
+edition of my book. Reflect, I beseech you, upon what you are about to do.
+Very few persons have leisure to read, or means to pay for the books of
+these travellers. A few hundred copies are sufficient to satisfy the
+demand, and then their works die out. Of mine, on the contrary, the sale
+is ten, fifteen, or twenty thousand annually, and thus is knowledge
+disseminated throughout the world, enabling the men who furnish me with
+facts to reap _a rich harvest of never dying fame_. Grant them a copyright
+to the new ideas they may supply to the world, and at once you put a stop
+to the production of such books as mine, to my great injury and to the
+loss of mankind at large. Facts and ideas are common property, and their
+owners, the public, have a right to use them as they will."
+
+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."
+
+The teacher of natural science would say: "My friend, have you reflected
+on what you are about to do? Look at our collections, and see how they
+have been enlarged within the last half century. Asia and Africa, and the
+islands of the Southern Ocean, have been traversed by indefatigable men
+who, at the hazard of life, and often at the cost of fortune, have
+quadrupled our knowledge of vegetable and animal life. Such men do not ask
+for compensation of any kind. They are willing to work for nothing. Why,
+then, not let them? Look at the vast contributions to geological knowledge
+that have been made throughout the Union by men who were content with a
+bare support, and glad to have the results of their labors published, as
+they have been, at the public cost. Such men ask no copyright. When they
+publish, it is almost always at a loss. Wilson lived and died poor. So did
+Audubon, to whose labors we are indebted for so much ornithological
+knowledge. Morton expended a large sum in the preparation and publication
+of his work on crania. Agassiz did the same with his great work on fishes.
+Cuvier had nothing but fame to bequeath to his family. Lamarck's great
+work on the _invertebratae_ sold so slowly that very many years elapsed
+before the edition was exhausted; but he would have found his reward had
+he lived to see his ideas appropriated without acknowledgment, and
+reclothed by the author of 'Vestiges of Creation,' of which the sale has
+been so large. This, my friend, is the use for which such men as Lamarck
+and Cuvier were intended. They collect and classify the facts, and we
+popularize them to our own profit. Look at my works and see, bulky as they
+are, how many editions have been printed, and think how profitable they
+must have been to the publisher and myself. Look further, and see how
+numerous are the books to which my labors have indirectly given birth. See
+the many school-books in relation to botany and other departments of
+natural science, the authors of which know little of what they undertake
+to teach, except what they have drawn from me and others like myself.
+Again, see how numerous are the 'Flora's Emblems,' and the 'Garlands of
+Flowers,' and the 'Flora's Dictionaries,' and how large is their sale--
+and how large must be the profits of those engaged in their production. To
+recognize in such men as Cuvier and Lamarck the existence of any right to
+either their facts or their deductions would be an act of great injustice
+towards the race of literary men, while most inexpedient as regards the
+world at large, now so cheaply supplied with knowledge. As regards the
+question of international copyright now before the Senate, my views are
+different. Several of my books have been published abroad, and my
+publisher here tells me, that to prevent the republication of others he is
+obliged to supply them cheaply for foreign markets, and thus am I deprived
+of a fair and just reward for my labors. Copyright should be universal and
+eternal, and such, I am persuaded, will be the result at which you will
+arrive when you shall have thoroughly studied the subject."
+
+Having studied it, and having given full consideration to the views that
+they and others had presented, your answer would probably be to the
+following effect: "It is clear, gentlemen, from your own showing, that
+there are two distinct classes of persons engaged in the production of
+books--the men who furnish the body, and those who dress it up for
+production before the world. The first class are generally poor, and
+likely to continue so. They labor without any view to pecuniary advantage.
+They are, too, very generally helpless. Animated to their work solely by a
+desire to penetrate into the secrets of nature the character of their
+minds unfits them for mixing in a money-getting world, while you are
+always in that world, ready to enforce your claims to its consideration.
+As a consequence of this, they are rarely allowed even the credit that is
+due to them. Their discoveries become at once common property, to be used
+by men like yourselves, and for your own individual profit. We have here
+among ourselves a gentleman who has given to astronomy a new and highly
+important law essential to the perfection of the science, the discovery of
+which has cost him the labor of a life, as a consequence of which he is
+poor and likely so to remain. Important as was his discovery, his name is
+already so completely forgotten that there is probably not a single one
+among you that can now recall it, and yet his law figures in all the
+recent books. Is this right? Has _he_ no claim to consideration?"
+
+"In answer, you will say, that 'to admit the existence of any such rights
+is not only impossible, but _inexpedient_, even were it possible.
+Knowledge advances by slow and almost imperceptible steps, and each is but
+the precursor of a new and more important one. Were each discoverer of a
+new truth to be authorized to monopolize the teaching of it millions of
+men, to whom, by our aid, it is communicated, would remain in ignorance of
+it, and thus would farther advance be prevented. In all times past, such
+truths have been regarded as common property; and so,' you will add, 'they
+must continue to be regarded. Rely upon it, the best interests of society
+require that such shall continue to be the case, however great the
+apparent injustice to the discoverer.'
+
+"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 question is often asked: Why should a man not have the same claim to
+the perpetual enjoyment of his book that his neighbor has in regard to the
+house he has built? The answer is, that the rights of the parties are
+entirely different. The man who builds a house quarries the stone and
+makes the bricks of which it is composed, or he pays another for doing it
+for him. When finished, his house is all, materials and workmanship, his
+own. The man who makes a book uses the common property of mankind, and all
+he furnishes is the workmanship. Society permits him to use its property,
+but it is on condition that, after a certain time, the whole shall become
+part of the common stock. To find a parallel case, let it be supposed that
+liberal men should, out of their earnings, place at the disposal of the
+people of your town stone, bricks, and lumber, in quantity sufficient to
+find accommodation for hundreds of people that were unable to provide for
+themselves; next suppose that in this state of things your authorities
+should say to any man or men, "Take these materials, and procure lime in
+quantity sufficient to build a house; employ carpenters, bricklayers, and
+architects, and then, in consideration of having found the lime and the
+workmanship, you shall have a right to charge your own price to every
+person who may, for all times, desire to occupy a room in it "; would this
+be doing justice to the men who had given the raw materials for public
+use? Would it be doing justice to the community by which they had been
+given? Would it not, on the contrary, be the height of injustice?
+Unquestionably it would, and it would raise a storm that would speedily
+displace the men who had thus abused their trust. Their successors would
+then say: "Messrs.---- our predecessors, did what they had no right to
+do. These materials are common property. They were given without fee or
+reward, with a view to benefit the whole people of our town, many of whom
+are badly accommodated, while others are heavily taxed for helping those
+who are unable to help themselves. To carry out the views of the
+benevolent men to whom we are indebted for all these stone, bricks, and
+lumber, they must remain common property. You may, if you will, convert
+them into a house, and, in consideration of the labor and skill required
+for so doing, we will grant you, during a certain time, the privilege of
+letting the rooms, at your own price, to those who desire to occupy them;
+but at the close of that time the building must become common property, to
+be disposed of as we please." This is exactly what the community says to
+the gentlemen who employ themselves in converting its common property into
+books, and to say more would be doing great injustice.
+
+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.
+
+The people of this country own a vast quantity of wild land, which by slow
+degrees acquires a money value, that value being due to the contributions
+of thousands and tens of thousands of people who are constantly making
+roads towards them, and thus facilitating the exchange of such commodities
+as may be raised from them. These lands are common property, but the whole
+body of their owners has agreed that whenever any one of their number
+desires to purchase out the interest of his partners he may do so at $1.25
+per acre. They do not _give_ him any of the common property; they require
+him to purchase and pay for it.
+
+With authors they pursue a more liberal course. They say: "We have
+extensive fields in which hundreds of thousands of men have labored for
+many centuries. They were at first wild lands, as wild as those of the
+neighborhood of the Rocky Mountains, but this vast body of laborers has
+felled the trees and drained the swamps, and has thus removed nearly all
+the difficulties that stood opposed to profitable cultivation. They have
+also' opened mines of incalculable richness; mines of gold, silver, lead,
+copper, iron, and other metals, and all of these are common property. The
+men who executed these important works were our slaves, ill fed, worse
+clothed, and still worse lodged; and thousands of the most laborious and
+useful of them have perished of disease and starvation. Great as are the
+improvements already made, their number is constantly increasing, for we
+continue to employ such slaves--active, intelligent, and useful men--
+in extending them, and scarcely a day elapses that does not bring to light
+some new discovery, tending greatly to increase the value of _our common
+property_. We invite you, gentlemen, to come and cultivate these lands and
+work these mines. They are free to all. During the long period of
+forty-two years you shall have the whole product of your labor, and all we
+shall ask of you, at the close of that period, will be that you leave
+behind the common property of which we are now possessed, increased by the
+addition of such machinery as you may yourselves have made. The corn that
+you may have extracted, and the gold and silver that you may have mined
+during that long period, will be the property of yourselves, your wives,
+and your children. We charge no rent for the use of the lands, no wages
+for the labor of our slaves." Not satisfied with this, however, the
+persons who work these rich fields and mines claim to be absolute owners,
+not only of all the gold and silver they extract, but of all the machinery
+they construct out of the common property; and out of this claim grows the
+treaty now before the Senate.
+
+If justice requires the admission of foreigners to the enjoyment of a
+monopoly of the sale of their books it should be conceded at once to all,
+and it should be declared that no book should be printed here without the
+consent of its author, let him be Englishman, Frenchman, German, Russian,
+or Hindoo. This would certainly greatly increase the difficulty now
+existing in relation to the dissemination of knowledge; but if justice
+does require it let it be done. Would it, however, benefit the men who
+have real claims on our consideration? Let us see. A German devotes his
+life to the study of the history of his country, and at length produces a
+work of great value, but of proportional size. Real justice says that his
+work may not be used without his permission; that the facts he has brought
+to light from among the vast masses of original documents he has examined
+are his property, and can be published by none others but himself. The
+legislation, whose aid is invoked in the name of justice by literary men,
+speaks, however, very differently. It says: "This work is very cumbrous.
+To establish his views this man has gone into great detail. If translated,
+his book will scarcely sell to such extent as to pay the labor. The facts
+are common property. Out of this book you can make one that will be much
+more readable, and that will sell, for it will not be of more than one
+third the size. Take it, then, and extract all you need, and you will do
+well. You will have, too, another advantage. Translation confers no
+reputation; but an _original_ work, such as I now recommend to you, will
+give you such a standing as may lead you on to fortune. Few people know
+any thing of the original work, and it will not be necessary for you to
+mention that all your materials are thence derived." On the other hand, a
+lady who has read the work of this poor German finds in it an episode that
+she expands into a novel, which sells rapidly, and she reaps at home a
+large reward for her labors; while the man who gave her the idea starves
+in a garret. A literary friend of the lady novelist, delighted with her
+success, finds in his countrywoman's treasury of facts the material for a
+poem out of which he, too, reaps a harvest. Both of these are protected by
+international copyright, _because they have furnished nothing but the
+clothing of ideas;_ but the man who supplied them with the ideas finds
+that his book is condensed abroad, and given to the public, perhaps,
+without even the mention of his name.
+
+The whole tendency of the existing system is to give the largest reward to
+those whose labors are lightest, and the smallest to those whose labors
+are most severe; and every extension of it must necessarily look in that
+direction. The "Mysteries of Paris" were a fortune to Eugene Sue, and
+"Uncle Tom's Cabin" has been one to Mrs. Stowe. Byron had 2,000 guineas
+for a volume of "Childe Harold," and Moore 3,000 for his "Lalla Rookh;"
+and yet a single year should have more than sufficed for the production of
+any one of them. Under a system of international copyright, Dumas, already
+so largely paid, would be protected, whereas Thierry, who sacrificed his
+sight to the gratification of his thirst for knowledge, would not.
+Humboldt, the philosopher _par excellence_ of the age, would not, because
+he furnishes his readers with things, and not with words alone. Of the
+books that record his observations on this continent, but a part has, I
+believe, been translated into English, and of these but a small portion
+has been republished in this country, although to be had without claim for
+copyright. In England their sale has been small, and can have done little
+more than pay the cost of translation and publication. Had it been
+required to pay for the privilege of translation, but a small part of
+even those which have been republished would probably have ever seen the
+light in any but the language of the author. This great man inherited a
+handsome property which he devoted to the advancement of science, and what
+has been his pecuniary reward may be seen in the following statement,
+derived from an address recently delivered in New York:--
+
+"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 $70,000 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.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+LETTER III.
+
+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.
+
+What is claimed by English authors is perpetuity and universality of
+property in the clothing they supply for the body that is furnished to the
+world by other and unpaid men; and an examination of the course of
+proceeding in that country for the last century and a half shows that each
+step that has been taken has been in that direction. While denying to the
+producers of facts and ideas any right whatsoever, every act of
+legislation has tended to give more and more control over their
+dissemination to men who appropriated them to their own use, and brought
+them in an attractive form before the reader. Early in the last century
+was passed an act well known as the Statute of Queen Anne, giving to
+authors fourteen years as the period during which they were to have a
+monopoly of the peculiar form of words they chose to adopt in coming
+before the world. The number of persons then living in England and Wales,
+and subjected to that monopoly, was about five millions. Since that time
+the field of its operation has been enlarged, until it now embraces not
+only England and Wales, but Scotland, Ireland, and the British colonies,
+containing probably thirty-two millions of people who use the English
+language. The time, too, has been gradually extended until it now reaches
+forty-two years, or thrice the period for which it was originally granted.
+Nevertheless, no life is more precarious than that of an Englishman
+dependent upon literary pursuits for support. Such men are almost
+universally poor, and leading men among them, Tennyson and Sir Francis
+Head for instance, gladly accept the public charity, in the form of
+pensions for less than five hundred dollars a year. This is not a
+consequence of limitation in the field of action, for that is six times
+greater than it was when Gay netted £1,600 from a single opera, and Pope
+received £6,000 for his "Homer;" five times greater than when Fielding had
+£1,000 for his "Amelia;" and four times more than when Robertson had
+£4,500 for his "Charles V.," Gibbon £5,000 for the second part of his
+history, and McPherson £1,200 for his "Ossian."[1] Since that time money
+has become greatly more abundant and less valuable; and if we desired to
+compare the reward of these authors with those of the present day, the
+former should be trebled in amount, which would give Robertson more than
+sixty thousand dollars for a work that is comprised in three 8vo. volumes
+of very moderate size. It is not a consequence of limitation of time, for
+that has grown from fourteen to forty-two years--more than is required
+for any book except, perhaps, one in five or ten thousand. It should not
+be a consequence of poverty in the nation, for British writers assure us
+that wealth so much abounds that wars are needed to prevent its too rapid
+growth, and that foreign loans are indispensable for enabling the people
+of Britain to find an outlet for all their vast accumulations. What, then,
+is the cause of disease? Why is it that in so wealthy a nation literary
+men and women are so generally poor that it should be required to bring
+their poverty before the world, to aid in the demand for an extension to
+other countries of the monopoly so well secured at home? In that country
+the fortunes of wealthy men count by millions, and, that being the case,
+an average contribution of a shilling a head towards paying for the
+copyright of books, would seem to be the merest trifle to be given in
+return for the pleasure and the instruction derived from the perusal of
+the works of English authors, and yet even that small sum does not appear
+to be paid. Thirty-two millions of shillings make almost eight millions of
+dollars; a sum sufficient to give to six hundred authors more than
+thirteen thousand dollars a year, being more than half the salary of the
+chief magistrate of our Union. Admitting, however, that there were a
+thousand authors worthy to be paid, and that would most certainly cover
+them all, it would give to each eight thousand dollars, or one third more
+than we have been accustomed to allow to men who have devoted their lives
+to the service of the public, and have at length risen to be Secretaries
+of State. If English authors were thus largely paid, it would be deemed an
+absurdity to ask an enlargement of their monopoly; but, as they are not
+thus paid, it is asked. There is probably but a single literary man in
+England that receives $8,000 a year for his labors, and it may be doubted
+if it would be possible to name ten whose annual receipts equal $6,000;
+while those of a vast majority of them are under $1,500, and very many of
+them greatly under it. Even were we to increase the number of authors to
+fifteen hundred, one to every 4,000 males between the ages of 20 and 60 in
+the kingdom, and to allow them, on an average, $2,000 per annum, it would
+require but three millions of dollars to pay them, and that could be done
+by an average contribution of five pence per head of the population, a
+wonderfully small amount to be paid for literary labor by a nation
+claiming to be the wealthiest in the world. A shilling a head would give
+to the whole fifteen hundred salaries nearly equal to those of our
+Secretaries; and yet we see clever and industrious men, writers of
+eminence whose readers are to be found in every part of the civilized
+world, living on in hopeless poverty, and dying with the knowledge that
+they are leaving widows and children to the "tender mercies" of a world in
+which they themselves have shone and starved. Viewing all these facts, it
+may, I think, well be doubted if the annual contributions of the people
+subject to the British copyright act for the support of the persons who
+produce their books, much exceeds three pence, or six cents, per head; and
+here it is that we are to find the real difficulty--one not to be
+removed by us. The home market is the important one, whether for words or
+things, and when that is bad but little benefit can be derived from any
+foreign one; and every effort to extend the latter will, under such
+circumstances, be found to result in disappointment. It can act only as a
+plaster to conceal the sore, while the sore itself becomes larger and more
+dangerous from day to day. To effect a cure, the sore itself must be
+examined and its cause removed. To cure the disease so prevalent among
+British authors we must first seek for the causes why the home market for
+the products of their labor is so very small, and that will be found in
+the steadily growing tendency towards centralization, so obvious in every
+part of the operations of the British empire. Centralization and
+civilization have in all countries, and at all periods of the world, been
+opposed to each other, and that such is here the case can, I think,
+readily be shown.
+
+   [Footnote 1: The several figures here given are from a statement in a
+   British journal. Whether they are perfectly accurate, or not, I have no
+   means of determining.]
+
+Among the earliest cases in which this tendency was exhibited was that of
+the Union by which the kingdom of Scotland was reduced to the condition of
+a province of England, and Edinburgh, from being the capital of a nation,
+to becoming a mere provincial town. By many and enlightened Scotchmen a
+federal union would have been preferred; but a legislative one was formed,
+and from that date the whole public revenue of Scotland tended towards
+London, towards which tended also, and necessarily, all who sought for
+place, power, or distinction. An absentee government produced, of course,
+absentee landholders, and with each step in this direction there was a
+diminution in the demand at home for talent, which thenceforward sought a
+market in the great city to which the rents were sent. The connection
+between the educated classes of Scotland and the Scottish seats of
+learning tended necessarily to decline, while the connection between the
+former and the universities of England became more intimate. These results
+were, of course, gradually produced, but, as is the case with the stone as
+it falls towards the earth, the attraction of centralization grew with the
+growth of the city that was built out of the contributions of distant
+provinces, while the counteracting power of the latter as steadily
+declined, and the greater the decline the more rapid does its progress now
+become. Seventy years after the date of the Union, Edinburgh was still a
+great literary capital, and could then offer to the world the names of
+numerous men of whose reputation any country of the world might have been
+proud: Burns and McPherson; Robertson and Hume; Blair and Kames; Reid,
+Smith, and Stewart; Monboddo, Playfair, and Boswell; and numerous others,
+whose reputation has survived to the present day. Thirty-five years later,
+its press furnished the world with the works of Jeffrey and Brougham;
+Stewart, Brown, and Chalmers; Scott, Wilson, and Joanna Baillie; and with
+those of many others whose reputation was less widely spread, among whom
+were Galt, Hogg, Lockhart, and Miss Ferrier, the authoress of "Marriage."
+The "Edinburgh Review" and "Blackwood's Magazine," then, to a great
+extent, represented Scottish men, and Scottish modes of thought. Looking
+now on the same field of action, it is difficult, from this distance, to
+discover more than two Scottish authors, Alison and Sir William Hamilton,
+the latter all "the more conspicuous and remarkable, as he now," says the
+"North British Review" (Feb. 1853), "stands so nearly alone in the ebb of
+literary activity in Scotland, which has been so apparent during this
+generation." McCulloch and Macaulay were both, I believe, born in
+Scotland, but in all else they are English. Glasgow has recently presented
+the world with a new poet, in the person of Alexander Smith, but, unlike
+Ramsay and Burns, there is nothing Scottish about him beyond his place of
+birth. "It is not," says one of his reviewers, "Scottish scenery, Scottish
+history, Scottish character, and Scottish social humor, that he represents
+or depicts. Nor is there," it continues, "any trace in him of that feeling
+of intense nationality so common in Scottish writers. London," as it adds,
+"a green lane in Kent, an English forest, an English manorhouse, these are
+the scenes where the real business of the drama is transacted."[1]
+
+   [Footnote 1: _North British Review_, Aug. 1863.]
+
+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." [1]
+
+   [Footnote 1: _North British Review_, May, 1853.]
+
+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 $1,200 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[1] 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.
+
+   [Footnote 1: See Blackwood's Magazine, Sept. 1853, art. "Scotland since
+   the Union."]
+
+Looking to Ireland, we find a similar state of things. Seventy years
+since, that country was able to insist upon and to establish its claim for
+an independent government, and, by aid of the measures then adopted, was
+rapidly advancing. From that period to the close of the century the demand
+for books for Ireland was so great as to warrant the republication of a
+large portion of those produced in England. The _kingdom_ of Ireland of
+that day gave to the world such men as Burke and Grattan, Moore and
+Edgeworth, Curran, Sheridan, and Wellington. Centralization, however,
+demanded that Ireland should become a province of England, and from that
+time famines and pestilences have been of frequent occurrence, and the
+whole population is now being expelled to make room for the "slow and
+unimpressible" Saxon race. Under these circumstances, it is matter of
+small surprise that Ireland not only produces no books, but that she
+furnishes no market for those produced by others. Half a century of
+international copyright has almost annihilated both the producers and the
+consumers of books.
+
+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" [2] 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.
+
+   [Footnote 2: April, 1853, art. "The Church in the Mountains."]
+
+
+
+
+
+LETTER IV.
+
+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,[1]
+   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.
+
+
+   [Footnote 1: Wellington's dispatches place him in the first rank of
+    historians.]
+
+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 $15,000, 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."[1] 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.
+
+   [Footnote 1: _North British Review_, November, 1852.]
+
+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.
+
+Low-priced laborers cannot exercise self-government. All they earn is
+required for supplying themselves with indifferent food, clothing, and
+lodging, and they cannot control the expenditure of their wages to such
+extent as to enable them to educate their children, and hence it is that
+the condition of the people of England is as here described:--
+
+"About one half of our poor can neither read nor write. The test of
+signing the name at marriage is a very imperfect absolute test of
+education, but it is a very good relative one: taking that test, how
+stands Leeds itself in the Registrar-General's returns? In Leeds, which is
+the centre of the movement for letting education remain as it is, left
+entirely to chance and charity to supply its deficiencies, how do we find
+the fact? This, that in 1846, the last year to which these returns are
+brought down, of 1,850 marriages celebrated in Leeds and Hunslet, 508 of
+the men and 1,020 of the women, or considerably more than one half of the
+latter, signed their names with marks. 'I have also a personal knowledge
+of this fact--that of 47 men employed upon a railway in this immediate
+neighborhood, only 14 can sign their names in the receipt of their wages;
+and this not because of any diffidence on their part, but positively
+because they cannot write.' And only lately, the "Leeds Mercury" itself
+gave a most striking instance of ignorance among persons from Boeotian
+Pudsey: of 12 witnesses, 'all of respectable appearance, examined before
+the Mayor of Bradford at the court-house there, only one man could sign
+his name, and that indifferently.' Mr. Neison has clearly shown, in
+statistics of crime in England and Wales from 1834 to 1844, that crime is
+invariably the most prevalent in those districts where the fewest numbers
+in proportion to the population can read and write. Is it not, indeed,
+beginning at the wrong end to try and reform men after they have become
+criminals? Yet you cannot begin with children, from want of schools.
+Poverty is the result of ignorance, and then ignorance is again the
+unhappy result of poverty. 'Ignorance makes men improvident and
+thoughtless--women as well as men; it makes them blind to the future--
+to the future of this life as well as the life beyond. It makes them dead
+to higher pleasures than those of the mere senses, and keeps them down to
+the level of the mere animal. Hence the enormous extent of drunkenness
+throughout this country, and the frightful waste of means which it
+involves.' At Bilston, amidst 20,000 people, there are but two struggling
+schools--one has lately ceased; at Millenhall, Darlaston, and Pelsall,
+amid a teeming population, no school whatever. In Oldham, among 100,000,
+but one public day-school for the laboring classes; the others are an
+infant-school, and some dame and factory schools. At Birmingham, there are
+21,824 children at school, and 23,176 at no school; at Liverpool, 50,000
+out of 90,000 at no school; at Leicester, 8,200 out of 12,500; and at
+Leeds itself, in 1841 (the date of the latest returns), some 9,600 out of
+16,400 were at no school whatever. It is the same in the counties. 'I have
+seen it stated that a woman for some time had to officiate as clerk in a
+church in Norfolk, there being no adult male in the parish able to read
+and write.' For a population of 17,000,000 we have but twelve normal
+schools; while in Massachusetts they have three such schools for only
+800,000 of population."
+
+Poverty and ignorance produce intemperance and crime, and hence it is that
+both so much abound throughout England. Infanticide, as we are told,
+prevails to an extent unknown in any other part of the world. Looking at
+all these facts, we can readily see that the local demand for information
+throughout England must be very small, and this enables us to account for
+the extraordinary fact, that in all that country there has been no daily
+newspaper printed out of London. There is, consequently, no local demand
+for literary talent. The weekly papers that are published require little
+of the pen, but much of the scissors. The necessary consequence of this
+is, that every young man who fancies he can write, must go to London to
+seek a channel through which he may be enabled to come before the public.
+Here we have centralization again. Arrived in London, he finds a few daily
+papers, but only one, as we are told, that pays its expenses, and around
+each of them is a corps of writers and editors as ill-disposed to permit
+the introduction of any new laborers in their field as are the
+street-beggars of London to permit any interference with their "beat." If
+he desires to become contributor to the magazines, it is the same. To
+obtain the privilege of contributing his "cheap labor" to their pages, he
+must be well introduced, and if he make the attempt without such
+introduction he is treated with a degree of insolence scarcely to be
+imagined by any one not familiar with the "answers to correspondents" in
+London periodicals. If disposed to print a book he finds a very limited
+number of publishers, each one surrounded with his corps of authors and
+editors, and generally provided with a journal in which to have his own
+books well placed before the world. If, now, he succeeds in gaining
+favorable notice, he finds that he can obtain but a very small proportion
+of the price of his book, even if it sell, because centralization requires
+that all books shall be advertised in certain London journals that charge
+their own prices, and thus absorb the proceeds of no inconsiderable
+portion of the edition. Next, he finds the Chancellor of the Exchequer
+requiring a share of the proceeds of the book for permission to use paper,
+and further permission to advertise his work when printed.[1] Inquiring to
+what purpose are devoted the proceeds of all these taxes, he learns that
+the centralization which it is the object of the British cheap-labor
+policy to establish, requires the maintenance of large armies and large
+fleets which absorb more than all the profits of the commerce they
+protect. The bookseller informs him that he must take the risk of finding
+paper, and of paying the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and the "Times" and
+numerous other journals; that every editor will expect a copy; that the
+interests of science require that he, poor as he is, shall give no less
+than eleven copies to the public; and that the most that can be hoped for
+from the first edition is, that it will not bring him in debt. His book
+appears, but the price is high, for the reason that the taxes are heavy,
+and the general demand for books is small. Cheap laborers cannot buy
+books; soldiers and sailors cannot buy books; and thus does centralization
+diminish the market for literary talent while increasing the cost of
+bringing it before the world. Centralization next steps in, in the shape
+of circulating libraries, that, for a few guineas a year, supply books
+throughout the kingdom, and enable hundreds of copies to do the work that
+should be done by thousands, and hence it is that, while first editions of
+English works are generally small, so very few of them ever reach second
+ones. Popular as was Captain Marryat, his first editions were, as he
+himself informed me, for some time only 1,500, and had not then risen
+above 2,000. Of Mr. Bulwer's novels, so universally popular, the first
+edition never exceeded 2,500; and so it has been, and is, with others.
+With all Mr. Thackeray's popularity, the sale of his books has, I believe,
+rarely gone beyond 6,000 for the supply of above thirty millions of
+people. Occasionally, a single author is enabled to fix the attention of
+the public, and he is enabled to make a fortune--not from the sale of
+large quantities at low prices, but of moderate quantities at high prices.
+The chief case of the kind now in England is that of Mr. Dickens, who
+sells for twenty shillings a book that costs about four shillings and
+sixpence to make, and charges his fellow-laborers in the field of
+literature an enormous price for the privilege of attaching to his numbers
+the advertisements of their works, as is shown in the following paragraph
+from one of the journals of the day:--
+
+"Thus far, no writer has succeeded in drawing so large pecuniary profits
+from the exercise of his talents as Charles Dickens. His last romance,
+"Bleak House," which appeared in monthly numbers, had so wide a
+circulation in that form that it became a valuable medium for advertising,
+so that before its close the few pages of the tale were completely lost in
+sheets of advertisements which were stitched to them. The lowest price for
+such an advertisement was £1 sterling, and many were paid for at the rate
+of £5 and £6. From this there is nothing improbable in the supposition
+that, in addition to the large sum received for the tale, its author
+gained some £15,000 by his advertising sheets. The "Household Words"
+produces an income of about £4,000, though Dickens, having put it entirely
+in the hands of an assistant editor, has nothing to do with it beyond
+furnishing a weekly article. Through his talents alone he has raised
+himself from the position of a newspaper reporter to that of a literary
+Croesus."
+
+   [Footnote 1: The tax on advertisements has just now been repealed, but
+   that tax was a small one when compared with that imposed by
+   centralization.]
+
+Centralization produces the "cheap and abundant supply of labor" required
+for the maintenance of the British manufacturing system, and "cheap labor"
+furnishes Mr. Dickens with his "Oliver Twist," his "Tom-all-alone's," and
+the various other characters and situation by aid of whose delineation he
+is enabled, as a German writer informs us, to have dinners
+
+  "at which the highest aristocracy is glad to be present, and where he
+  equals them in wealth, and furnishes an intellectual banquet of wit and
+  wisdom which they, the highest and most refined circles, cannot
+  imitate."
+
+Centralization enables Mr. Dickens to obtain vast sums by advertising the
+works of the poor authors by whom he is surrounded, most of whom are not
+only badly paid, but insolently treated, while even of those whose names
+and whose works are well known abroad many gladly become recipients of the
+public charity. In the zenith of her reputation, Lady Charlotte Bury
+received, as I am informed, but £200 ($960) for the absolute copyright of
+works that sold for $7.50. Lady Blessington, celebrated as she was, had
+but from three to four hundred pounds; and neither Marryat nor Bulwer ever
+received, as I believe, the selling price of a thousand copies of their
+books as compensation for the copyright.[1] Such being the facts in regard
+to well-known authors, some idea may be formed in relation to the
+compensation of those who are obscure. The whole tendency of the "cheap
+labor" system, so generally approved by English writers, is to destroy the
+value of literary labor by increasing the number of persons who must look
+to the pen for means of support, and by diminishing the market for its
+products. What has been the effect of the system will now be shown by
+placing before you a list of the names of all existing British authors
+whose reputation can be regarded as of any wide extent, as follows:--
+
+
+   Tennyson,  Thackeray,  Grote,       McCulloch,
+   Carlyle,   Bulwer,     Macaulay,    Hamilton,
+   Dickens,   Alison,     J. S. Mill,  Faraday.
+
+
+   [Footnote 1: This I had from Captain Marryat himself.]
+
+This list is very small as compared with that presented in the same field
+five-and-thirty years since, and its difference in weight is still greater
+than in number. Scott, the novelist and poet, may certainly be regarded as
+the counterpoise of much more than any one of the writers of fiction in
+this list. Byron, Moore, Rogers, and Campbell enjoyed a degree of
+reputation far exceeding that of Tennyson. Wellington, the historian of
+his own campaigns, would much outweigh any of the historians. Malthus and
+Ricardo were founders of a school that has greatly influenced the policy
+of the world, whereas McCulloch and Mill are but disciples in that school.
+Dalton, Davy, and Wollaston will probably occupy a larger space in the
+history of science than Sir Michael Faraday, large, even, as may be that
+assigned to him.
+
+Extraordinary as is the existence of such a state of things in a country
+claiming so much to abound in wealth, it is yet more extraordinary that we
+look around in vain to see who are to replace even these when age or death
+shall withdraw them from the literary world. Of all here named,
+Mr. Thackeray is the only one that has risen to reputation in the last ten
+years, and he is no longer young; and even he seeks abroad that reward for
+his efforts which is denied to him by the "cheap labor" system at home. Of
+the others, nearly, if not quite all, have been for thirty years before
+the world, and, in the natural course of things, some of them must
+disappear from the stage of authorship, if not of life. If we seek their
+successors among the writers for the weekly or monthly journals, we shall
+certainly fail to find them. Looking to the Reviews, we find ourselves
+forced to agree with the English journalist, who informs his readers that
+"it is said, and with apparent justice, that the quarterlies are not as
+good as they were." From year to year they have less the appearance of
+being the production of men who looked to any thing beyond mere pecuniary
+compensation for their labor. In reading them we find ourselves compelled
+to agree with the reviewer who regrets to see that the centralization
+which is hastening the decline of the Scottish universities is tending to
+cause the mind of the whole youth of Scotland to be
+
+  "Cast in the mould of English universities, institutions which, from
+  their very completeness, exercise on second-rate minds an influence
+  unfavorable to originality and power of thought."--_North British
+  Review_, May 1853.
+
+Their pupils are, as he says, struck "with one mental die," than which
+nothing can be less favorable to literary or scientific development.
+
+Thirty years since, Sir Humphrey Davy spoke with his countrymen as
+follows:--
+
+  "There are very few persons who pursue science with true dignity; it is
+  followed more as connected with objects of profit than fame."--
+  _Consolation in Travel_.
+
+Since then, Sir John Herschel has said to them:--
+
+  "Here whole branches of continental study are unstudied, and indeed
+  almost unknown by name. It is in vain to conceal the melancholy truth.
+  We are fast dropping behind."--_Treatise on Sound_.
+
+A late writer, already quoted, says that learning is in disrepute. The
+English people, as he informs us, have
+
+  "No longer time or patience for the luxury of a learned treatment of
+  their interests; and a learned lawyer or statesmen, instead of being
+  eagerly sought for, is shunned as an impediment to public business."
+--_North British Review_.
+
+The reviewer is, as he informs us, "far from regarding this tendency,
+unfavorable as it is to present progress, as a sign of social
+retrogression." He thinks that
+
+  "Reference to general principles for rules of immediate action on the
+  part of those actually engaged in the dispatch of business, must, from
+  the delay which it necessarily occasions, come to be regarded as a
+  worse evil than action which is at variance with principle altogether."
+
+Demand tends to procure supply. Destroy the demand, and the supply will
+cease. Science, whether natural or social, is not in demand in Great
+Britain, and hence the diminution of supply. We have here the secret of
+literary and scientific decline, so obvious to all who study English books
+or journals, or read the speeches of English statesmen. Empiricism
+prevails everywhere, and there is a universal disposition to avoid the
+study of principles. The "cheap labor" system, which it is the object of
+the whole British policy to establish, cannot be defended on principle,
+and therefore principles are avoided. Centralization, cheap labor, and
+enslavement of the body and the mind, travel always in company, and with
+each step of their progress there is an increasing tendency towards the
+accumulation of power in the hands of men who should be statesmen, the
+difficulties of whose positions forbid, however, that they should refer to
+scientific principles for their government. Action must be had, and
+immediate action in opposition to principle is preferable to delay; and
+hence it is that real statesmen are "shunned as an impediment to public
+business." The greater the necessity for statesmanship, the more must
+statesmen be avoided. The nearer the ship is brought to the shoal, the
+more carefully must her captain avoid any reference to the chart. That
+such is the practice of those charged with the direction of the affairs of
+England, and such the philosophy of those who control her journals, is
+obvious to all who study the proceedings of the one or the teachings of
+the other. From year to year the ship becomes more difficult of
+management, and there is increasing difficulty in finding responsible men
+to take the helm. Such are the effects upon mind that have resulted from
+that "destruction of nationalities" required for the perfection of the
+British system of centralization.
+
+England is fast becoming one great shop, and traders have, in general,
+neither time nor disposition to cultivate literature. The little
+proprietors disappear, and the day laborers who succeed them can neither
+educate their children nor purchase books. The great proprietor is an
+absentee, and he has little time for either literature or science. From
+year to year the population of the kingdom becomes more and more divided
+into two great classes; the very poor, with whom food and raiment require
+all the proceeds of labor, and the very rich who prosper by the cheap
+labor system, and therefore eschew the study of principles. With the one
+class, books are an unattainable luxury, while with the other the absence
+of leisure prevents the growth of desire for their purchase. The sale is,
+therefore, small; and hence it is that authors are badly paid. In strong
+contrast with the limited sale of English books at home, is the great
+extent of sale here, as shown in the following facts: Of the octavo
+edition of the "Modern British Essayists," there have been sold in five
+years no less than 80,000 volumes. Of Macaulay's "Miscellanies," 3 vols.
+12mo., the sale has amounted to 60,000 volumes. Of Miss Aguilar's
+writings, the sale, in two years, has been 100,000 volumes. Of Murray's
+"Encyclopedia of Geography," more than 50,000 volumes have been sold, and
+of McCulloch's "Commercial Dictionary," 10,000 volumes. Of Alexander
+Smith's poems, the sale, in a few months, has reached 10,000 copies. The
+sale of Mr. Thackeray's works has been quadruple that of England, and that
+of the works of Mr. Dickens counts almost by millions of volumes. Of
+"Bleak House," in all its various forms--in newspapers, magazines, and
+volumes--it has already amounted to several hundred thousands of copies.
+Of Bulwer's last novel, since it was completed, the sale has, I am told,
+exceeded 35,000. Of Thiers's "French Revolution and Consulate," there have
+been sold 32,000, and of Montagu's edition of Lord Bacon's works 4,000
+copies.
+
+If the sales of books were as great in England as they are here, English
+authors would be abundantly paid. In reply it will be said their works are
+cheap here because we pay no copyright. For payment of the authors,
+however, a very small sum would be required, if the whole people of
+England could afford, as they should be able to do, to purchase books. A
+contribution of a shilling per head would give, as has been shown, a sum
+of almost eight millions of dollars, sufficient to pay to fifteen hundred
+salaries nearly equal to those of our Secretaries of State.
+Centralization, however, destroys the market for books, and the sale is,
+therefore, small; and the few successful writers owe their fortunes to the
+collection of large contributions made among a small number of readers;
+while the mass of authors live on, as did poor Tom Hood, from day to day,
+with scarcely a hope of improvement in their condition.
+
+Sixty years since, Great Britain was a wealthy country, abounding in
+libraries and universities, and giving to the world some of the best, and
+best paid, writers of the age. At that time the people of this country
+were but four millions, and they were poor, while unprovided with either
+books or libraries. Since then they have grown to twenty-six millions,
+millions of whom have been emigrants, in general arriving here with
+nothing but the clothing on their backs. These poor men have had every
+thing to create for themselves--farms, roads, houses, libraries,
+schools, and colleges; and yet, poor as they have been, they furnish now a
+demand for the principal products of English mind greater than is found at
+home. If we can make such a market, why cannot they? If they had such a
+market, would it not pay their authors to the full extent of their merits?
+Unquestionably it would; and if they see fit to pursue a system tending to
+cheapen the services of the laborer in the field, in the workshop, and at
+the desk, there is no more reason for calling upon the people of this
+country to make up their deficiencies towards those who contribute to
+their pleasure or instruction by writing books, than there would be in
+asking us to aid in supporting the hundreds of thousands of day laborers,
+their wives and children, whom the same system condemns, unpitied, to the
+workhouse.
+
+But, it will be asked, is it right that we should read the works of
+Macaulay, Dickens, and others, without compensation to the authors? In
+answer, it may be said, that we give them precisely what their own
+countrymen have given to their Dalton, Davy, Wollaston, Franklin, Parry,
+and the thousands of others who have furnished the bodies of which books
+are composed--and more than we ourselves give to the men among us
+engaged in cultivating science--fame. This, it will be said, is an
+unsubstantial return; yet Byron deemed it quite sufficient when he first
+saw an American edition of his works, coming, as it seemed to him, "from
+posterity." Miss Bremer found no small reward for her labors in knowing
+the high regard in which she was held; and it was no small payment when,
+even in the wilds of the West, she met with numerous persons who would
+gladly have her travel free of charge, because of the delight she had
+afforded them. Miss Carlen tells her readers that "of one triumph" she was
+proud. "It was," she says, "when I held in my hand, for the first time,
+one of my works, translated and published in America. My eyes filled with
+tears. The bright dreams of youth again passed before me. Ye Americans had
+planted the seed, and ye also approved of the fruit!" This is the feeling
+of a writer that cultivates literature with some object in view other than
+mere profit. It differs entirely from that of English authors, because in
+England, more than in any other country, book-making is a trade, carried
+on exclusively with a view to profit; and hence it is that the character
+of English books so much declines.
+
+But is it really true that foreign authors derive no pecuniary advantage
+from the republication of their books in this country? It is not. Mr.
+Macaulay has admitted that much of his reputation, and of the sale of his
+books at home, had been a consequence of his reputation here, where his
+Essays were first reprinted. At the moment of writing this, I have met
+with a notice of his speeches, first collected here, from which the
+following is an extract:--
+
+  "We owe much to America. Not content with charming us with the works of
+  her native genius, she teaches us also to appreciate our own. She steps
+  in between the timidity of a British author, and the fastidiousness of
+  the British public, and by using her' good offices' brings both parties
+  to a friendly understanding."--_Morning Chronicle_.
+
+If the people of England are largely indebted to America for being made
+acquainted with the merits of their authors, are not these latter also
+indebted to America for much of their pecuniary reward? Undoubtedly they
+are. Mr. Macaulay owes much of his fortune to American publishers,
+readers, and critics; and such is the case to perhaps a greater extent
+with Mr. Carlyle, whose papers were first collected here, and their merits
+thus made known to his countrymen. Lamb's papers of "Elia" were first
+collected here. It is to the diligence of an American publisher that De
+Quincey owes the publication of a complete edition of his works, now to be
+followed by a similar one in England. The papers of Professor Wilson owe
+their separate republication to American booksellers. The value of Mr.
+Thackeray's copyrights has been greatly increased by his reception here.
+So has it been with Mr. Dickens. All of those persons profit largely by
+their fame abroad, while the men who contribute to the extension of
+knowledge by the publication of facts and ideas never reap profit from
+their publication abroad, and are rarely permitted to acquire even fame.
+Godfrey died poor. The merchants of England gave no fortune to his
+children, and Hadley stole his fame. The people of that country, who
+travel in steam-vessels, have given to the family of Fulton no pecuniary
+reward, while her writers have uniformly endeavored to deprive him of the
+reputation which constituted almost the sole inheritance of his family.
+The whole people of Europe are profiting by the discovery of chloroform;
+but who inquires what has become of the family of its unfortunate
+discoverer? Nobody! The people of England profit largely by the
+discoveries of Fourcroy, Berzelius, and many other of the continental
+philosophers; but do those who manufacture cheap cloth, or those who wear
+it, contribute to the support of the families of those philosophers? Did
+they contribute to their support while alive? Certainly not. To do so
+would have been in opposition to the idea that the real contributors to
+knowledge should be "hewers of wood and drawers of water" for the
+gentlemen who dress up their facts and ideas in an attractive form and
+place them before the world in the form of cloth or books.
+
+We are largely indebted to the labors of literary men, and they should be
+well paid, but their claims to pecuniary reward have been much
+exaggerated, because they have held the pen and have had always a high
+degree of belief in their own deserts. Their right in the books they
+publish is precisely similar to, and no greater than, that of the man who
+culls the flowers and arranges the bouquets; and, when that is provided
+for, their books are entitled to become common property. English authors
+are already secured in a monopoly for forty-two years among a body of
+people so large that a contribution of a shilling a head would enable each
+and all of them to live in luxury; and if British policy prevents their
+countrymen from paying them, it is to the British Parliament they should
+look for redress, and not to our Executive. When they shall awaken to the
+fact that "cheap labor" with the spade, the plough, and the loom, brings
+with it necessarily "cheap labor" with the pen, they will become
+opponents, and cease to be advocates of the system under which they
+suffer. All that, in the mean time, we can say to them is, that we protect
+our own authors by giving them a monopoly of our own immense and rapidly
+growing market, and that if they choose to come and live among us we will
+grant them the same protection. We may now look to the condition of our
+own literary men.
+
+
+
+
+
+LETTER V.
+
+Our system is based upon an idea directly the reverse of the one on which
+rests the English system--that of decentralization; and we may now study
+its effects as shown in the development of literary tendencies and in the
+reward of authors.
+
+Centralization tends towards taxing the people for building up great
+institutions at a distance from those who pay the taxes; decentralization
+towards leaving to the people to tax themselves for the support of common
+and high schools in their immediate neighborhood. The first tends towards
+placing the man who has instruction to sell at a distance from those who
+need to buy it; while the other tends towards bringing the teacher to the
+immediate vicinity of the scholars, and thus diminishing the cost of
+education. The effects of the latter are seen in the fact that the new
+States, no less than the old ones, are engaged in an effort to enable all,
+without distinction of sex or fortune, to obtain the instruction needful
+for enabling them to become consumers of books, and customers to the men
+who produce them. Massachusetts exhibits to the world 182,000 scholars in
+her public schools; New York, 778,000 in the public ones, and 75,000 in
+the private ones; and Iowa and Wisconsin are laying the foundation of a
+system that will enable them, at a future day, to do as much. Boston taxes
+herself $365,000 for purposes of education, while Philadelphia expends
+more than half a million for the same purposes, and exhibits 50,000
+children in her public schools. Here we have, at once, a great demand for
+instructors, offering a premium on intellectual effort, and its effect is
+seen in the numerous associations of teachers, each anxious to confer with
+the others in regard to improvement in the modes of education. School
+libraries are needed for the children, and already those of New York
+exhibit about a million and a half of volumes. Books of a higher class are
+required for the teachers, and here is created another demand leading to
+the preparation of new and improved books by the teachers themselves. The
+scholars enter life and next we find numerous apprentices' libraries and
+mercantile libraries, producing farther demand for books, and aiding in
+providing reward for those to whom the world is indebted for them.
+Everybody must learn to read and write, and everybody _must_ therefore
+have books; and to this universality of demand it is due that the sale of
+those required for early education is so immense. Of the works of Peter
+Parley it counts by millions; but if we take his three historical books
+(price 75 cents each) alone, we find that it amounts to between half a
+million and a million of volumes. Of Goodrich's United States it has been
+a quarter of a million. Of Morse's Geography and Atlas (50 cents) the sale
+is said to be no less than 70,000 per annum. Of Abbott's histories the
+sale is said to have already been more than 400,000, while of Emerson's
+Arithmetic and Reader it counts almost by millions. Of Mitchell's several
+geographies it is 400,000 a year.
+
+In other branches of education the same state of things is seen to exist.
+Of the Boston Academy's collection of sacred music the sale has exceeded
+600,000; and the aggregate sale of five books by the same author has
+probably exceeded a million, at a dollar per volume. Leaving the common
+schools we come to the high schools and colleges, of which latter the
+names of no less than 120 are given in the American Almanac. Here again we
+have decentralization, and its effect is to bring within reach of almost
+the whole people a higher degree of education than could be afforded by
+the common schools. The problem to be solved is, as stated by a recent and
+most enlightened traveller, "How are citizens to be made thinking beings
+in the greatest numbers?" Its solution is found in making of the
+educational fabric a great pyramid, of which the common schools form the
+base and the Smithsonian Institute the apex, the intermediate places being
+filled with high schools, lyceums, and colleges of various descriptions,
+fitted to the powers and the means of those who need instruction. All
+these make, of course, demand for books, and hence it is that the sale of
+Anthon's series of classics (averaging $1) amounts, as I am told, to
+certainly not less than 50,000 volumes per annum, while of the "Classical
+Dictionary" of the same author ($4) not less than thirty thousand have
+been sold. Of Liddell and Scott's "Greek Lexicon" ($5), edited by Prof.
+Drisler, the sale has been not less than 25,000, and probably much larger.
+Of Webster's 4to. "Dictionary" ($6) it has been, I am assured, 60,000, and
+perhaps even 80,000; and of the royal 8vo. one ($3.50), 250,000. Of
+Bolmar's French school books not less than 150,00 volumes have been sold.
+The number of books used in the higher schools--text-books in
+philosophy, chemistry, and other branches of science--is exceedingly
+great, and it would be easy to produce numbers of which the sale is from
+five to ten thousand per annum; but to do so would occupy too much space,
+and I must content myself with the few facts already given in regard to
+this department of literature.
+
+Decentralization, or local self-government, tends thus to place the whole
+people in a condition to read newspapers, while the same cause tends to
+produce those local interests which give interest to the public journals,
+and induce men to purchase them. Hence it is that their number is so
+large. The census of 1850 gives it at 2,625; and the increase since that
+time has been very great. The total number of papers printed can scarcely
+be under 600,000,000, which would give almost 24 for every person, old and
+young, black and white, male and female, in the Union. But recently the
+newspaper press of the United Kingdom was said to require about 160,000
+reams of paper, which would give about 75,000,000 of papers, or two and a
+half per head.
+
+The number of daily papers was returned at 350, but it has greatly
+increased, and must now exceed four hundred. Chicago, which then was a
+small town, rejoices now in no less than 24 periodicals, seven of which
+are daily, and five of them of the largest size. At St. Louis, which but a
+few years since was on the extreme borders of civilization, we find
+several, and one of these has grown from a little sheet of 8 by 12 inches
+to the largest size, yielding to its proprietors $50,000 per annum, while
+Liverpool, Manchester, and Birmingham are still compelled to depend upon
+their tri-weekly sheets. St. Louis itself furnishes the type, and
+Louisville furnishes the paper. Everywhere, the increase in size is
+greater than that in the number of newspapers, and the increase of ability
+in both the city and country press, greater than in either number or size.
+These things are necessary consequences of that decentralization which
+builds school-houses and provides teachers, where centralization raises
+armies and provides generals. The schools enable young men to read, think,
+and write, and the local newspaper is always at hand in which to publish.
+Beginning thus with the daily or weekly journal, the youth of talent makes
+his way gradually to the monthly or quarterly magazine, and ultimately to
+the independent book.
+
+Examine where we may through the newspaper press, there is seen the
+activity which always accompanies the knowledge that men _can rise_ in the
+world _if they will_; but this is particularly obvious in the daily press
+of cities, whose efforts to obtain information, and whose exertions to lay
+it before the public, are without a parallel. Centralization, like that of
+the London "Times," furnishes its readers with brief paragraphs of
+telegraphic news, where decentralization gives columns. The New York
+"Tribune" furnishes, for two cents, better papers than are given in London
+for ten, and it scatters them over the country by hundreds of thousands.
+Decentralization is educating the whole mind of the country, and it is to
+this it is due that the American farmer is furnished with machines which
+are, according to the London "Times," "about twice as light in draught as
+the lightest of English machines of the same description, doing as much,
+if not more work than the best of them, and with much less power; dressing
+the grain, which they do not, and which can be profitably disposed of at
+one half, or at least one third less money than its British rivals"--and
+is thus enabled to purchase books. Centralization, on the other hand,
+furnishes the English farmer, according to the same authority, "with
+machines strong and dear enough to rob him of all future improvements, and
+tremendously heavy, either to work or to draw;" and thus deprives him of
+all power to educate his children, or to purchase for himself either books
+or newspapers.
+
+Religious decentralization exerts also a powerful influence on the
+arrangements for imparting that instruction which provides purchasers for
+books. The Methodist Society, with its gigantic operations; the
+Presbyterian Board of Publication; the Baptist Association; the
+Sunday-school, and other societies, are all incessantly at work creating
+readers. The effect of all these efforts for the dissemination of cheap
+knowledge is shown in the first instance in the number of semi-monthly,
+monthly, and quarterly journals, representing every shade of politics and
+religion, and every department of literature and science.
+
+The number of these returned to the census was 175; but that must, I
+think, have been even then much below the truth. Since then it has been
+much increased. Of two of them, Putnam's and Harper's, the first
+exclusively original, and the latter about two thirds so, the sale is
+about two millions of numbers per annum; while of three others, published
+in Philadelphia, it is about a million. Cheap as are these journals, at
+twenty-five cents each, the sum total of the price paid for them by the
+consumers is about $700,000. The quantity of paper required for a single
+one of them is about 16,000 reams of double medium, being one tenth as
+much as has recently been given as the consumption of the whole newspaper
+press of Great Britain and Ireland. Every pursuit in life, and almost
+every shade of opinion, has its periodical. A single city in Western New
+York furnishes no less than four agricultural and horticultural journals,
+one of them published weekly, with a circulation of 15,000, and the
+others, monthly, with a joint circulation of 25,000. The "Merchants'
+Magazine," which set the example for the one now published in London, has
+a circulation of 3,500. The "Bankers' Magazine" also set the example
+recently followed in England. Medicine and Law have their numerous and
+well supported journals; and Dental Surgery alone has five, one of which
+has a circulation of 5,000 copies, while all Europe has but two, and those
+of very inferior character.[1] North, south, east, and west, the
+periodical press is collecting the opinions of all our people, while
+centralization is gradually limiting the expression of opinion, in
+England, to those who live in and near London. Upon this extensive base of
+cheap domestic literature rests that portion of the fabric composed of
+reproduction of foreign books, the quantities of some of which were given
+in my last. The proportion which these bear to American books has been
+thus given for the six months ending on the 30th of June last:
+
+
+   Republications   169
+   Original         522
+
+                    691
+
+
+   [Footnote 1: It is a remarkable fact that there should be in this
+   country no less than four Colleges of Dental Surgery, while all Europe
+   presents not even a single one.]
+
+Of these last, 17 were original translations.
+
+We see, thus, that the proportion of domestic to foreign products is
+already more than three to one. How the sale of the latter compares with
+that of the former, will be seen by the following facts in relation to
+books of almost all sizes, prices, and kinds; some of which have been
+furnished by the publishers themselves, whilst others are derived from
+gentlemen connected with the trade whose means of information are such as
+warrant entire reliance upon their statements.
+
+Of all American authors, those of school-books excepted, there is no one
+of whose books so many have been circulated as those of Mr. Irving. Prior
+to the publication of the edition recently issued by Mr. Putnam, the sale
+had amounted to some hundreds of thousands; and yet of that edition,
+selling at $1.25 per volume, it has already amounted to 144,000 vols. Of
+"Uncle Tom," the sale has amounted to 295,000 copies, partly in one, and
+partly in two volumes, and the total number of volumes amounts probably to
+about 450,000.
+
+
+                                 _Price per vol._ _Volumes._
+
+
+   Of the two works of Miss Warner,
+    Queechy, and the Wide, Wide World, the
+    price and sale have been.                  $ 88  104,000
+
+   Fern Leaves, by Fanny Fern, in six months.  1 25   45,000
+
+   Reveries of a Bachelor, and other books,
+    by Ike Marvel.                             1 25   70,000
+
+   Alderbrook, by Fanny Forester, 3 vols.        50   33,000
+
+   Northup's Twelve Years a Slave              1 00   20,000
+
+   Novels of Mrs. Hentz, in three years          63   93,000
+
+   Major Jones' Courtship and Travels            50   31,000
+
+   Salad for the Solitary, by a new author,
+    in five months                              1 25   5,000
+
+   Headley's Napoleon and his Marshals, Washington
+    and his Generals, and other works.         1 25  200,000
+
+   Stephen's Travels in Egypt and Greece.        87   80,000
+
+    " " Yucatan and Central America            2 50   60,000
+
+   Kendall's Expedition to Santa Fe            1 25   40,000
+
+   Lynch's Expedition to the Dead Sea, 8vo.   $3 00   15,000
+
+    " " 2mo.                                   1 25    8,000
+
+   Western Scenes                              2 50   14,000
+
+   Young's Science of Government               1 00   12,000
+
+   Seward's Life of John Quincy Adams.         1 00   30,000
+
+   Frost's Pictorial History of the World,
+    3 vols.                                    2 50   60,000
+
+   Sparks' American Biography, 25 vols           75  100,000
+
+   Encyclopaedia Americana, 14 vols.           2 00  280,000
+
+   Griswold's Poets and Prose Writers
+    of America, 3 vols.                        3 00   21,000
+
+   Barnes' Notes on the Gospels, Epistles, &c.,
+    11 vols.                                     75  300.000
+
+   Aiken's Christian Minstrel, in two years.     62   40,000
+
+   Alexander on the Psalms, 3 vols.            1 17   10,000
+
+   Buist's Flower Garden Directory             1 25   10,000
+
+   Cole on Fruit Trees.                          50   18,000
+
+    " Diseases of Domestic Animals               50   34,000
+
+   Downing's Fruits and Fruit Trees.             50   15,000
+
+    " Rural Essays.                            3 50    3,000
+
+    " Landscape Gardening.                     3 50    9,000
+
+    " Cottage Residences.                      2 00    6,250
+
+    " Country Homes.                           4 00    3,500
+
+   Mahan's Civil Engineering.                  3 00    7,500
+
+   Leslie's Cookery and Receipt-books.         1 00   96,000
+
+   Guyot's Lectures on Earth and Man.          1 00    6,000
+
+   Wood and Bache's Medical Dispensatory       5 00   60,000
+
+   Dunglison's Medical Writings,
+    in all 10 vols.                            2 50   50,000
+
+   Pancoast's Surgery, 4to.                   10 00    4,000
+
+   Rayer, Ricord, and Moreau's Surgical Works
+   (translations).                            15 00    5,500
+
+   Webster's Works, 6 vols.                    2 00   46,800
+
+   Kent's Commentaries, 4 vols.                3 38   84,000
+
+
+Next to Chancellor Kent's work comes Greenleaf on Evidence, 3 vols.,
+$16.50; the sale of which has been exceedingly great, but what has been
+its extent, I cannot say.
+
+Of Blatchford's General Statutes of New York, a local work, price $4.50,
+the sale has been 3,000; equal to almost 30,000 of a similar work for the
+United Kingdom.
+
+How great is the sale of Judge Story's books can be judged only from the
+fact that the copyright now yields, and for years past has yielded, more
+than $8,000 per annum. Of the sale of Mr. Prescott's works little is
+certainly known, but it cannot, I understand, have been less than 160,000
+volumes. That of Mr. Bancroft's History, has already risen, certainly to
+30,000 copies, and I am told it is considerably more; and yet even that is
+a sale, for such a work, entirely unprecedented.
+
+Of the works of Hawthorne, Longfellow, Bryant, Willis, Curtis, Sedgwick,
+Sigourney, and numerous others, the sale is exceedingly great; but, as not
+even an approximation to the true amount can be offered, I must leave it
+to you to judge of it by comparison with those of less popular authors
+above enumerated. In several of these cases, beautifully illustrated
+editions have been published, of which large numbers have been sold. Of
+Mr. Longfellow's volume there have been no less than ten editions. These
+various facts will probably suffice to satisfy you that this country
+presents a market for books of almost every description, unparalleled in
+the world.
+
+In reflecting upon this subject, it is necessary to bear in mind that the
+monopoly, granted to authors and their families, is for the term of no
+less than forty-two years, and that in that period the number of persons
+subjected to it is likely to grow to little short of a hundred millions,
+with a power of consumption that will probably be ten times greater than
+now exists. If the Commentaries of Chancellor Kent continue to maintain
+their present position, as they probably will, may we not reasonably
+suppose that the demand for them will continue as great, or nearly so, as
+it is at present, and that the total sale during the period of copyright
+will reach a quarter of a million of volumes? So, too, of the histories of
+Bancroft and Prescott, and of other books of permanent character.
+
+Such being the extent of the market for the products of literary labor, we
+may now inquire into its rewards.
+
+Beginning with the common schools, we find a vast number of young men and
+young women acting as teachers of others, while qualifying themselves for
+occupying other places in life. Many of them rise gradually to become
+teachers in high schools and professors in colleges, while all of them
+have at hand the newspaper, ready to enable them, if gifted with the power
+of expressing themselves on paper, to come before the world. The numerous
+newspapers require editors and contributors, and the amount appropriated
+to the payment of this class of the community is a very large one. Next
+come the magazines, many of which pay very liberally. I have now before me
+a statement from a single publisher, in which he says that to Messrs.
+Willis, Longfellow, Bryant, and Alston, his price was uniformly $50 for a
+poetical article, long or short--and his readers know that they were
+generally very short; in one case only fourteen lines. To numerous others
+it was from $25 to $40. In one case he has paid $25 per page for prose. To
+Mr. Cooper he paid $1,800 for a novel, and $1,000 for a series of naval
+biographies, the author retaining the copyright for separate publication;
+and in such cases, if the work be good, its appearance in the magazine
+acts as the best of advertisements. To Mr. James he paid $1,200 for a
+novel, leaving him also the copyright. For a single number of the journal
+he has paid to authors $1,500. The total amount paid for original matter
+by two magazines--the selling price of which is $3 per annum--in ten
+years, has exceeded $130,000, giving an average of $13,000 per annum. The
+Messrs. Harper inform me that the expenditure for literary and artistic
+labor required for their magazine is $2,000 per month, or $24,000 a year.
+
+Passing upwards, we reach the producers of books, and here we find rewards
+not, I believe, to be paralleled elsewhere. Mr. Irving stands, I imagine,
+at the head of living authors for the amount received for his books. The
+sums paid to the renowned Peter Parley must have been enormously great,
+but what has been their extent I have no means of ascertaining. Mr.
+Mitchell, the geographer, has realized a handsome fortune from his
+schoolbooks. Professor Davies is understood to have received more than
+$50,000 from the series published by him. The Abbotts, Emerson, and
+numerous other authors engaged in the preparation of books for young
+persons and schools, are largely paid. Professor Anthon, we are informed,
+has received more than $60,000 for his series of classics. The French
+series of Mr. Bolmar has yielded him upwards of $20,000. The school
+geography of Mr. Morse is stated to have yielded more than $20,000 to the
+author. A single medical book, of one 8vo. volume, is understood to have
+produced its authors $60,000, and a series of medical books has given to
+its author probably $30,000. Mr. Downing's receipts from his books have
+been very large. The two works of Miss Warner must have already yielded
+her from $12,000 to $15,000, and perhaps much more. Mr. Headley is stated
+to have received about $40,000; and the few books of Ike Marvel have
+yielded him about $20,000; a single one, "The Reveries of a Bachelor,"
+produced more than $4,000 in the first six months. Mrs. Stowe has been
+very largely paid. Miss Leslie's Cookery and Receipt books have paid her
+$12,000. Dr. Barnes is stated to have received more than $30,000 for the
+copyright of his religious works. Fanny Fern has probably received not
+less than $6,000 for the 12mo. volume published but six months since. Mr.
+Prescott was stated, several years since, to have then received $90,000
+from his books, and I have never seen it contradicted. According to the
+rate of compensation generally understood to be received by Mr. Bancroft,
+the present sale of each volume of his yields him more than $15,000, and
+he has the long period of forty-two years for future sale. Judge Story
+died, as has been stated, in the receipt of more than $8,000 per annum;
+and the amount has not, as it is understood, diminished. Mr. Webster's
+works, in three years, can scarcely have paid less than $25,000. Kent's
+Commentaries are understood to have yielded to their author and his heirs
+more than $120,000, and if we add to this for the remainder of the period
+only one half of this sum, we shall obtain $180,000, or $45,000 as the
+compensation for a single 8vo. volume, a reward for literary labor
+unexampled in history. What has been the amount received by Professor
+Greenleaf I cannot learn, but his work stands second only, in the legal
+line, to that of Chancellor Kent. The price paid for Webster's 8vo.
+Dictionary is understood to be fifty cents per copy; and if so, with a
+sale of 250,000, it must already have reached $125,000. If now to this we
+add the quarto, at only a dollar a copy, we shall have a sum approaching
+to, and perhaps exceeding, $180,000; more, probably, than has been paid
+for all the dictionaries of Europe in the same period of time. What have
+been the prices paid to Messrs. Hawthorne, Longfellow, Bryant, Willis,
+Curtis, and numerous others, I cannot say; but it is well known that they
+have been very large. It is not, however, only the few who are liberally
+paid; all are so who manifest any ability, and here it is that we find the
+effect of the decentralizing system of this country as compared with the
+centralizing one of Great Britain. There Mr. Macaulay is largely paid for
+his Essays, while men of almost equal ability can scarcely obtain the
+means of support. Dickens is a literary Croesus, and Tom Hood dies leaving
+his family in hopeless poverty. Such is not here the case. Any
+manifestation of ability is sure to produce claimants for the publication
+of books. No sooner had the story of "Hot Corn" appeared in "The Tribune,"
+than a dozen booksellers were applicants to the author for a book. The
+competition is here for the _purchase_ of the privilege of printing, and
+this competition is not confined to the publishers of a single city, as is
+the case in Britain. Boston, New York, Philadelphia, and even Auburn and
+Cincinnati, present numerous publishers, all anxious to secure the works
+of writers of ability, in any department of literature; and were it
+possible to present a complete list of our well-paid authors, its extent
+could not fail to surprise you greatly, as the very few facts that have
+come to my knowledge in reference to some of the lesser stars of the
+literary world have done by me. You will observe that I have confined
+myself to the question of demand for books and compensation to their
+authors, without reference to that of the ability displayed in their
+preparation. That we may have good books, all that is required is that we
+make a large market for them, which is done here to an extent elsewhere
+unknown.
+
+Forty years since, the question was asked by the "Edinburgh Review," Who
+reads an American book? Judging from the facts here given, may we not
+reasonably suppose that the time is fast approaching, when the question
+will be asked, Who does not read American books?
+
+Forty years since, had we asked where were the _homes of American
+authors_, we should generally have been referred to very humble houses in
+our cities. Those who now inquire for them will find their answer in the
+beautiful volume lately published by Messrs. Putnam and Co., the precursor
+of others destined to show the literary men of this country enjoying
+residences as agreeable as any that had been occupied by such men in any
+part of the world; and in almost every case, those homes have been due to
+the profits of the pen. Less than half a century since, the race of
+literary men was scarcely known in the country, and yet the amount now
+paid for literary labor is greater than in Great Britain and France
+combined, and will probably be, in twenty years more, greater than in all
+the world beside. With the increase of number, there has been a
+corresponding increase in the consideration in which they are held; and
+the respect with which even unknown authors are treated, when compared
+with the disrespect manifested in England towards such men, will be
+obvious to all familiar with the management of the journals of that
+country who read the following in one of our principal periodicals:--
+
+"The editor of Putnam's Monthly will give to every article forwarded for
+insertion in the Magazine a careful examination, and, when requested to do
+so, will return the MS. if not accepted."
+
+Here, the competition is among the publishers to _buy_ the products of
+literary labor, whereas, abroad, the competition is to _sell_ them, and
+therefore is the treatment of our authors, even when unknown, so
+different. Long may it continue to be so!
+
+Such having been the result of half a century, during which we have had to
+lay the foundation of the system that has furnished so vast a body of
+readers, what may not be expected in the next half century, during which
+the population will increase to a hundred millions, with a power to
+consume the products of literary labor growing many times faster than the
+growth of numbers? If this country is properly termed "the paradise of
+women," may it not be as correctly denominated the paradise of authors,
+and should they not be content to dwell in it as their predecessors have
+done? Is it wise in them to seek a change? Their best friends would, I
+think, unite with me in advising that it is not. Should they succeed in
+obtaining what they now desire, the day will, as I think, come, when they
+will be satisfied that their real friends had been, those who opposed the
+confirmation of the treaty now before the Senate.
+
+
+
+
+
+LETTER VI.
+
+We have commenced the erection of a great literary and scientific edifice.
+The foundation is already broad, deep, and well laid, but it is seen to
+increase in breadth, depth, and strength, with every step of increase in
+height; and the work itself is seen to assume, from year to year, more and
+more the natural form of a true pyramid. To the height that such a
+building may be carried, no living man will venture to affix a limit. What
+is the tendency to durability in a work thus constructed, the pyramids of
+Egypt and the mountains of the Andes and of the Himalaya may attest. That
+edifice is the product of decentralization.
+
+Elsewhere, centralization is, as has been shown, producing the opposite
+effect, narrowing the base, and diminishing the elevation. Having
+prospered under decentralization, our authors seek to introduce
+centralization. Failing to accomplish their object by the ordinary course
+of legislation, they have had recourse to the executive power; and thus
+the end to be accomplished, and the means used for its accomplishment, are
+in strict accordance with each other.
+
+We are invited to grant to the authors and booksellers of England, and
+their agent or agents here, entire control over a highly important source
+from which our people have been accustomed to derive their supplies of
+literary food. Before granting to these persons any power here, it might
+be well to inquire how they have used their power at home. Doing this, we
+find that, as is usually the case with those enjoying a monopoly, they
+have almost uniformly preferred to derive their profits from high prices
+and small sales, and have thus, in a great degree, deprived their
+countrymen of the power to purchase books; a consequence of which has been
+that the reading community has, very generally, been driven to dependence
+upon circulating libraries, to the injury of both the authors and the
+public. The extent to which this system of high prices in regard to
+school-books has been carried, and the danger of intrusting such men with
+power, are well shown in the fact that the same government which has so
+recently concluded a copyright treaty with our own, has since entered
+"into the bookselling trade on its own account," competing "with the
+private dealer, who has to bear copyright charges." The subjects of this
+"reactionary step" on the part of a government that so much professes to
+love free trade, are, as we are told, "the famous school-books of the
+Irish national system."[1] A new office has been created, "paid for with a
+public salary," for "the issue of books to the retail dealers;" and the
+centralization of power over this important portion to the trade is, we
+are told,[2] defended in the columns of the "Times," as "tending to bring
+down the price of school-books; for booksellers who possess copyrights,
+now sell their books at exorbitant prices, and, by underselling them, the
+commissioners will be able to beat them." Judging from this, it would seem
+almost necessary, if this treaty is to be ratified, that there should be
+added some provision authorizing our government to appoint commissioners
+for the regulation of trade, and for "underselling" those persons who "now
+sell their books at exorbitant prices." If it be ratified, we shall be
+only entering on the path of centralization; and it may not be amiss that,
+before ratification, we should endeavor to determine to what point it will
+probably carry us in the end.
+
+   [Footnote 1: _Spectator_, June 4, 1853.]
+
+   [Footnote 2: _Ibid_.]
+
+The question is often asked, What difference can it make to the people of
+this country whether they do, or do not, pay to the English author a few
+cents in return for the pleasure afforded by the perusal of his book? Not
+very much, certainly, to the wealthy reader; but as every extra cent is
+important to the poorer one, and tends to limit his power to purchase, it
+may be well to calculate how many cents would probably be required; and,
+that we may do so, I give you here a list[1] of the comparative prices of
+English and American editions of a few of the books that have been
+published within the last few years:--
+
+
+
+                                          _English._ _Amer._
+
+   Brande's Encyclopaedia                      $15 00  $4 00
+
+   Ure's Dictionary of Manufactures             15 00   5 00
+
+   Alison's Europe, cheapest edition            25 00   5 00
+
+   D'Aubignd's Reformation                      11 50   2 25
+
+   Bulwer's "My Novel"                          10 50     75
+
+   Lord Mahon's England                         13 00   4 00
+
+   Macaulay's England, per vol.                  4 50     40
+
+   Campbell's Chief Justices.                    7 50   3 50
+
+    " Lord Chancellors                          25 50  12 00
+
+   Queens of England, 8 vols.                   24 00  10 00
+
+   Queens of Scotland                           15 00   6 00
+
+   Hallam's Middle Ages                          7 50   1 75
+
+   Arnold's Rome                                12 00   3 00
+
+   Life of John Foster                           6 00   1 25
+
+   Layard's Nineveh, complete edition.           9 00   1 75
+
+   Mrs. Somerville's Physical Sciences           2 50     50
+
+   Whewell's Elements of Morality.               7 50   1 00
+
+   Napier's Peninsular War                      12 00   3 25
+
+   Thirlwall's Greece, cheapest edition          7 00   3 00
+
+   Dick's Practical Astronomer                   2 50     50
+
+   Jane Eyre                                     7 50     25
+
+
+   [Footnote 1: Copied from an article in the New York _Daily Times_.]
+
+The difference, as we see, between the selling price in London and in New
+York, of the first book in this list, is no less than eleven dollars, or
+almost three times as much as the whole price of the American edition. To
+what is this extraordinary difference to be attributed? To any excess in
+the cost of paper or printing in London? Certainly not; for paper and
+printers' labor are both cheaper there than here. Is it, then, to the
+necessity for compensating the author? Certainly not; for there are in
+this country fifty persons as fully competent as Mr. Brande for the
+preparation of such a work, who would willingly do it for a dollar a copy,
+calculating upon being paid out of a large sale. As the sale of books in
+England is not large, it might be necessary to allow him two dollars each;
+but even this would still leave nine dollars to be accounted for. Where
+does all this go? Part of it to the Chancellor of the Exchequer, part to
+the "Times," and other newspapers and journals that charge monopoly prices
+for the privilege of advertising, and the balance to the booksellers who
+"possess copyrights," and "sell their books at such exorbitant prices"
+that they have driven the government to turn bookseller, with a view to
+bring down prices; and these are the very men to whom it is now proposed
+to grant unlimited control over the sale of all books produced abroad.
+
+It will, perhaps, be said that the treaty contains a proviso that the
+author shall sell his copyright to an American publisher, or shall himself
+cause his book to be republished here. Such a proviso may be there, but
+whether it is so, or not, no one knows, for every thing connected with
+this effort to extend the Executive power is kept as profoundly secret as
+were the arrangements for the Napoleonic _coup d'etat_ of the 2d of
+December. Secrecy and prompt and decisive action are the characteristics
+of centralized governments--publicity and slow action those of
+decentralized ones. Admit, however, that such limitations be found in the
+treaty, by what right are they there? The basis of such a treaty is the
+absolute right of the author to his book; and if that be admitted, with
+what show of consistency or of justice can we undertake to dictate to him
+whether he shall sell or retain it--print it here or abroad? With none,
+as I think.
+
+Admit, however, that he does print it, does the treaty require that the
+market shall _always_ be supplied? Perhaps it does, but most probably it
+does not. If it does, does it also provide for the appointment of
+commissioners to see that the provision is always complied with? If it
+does not, nothing would seem to be easier than to send out the plates of a
+large book, print off a small edition, and by thus complying with _the
+letter_ of the law, establishing the copyright for the long term of
+forty-two years, the moment after which the plates could be returned to
+the place whence they came, and from that place the consumers could be
+supplied on condition of paying largely to the Chancellor of the
+Exchequer, to the "Times," to the profits of Mr. Dickens' advertising
+sheet, to the author, to the London bookseller, to his agent in America,
+and the retail dealer here. In cases like this, and they would be
+numerous, the "few cents" would probably rise to be many dollars; and no
+way can, I think, be devised to prevent their occurrence, except to take
+one more step forward in centralization by the appointment of
+commissioners in various parts of the Union, to see that the market is
+properly supplied, and that the books offered for sale have been actually
+printed on this side of the Atlantic.
+
+If the treaty does provide for publication here, it probably allows some
+time therefor, say one, two, or three months. It is, however, well-known
+that of very many books the first few weeks' sales constitute so important
+a part of the whole that were the publisher here deprived of them, the
+book would never be republished. No one could venture to print until the
+time had elapsed, and by that time the English publisher would so well
+have occupied the ground with the foreign edition that publication here
+would be effectually stopped. Even under the present _ad valorem_ system
+of duties this is being done to a great extent. One, two, or three hundred
+copies of large works are cheaply furnished, and the market is thus just
+so far occupied as to forbid the printing of an edition of one or more
+thousands--to the material injury of paper-makers, printers, and
+book-binders, and without any corresponding benefit to the foreign author.
+Under the proposed system this would be done to a great extent.
+
+Admit, however, that the spirit of the law be fully complied with, and let
+us see its effects. Mr. Dickens sells his book in England for 21_s_.
+($5.00); and he will, of course, desire to have for it here as large a
+price as it will bear. Looking at our prices for those books which are
+copyright and of which the sale is large, he finds that "Bleak House"
+contains four times as much as the "Reveries of a Bachelor," which sells
+for $1.25, and he will be most naturally led to suppose that $3 is a
+reasonable price. The number of copies of his book that has been supplied
+to American readers, through newspapers and magazines, is certainly not
+less than 250,000, and the average cost has not been' more than fifty
+cents, giving for the whole the sum of
+
+  $125,000
+
+To supply the same number at his price would cost.
+  750,000
+
+Difference
+  $625,000
+
+
+Of Mr. Bulwer's last work, the number that has been supplied to American
+consumers is probably but about two thirds as great, and the difference
+might not amount to more than
+
+  $350,000
+
+Mr. Macaulay would not be willing to sell his book more cheaply than that
+of Mr. Bancroft's is sold, or $2 per volume, and he might ask $2.50.
+Taking it at the former price, the 125,000 copies that have been sold
+would cost the consumer
+  $500,000
+
+They have been supplied for
+  100,000
+
+The difference would be
+  $400,000
+
+
+Mr. Alison's work would make twelve such volumes as those of Mr. Bancroft,
+and his price would not be less than $25. The sale has amounted, as I
+understand, to 25,000 copies, which would give as the cost of the whole
+
+  $625,000
+
+The price at which they have been sold is $5, giving
+  125,000
+
+Difference
+  $500,000
+
+
+Of "Jane Eyre" there have been sold 80,000, and if the price had been
+similar to that of "Fanny Fern," they would have cost the consumers.
+
+
+  $100,000
+
+They have cost about
+  25,000
+
+Difference
+  $75,000
+
+
+Total result of a "few cents" on five books, $1,950,000
+
+Under the system of international copyright, one of two things must be
+done--either the people _must_ be taxed in the whole of this amount for
+the benefit of the various persons, abroad and at home, who are now to be
+invested with the monopoly power, or they must largely diminish their
+purchases of literary food.
+
+The quantity of books above given cannot be regarded as more than one
+twentieth of the total quantity of new ones annually printed. Admit,
+however, that the total were but ten times greater, and that the
+differences were but one fourth as great, it would be required that this
+sum of $1,950,000 should be multiplied two and a half times, and that
+would give about five millions of dollars; which, added to the sum already
+obtained, would make seven millions _per annum_; and yet we have arrived
+only at the commencement of the operation. All these books would require
+to be reprinted in the next year, and the next, and so on, and for the
+long period of forty-two years the payment on old books would require to
+be added to those on new ones, until the sum would become a very startling
+one. To enable us to ascertain what it must become, let us see what it
+would now be had this system existed in the past. Every one of Scott's
+novels would still be copyright, and such would be the case with Byron's
+poems, and with all other books that have been printed in the last
+forty-two years, of which the annual sale now amounts to many millions of
+volumes. To the present price of these let us add the charge of the
+author, and the monopoly charges of the English and American publishers,
+and it will be found quite easy to obtain a further sum of five millions,
+which, added to that already obtained, would make twelve millions _per
+annum_, or enough to give to one in every four thousand males in the
+United Kingdom, between the ages of twenty and sixty, a salary far
+exceeding that of our Secretaries of State. Let this treaty be confirmed,
+and let the consumption of foreign works continue at its present rate, and
+payment of this sum must be made. We can escape its payment only on
+condition of foregoing consumption of the books.
+
+The real cause of difficulty is not to be found in "the few cents"
+required for the author, but in the means required to be adopted for their
+collection. Everybody that reads "Bleak House," or "Oliver Twist," would
+gladly pay their author some cents, however unwilling he might be to pay
+dollars, or pounds. So, too, everybody who uses chloroform would willingly
+pay something to its discoverer; and every one who believes in and profits
+by homeopathic medicines would be pleased to contribute "a few cents" for
+the benefit of Hahnemann, his widow, or his children. A single cent paid
+by all who travel on steam vessels would make the family of Fulton one of
+the richest in the world; but how collect these "few cents"? Grant me a
+monopoly, says the author, and I will appoint an agent, who shall supply
+other agents with my books, and I will settle with him. Grant us a
+monopoly, say the representatives of Hahnemann, and we will grant
+licenses, throughout the Union, to numerous men who shall be authorized to
+practice homeopathically and collect our taxes. Were this experiment
+tried, it would be found that millions would be collected, out of which
+they would receive tens of thousands. Grant us a monopoly, might say the
+representatives of Fulton, and we will permit no vessels to be built
+without license from us, and our agents will collect "a few cents" from
+each passenger, by which we shall be enriched. So they might be; but for
+every cent that reached them the community would be taxed dollars in loss
+of time and comfort, and in extra charges. It is the monopoly privilege,
+and not the "few cents," that makes the difficulty.
+
+We are, however, advised by the advocates of this treaty that English
+authors must be "required" to present their books in American "mode and
+dress," and that regard to their own interests will cause them to be
+presented "at MODERATE PRICES for general consumption." If, however, they
+have acted differently at home, why should they pursue this course here?
+That they have so acted, we have proof in the fact that the British
+government has just been forced to turn bookseller, with a view to
+restrain the owners of copyrights in the exercise of power. Who, again, is
+to determine what prices are really "moderate" ones? The authors? Will Mr.
+Macaulay consent that his books shall be sold for less than those of Mr.
+Bancroft or Mr. Prescott? Assuredly not. The bookseller, then? Will he not
+use his power in reference to foreign books precisely as he does now in
+regard to domestic ones? If he deems it now expedient to sell a 12mo
+volume for a dollar or a dollar and a quarter, is it probable that the
+ratification of this treaty will open his eyes to the fact that it would
+be better for him to sell Mr. Dickens's works at fifty cents than at three
+dollars? Scarcely so, as I think. It is now about thirty years since the
+"Sketch Book" was printed, and the cheapest edition that has yet been
+published sells for one dollar and twenty-five cents. "Jane Eyre" contains
+probably about the same quantity of matter, and sells for twenty-five
+cents. Of the latter, about 80,000 have been printed, costing the
+consumers $20,000; but if they were to purchase the same quantity of the
+former, they would pay for them $100,000; difference, $80,000. What, now,
+would become of this large sum? But little of it would reach the author;
+not more, probably, than $10,000. Of the remaining $70,000, some would go
+to printers, paper-makers, and bookbinders, and the balance would be
+distributed among the publisher, the trade-sale auctioneers, and the
+wholesale and retail dealers; the result being that the public would pay
+five dollars where the author received one, or perhaps the half of one. We
+have here the real cause of difficulty. The monopoly of copyright can be
+preserved only by connecting it with the monopoly of publication. Were it
+possible to say that whoever chose to publish the "Sketch Book" might do
+so, on paying to its author "a few cents," the difficulty of this _double
+monopoly_ would be removed; but no author would consent to this, for he
+could have no certainty that his book might not be printed by unprincipled
+men, who would issue ten thousand while accounting to him for only a
+single thousand. To enable him to collect his dues, he _must_ have a
+monopoly of publication.
+
+It may be said that if he appropriate to his use any of the common
+property of which books are made up, and so misuse his privilege as to
+impose upon his readers the payment of too heavy a tax, other persons may
+use the same facts and ideas, and enter into competition with him. In no
+other case, however, than in those of the owners of patents and
+copyrights, where the public recognizes the existence of exclusive claim
+to any portion of the common property, does it permit the party to fix the
+price at which it may be sold. The right of eminent domain is common
+property. In virtue of it, the community takes possession of private
+property for public purposes, and frequently for the making of roads. Not
+unfrequently it delegates to private companies this power, but it always
+fixes the rate of charge to be made to persons who use the road. This is
+done even when general laws are passed authorizing all who please, on
+compliance with certain forms, to make roads to suit themselves. In such
+cases, limitation would seem to be unnecessary, as new roads could be made
+if the tolls on old ones were too high; and yet it is so well understood
+that the making of roads does carry with it monopoly power, that the rates
+of charge are always limited, and so limited as not to permit the
+road-makers to obtain a profit disproportioned to the amount of their
+investments. In the case of authors there can be no such limitation. They
+must have monopoly powers, and the law therefore very wisely limits the
+time within which they may be exercised, as in the other case it limits
+the price that may be charged. In France, the prices to be paid to
+dramatic authors are fixed by law, and all who pay may play; and if this
+could be done in regard to all literary productions, permitting all who
+paid to print, much of the difficulty relative to copyright would be
+removed; but this course of operation would be in direct opposition to the
+views of publishers who advocate this treaty on the ground that it would
+add to "the security and respectability of the trade." They would
+_prefer_ to pay for the copyright of every foreign book, because it would
+bring with it monopoly prices and monopoly profits, both of which would
+need to be paid by the consumers of books. To the paper-maker, printer,
+and bookbinder, called upon to supply one thousand of a book for _the
+few_, where before they had supplied ten thousand for _the many_, it
+would be small consolation to know that they were thereby building up the
+fortunes of two or three large publishing houses that had obtained a
+monopoly of the business of republication, and were thus adding to the
+"security and respectability of the trade." As little would probably be
+derived from this source by the father of a family who found that he had
+now to pay five dollars for what before had cost but one, and must
+therefore endeavor to borrow, where before he had been accustomed to buy,
+the books required for the amusement and instruction of his children.
+
+Our State of New Jersey levies a transit duty of eight cents per ton on
+all the merchandise that crosses it. Had the imposition of this tax been
+accompanied by a law permitting all who chose to make roads, no one would
+have complained of it, as it would have been little more than a fair tax
+on the property of the railroad and other companies. Unfortunately,
+however, the course was different. To the company that collected it was
+granted a monopoly of the power of transportation, and that power has been
+so used that while the State received but eight cents the transporters
+charged three, five, six, and eight dollars for work that should have been
+done for one. The position in which the authors are necessarily placed is
+precisely the one in which our State has voluntarily placed itself. To
+enable them to collect their dues, some person or persons must have a
+monopoly of publication, and they must and will collect five, ten, and
+often twenty dollars for every one that reaches the author. The Union
+would gain largely by paying into our treasury thrice the sum we receive
+for transit duty, on the simple condition that we abolished the monopoly
+of transportation; and it would gain far more largely by doing the same
+with foreign authors. If justice does really call upon us to pay them, our
+true course would be to do it directly from the Treasury, placing, if
+necessary, a million of dollars annually at the disposal of the British
+government, upon the simple condition that it releases us from all claim
+to the monopoly of publication. Such a release would be cheap, even at two
+millions; enough to give $4,000 a year to five hundred persons, and that
+number would certainly include all who can even fancy us under any
+obligation to them. My own impression is, that no such payment is required
+by justice, either as regards our own authors or foreign ones. Of the
+former, all can be and are well paid, _who can produce books that the
+public are willing to read_, and no law that could be made would secure
+payment to those who cannot. Their monopoly extends over a smaller number
+of persons than does the English one; and if the more than thirty millions
+of people who are subject to the latter cannot support their few writers,
+the cause of difficulty is to be found at home, and there must the remedy
+be applied. Nevertheless, by adopting the course suggested, we should
+certainly free ourselves from any necessity for choosing between the
+payment of many millions annually to authors and the men who stand between
+them and the public, on the one hand, and of dispensing largely with the
+purchase of books, on the other. If the nation must pay, the fewer persons
+through whose hands the money passes the smaller will be the cost to it,
+and the greater the gain to authors.
+
+The ratification of the treaty would impose upon us a very large amount of
+taxation that must inevitably be paid either in money or in abstinence
+from intellectual nourishment; and our authors should be able to satisfy
+themselves that the advantage to them would bear some proportion to the
+loss inflicted upon others. Would it do so? I think not. On the contrary,
+they would find their condition greatly impaired. All publishers prefer
+copyright books, because, having a monopoly, they can charge monopoly
+profits. To obtain a copyright, they constantly pay considerable sums at
+home for editorship of foreign books; but from the moment that this treaty
+shall take effect, the necessity for doing this will cease, and thus will
+our literary men be deprived of one considerable source of profit. Again,
+literary labor in England is cheap, because of want of demand; but
+international copyright, by opening to it our vast market, will quicken
+the demand, and many more books will be produced, the authors of all of
+which will be competitors with our own, who will then possess no
+advantages over them. The rates of American authors will then fall
+precisely as those of the British ones will rise; and this result will be
+produced as certainly as the water in the upper chamber of a canal lock
+will fall as that in the lower one is made to rise. On one side of the
+Atlantic literary labor is well paid, and on the other it is badly paid.
+International copyright will establish a level; and how much reason our
+authors have to desire that it shall be established, I leave it for them
+to determine.
+
+The direct tendency of the system now proposed will be found to be that of
+diminishing the domestic competition for the production of books, and
+increasing our dependence on foreigners for the means of amusement and
+instruction; and yet the confirmation of the treaty is urged on the ground
+that it will increase the first and diminish the last. If it would have
+this latter effect, it is singular that the authors of England should be
+so anxious for the measure as they are. It is not usual for men to seek to
+diminish the dependence of others on themselves.
+
+These, however, are, as I think, but a small part of the inconveniences to
+which our authors are now proposing to subject themselves. They have at
+present a long period allowed them, during which they have an absolute
+monopoly of the particular forms of words they offer to the reading
+public; and this monopoly has, in a very few years, become so productive,
+that authorship offers perhaps larger profits than any other pursuit
+requiring the same amount of skill and capital. Twenty years hence, when
+the market shall be greatly increased, it may, and as I think will, become
+a question whether the monopoly has not been granted for too long a
+period, and many persons may then be found disposed to unite with Mr.
+Macaulay in the belief that the disadvantages of long periods preponderate
+so greatly over their advantages, as to make it proper to retrace in part
+our steps, limiting the monopoly to twenty-one years, or one half the
+present period. The inquiry may then come to be made, what is the present
+value of a monopoly of forty-two years, as compared with what would be
+paid for one of twenty-one years; and when it is found that, in nine
+hundred and ninety-nine cases out of a thousand, one will sell for exactly
+as much as the other, it will perhaps be decided that no reason exists for
+maintaining the present law, even if no change be now made. Suppose,
+however, the treaty to be confirmed, establishing the monopoly of
+foreigners in our market, and that the people who have been accustomed to
+consume largely of cheap literature now find themselves deprived of it,
+would not this tend to hasten the period at which the existing law would
+come under consideration? I cannot but think it would. The common school
+makes a great demand for school-books, and both make a great demand for
+newspapers. All of these combine to make a demand for cheap books among an
+immense and influential portion of our community, that cannot yet afford
+to pay $1.25 for "Fern Leaves" or for the "Reveries of a Bachelor,"
+although they can well afford 25 cents for a number of "Harper's
+Magazine," or for "Jane Eyre." Let us now suppose that the novels of
+Dickens and Bulwer, the books of Miss Aguilar, and those of other authors
+with which they have been accustomed to supply themselves, should at once
+be raised to monopoly prices and thus placed beyond their reach, would it
+not produce inquiry into the cause, and would not the answer be that we
+had given English authors a monopoly in our market to enable our own to
+secure a monopoly in that of England? Would not the sufferers next inquire
+by what process this had been accomplished, seeing that the direct
+representatives of the people had always been so firmly opposed to it; and
+would not the answer be that the literary men of the two countries had
+formed a combination for the purpose of taxing the people of both; and
+that when they had failed to accomplish their object by means of
+legislation, they had induced the Executive to interpose and make a law in
+their favor, in defiance of the well-known will of the House of
+Representatives? Under such circumstances, would it be extraordinary if we
+should, within three years from the ratification of the treaty, see the
+commencement of an agitation for a change in the copyright system? It
+seems to me that it would not.
+
+The time for the arrival of this agitation would probably be hastened by
+an extension of the system of centralization that would next be claimed;
+for the present measure can be regarded as little more than the entering
+wedge for others. France and England profit enormously by setting the
+fashions for the world. New patterns and new articles are invented that
+sell in the first season for treble or quadruple the price at which they
+are gladly supplied in the second; and it is by aid of the perpetual
+changes bf fashion that foreigners so much control our markets. Recently,
+our manufacturers have been enabled to reproduce many new articles in very
+short time, and this has tended greatly to reduce the profits of
+foreigners, who are of course dissatisfied. Copyrights are now granted in
+both those countries for new patterns, new forms of clothing, &c. &c., and
+our next step will be towards the arrangement of a treaty for, securing to
+the inventor of a print, or a new fashion of paletot, the monopoly of its
+production in our markets; and when the claim for this shall be made, it
+will be found to stand on precisely the same ground with that now made in
+behalf of the producers of books, and must be granted. The Frenchman will
+then have the exclusive right of supplying us with new _mousselines de
+laine_, and the Englishman with new carpets and new forms of earthenware;
+and we shall be told that that is the true mode of developing
+manufacturing and artistic skill among ourselves. How much farther the
+system may be carried it is difficult to tell, for, when we shall once
+have established the system of regulating foreign and domestic trade by
+treaty, the House of Representatives will scarcely be troubled with much
+discussion of such affairs. Extremes generally meet, and it will be
+extraordinary, if progress in that direction shall not be followed by
+progress in the other, until our authors shall, at length, become
+perfectly satisfied of the accuracy of Mr. Macaulay, when he told the
+British authors, then claiming an extension of their monopoly to sixty
+years, that "the wholesome copyright" already existing would "share in the
+disgrace and danger of the new copyright" they desired to create.[1] They
+could scarcely do better than study his speech at length. At present, they
+are ill-advised, and their best friends will be those senators who, like
+Mr. Macaulay, shall oppose their literary countrymen.
+
+   [Footnote 1: _Macaulay's Speeches_, vol. i. p. 403.]
+
+Admitting, however, that the measure proposed should not in any manner
+endanger existing privileges, what would be the gain to our authors in
+obtaining the control of the British market, compared with what they would
+lose from surrendering the control of our own? In the former, the sale of
+books is certainly not large. Few have been more popular than Tupper's
+"Proverbial Philosophy," and the price has been, as I learn, only 7_s._,
+or $1,68. Nevertheless, a gentleman fully informed in regard to it assures
+me that in fifteen years the average sale has been but a thousand a year,
+or 15,000 in all.[2] Compare this with the sale of a larger number of the
+"Reveries of a Bachelor," or of thrice the quantity of "Fern Leaves," at
+but little lower prices, in the short period of six months, and it will be
+seen how inferior is the foreign market to the domestic one. Were it
+otherwise--were the market of Britain equal to our own--could it be
+that we should so rarely hear of her literary men, dependent on their own
+exertions, but as being poor and anxious for public employment? Were it
+otherwise, should we need now to be told of the "utter destitution" of the
+widow and children of Hogg, so widely known as author of "The Queen's
+Wake," and as "The Shepherd" of "Blackwood's Magazine?" Assuredly not. Had
+literary ability been there in the demand in which it now is here, he
+would have written thrice as much, would have been thrice as well paid,
+and would have provided abundantly for his widow and his children.
+Nevertheless, our authors desire to trade off this great market for the
+small one in which he shone and left his family to starve, and thus to
+make an exchange similar to that of Glaucus when he gave a suit of golden
+armor for one of brass.
+
+   [Footnote 2: The sale here has been 200,000, at an average price of 50
+   cents. Had it been copyright, the price would have been double, and
+   the "few cents" would have made a difference on this single book of
+   $100,000. The same gentleman to whom I am indebted for the above facts
+   informs me that he has paid to the author of a 12mo volume of 200 pages
+   more than $23,000, and could not now purchase the copyright for
+   $10,000; that for another small 12mo volume he has paid $7,000, and
+   Expects to pay as much more; that to a third author his payments for
+   the year have been $2500, and are likely to continue at that rate for
+   years to come; and that it would be easy to furnish other and numerous
+   cases of similar kind.]
+
+
+What, however, are the prospects for the future? Will the British market
+grow? It would seem not, for death and emigration are diminishing the
+population, and the people who remain are in a state of constant warfare
+with their employers, who promised "cheap food" that they might obtain
+"cheap labor," and now offer low wages in connection with high-priced corn
+and beef. The people who receive such wages cannot buy books. Hundreds of
+thousands of persons are now out "on strike," or are "locked out" by the
+gentlemen who advocate this "cheap labor" system; and the result of all
+this extraordinary cessation from labor can be none other than the
+continued growth of poverty, intemperance, and crime. The picture that is
+presented by that country is one of unceasing discord between _the few_
+and _the many_, in which the former always triumph; and a careful
+examination of it cannot result in leading us to expect an increase in the
+desire to purchase books, or in the ability to pay for them.
+
+Having looked upon that picture, let our authors next look to the one now
+presented by this country, as compared with that which could have been
+offered forty, thirty, or even twenty years since, and to obtain aid in
+understanding the facts presented to their view, let them read the
+following extract from a speech recently delivered by Mr. Cobden:--
+
+  "You cannot point to an instance in America, where the people are more
+  educated than they are here, of total cessation from labor by a whole
+  community or town, given over, as it were, to desolation. When I came
+  through Manchester the other day, I found many of the most influential
+  of the manufacturing capitalists talking very carefully upon a report
+  which had reached them from a gentleman who was selected by the
+  government to go out to America, to report upon the great exhibition in
+  New York. That gentleman was one of the most eminent mechanicians and
+  machine-makers in Manchester, a man known in the scientific world, and
+  appreciated by men of science, from the astronomer royal downwards. He
+  has been over to America, to report upon the progress of manufactures
+  and the state of the mechanical arts in the United States, and he has
+  returned. No report from him to the government has yet been published.
+  But it has oozed out in Manchester that he found in America a degree of
+  intelligence amongst the manufacturing operatives, a state of things in
+  the mechanical arts, which has convinced him that if we are to hold our
+  own, if we are not to fall back in the rear of the race of nations we
+  must educate our people to put them upon a level with the more educated
+  artisans of the United States. We shall all have the opportunity of
+   judging when that report is delivered; but sufficient has already oozed
+  out to excite a great interest, and I might almost say some alarm."
+
+
+Having done this, let them next ask themselves what have been the causes
+of the vast change in the relative positions of the two countries. Doing
+this, will not the answer be, common schools, cheap school-books, cheap
+newspapers, and cheap literature? Has not each and every one of these
+aided in making authors, and in creating a market for their products?
+Having thus laid the foundation of a great edifice, are we likely to stop
+in the erection of the walls? Having in so brief a period created a great
+market for literature, is it not certain that it must continue to grow
+with increased rapidity? Assuredly it is; and yet it is that vast market
+that our authors desire to barter for one in which Hood was permitted
+almost to starve, in which Leigh Hunt, Lady Morgan, Miss Mitford,
+Tennyson, and Sir Francis Head even now submit to the degradation of
+receiving the public charity to the extent of a hundred pounds a year! The
+law as it now exists, invites foreign authors to come and live among us,
+and participate in our advantages. The treaty offers to tax ourselves for
+the purpose of offering them a bounty upon staying at home and increasing
+their numbers and their competition with the well-paid literary labor of
+this country. Were Belgrave Square to make a treaty with Grub Street,
+providing that each should have a plate at the tables of the other, the
+population of the latter would probably grow as rapidly as the dinners of
+the former would decline in quality, and it might be well for our authors
+to reflect if such might not be the result of the treaty now proposed.
+
+Its confirmation is, as I understand, urged on some senators on the ground
+that consistency requires it. Being in favor of protection elsewhere, they
+are told that it would be inconsistent to refuse it here. In reply to
+this, it might fairly be retorted that nearly all the supporters of
+international copyright are advocates of the system called, in England,
+Free Trade; and that it is quite inconsistent in them to advocate
+protection here. To do this would however be as unnecessary as it would be
+unphilosophical. Both are perfectly consistent. Protection to the farmer
+and planter in their efforts to draw the artisan to their side, looks to
+carrying out the doctrine of decentralization by the annihilation of the
+monopoly of manufactures established in Britain; and our present copyright
+system looks to the decentralization of literature by offering to all who
+shall come and live among us the same perfect protection that we give to
+our own authors. What is called free trade looks to the maintenance of the
+foreign monopoly for supplying us with cloth and iron; and international
+copyright looks to continuing the monopoly which Britain has so long
+enjoyed of furnishing us with books; and both tend towards centralization.
+
+The rapid advance that has been made in literature and science is the
+result of the _perfect protection_ afforded by decentralization. Every
+neighborhood collects taxes to be expended for purposes of education, and
+it is from among those who would not otherwise be educated, and who are
+thus protected in their efforts to obtain instruction, that we derive many
+of our most thoughtful and intelligent men, and our best authors. The
+advocates of free trade and international copyright are, to a great
+extent, disciples in that school in which it is taught that it is an
+unjust interference with the rights of property to compel the wealthy to
+contribute to education of the poor. Common schools, and a belief in the
+duty of protection, are generally found together. Decentralization, by the
+production of local interests, _protects_ the poor printer in his efforts
+to establish a country newspaper, and thus affords to young writers of the
+neighborhood the means of coming before the world. Decentralization next
+raises money for the establishment of colleges in every part of the Union,
+and thus _protects_ the poor but ambitious student in his efforts to
+obtain higher instruction than can be afforded by the common school.
+Decentralization next _protects_ him in the manufacture of school-books,
+by creating a large market for the productions of his pen, very much of
+which is paid for out of the product of taxes the justice of which is
+denied by those who advocate the British policy. Rising to the dignity of
+author of books for the perusal of already instructed men and women he
+finds himself _protected_ by an absolute monopoly, having for its object
+to enable him to provide for himself, his wife, and his children. Of all
+the people of the Union, none enjoy such perfect protection as those
+connected with literature; yet many of them oppose protection to all
+others, while actively engaged in enlarging and extending the monopoly
+they themselves enjoy. It will scarcely answer for them to charge
+inconsistency on others.
+
+How far the protection already granted has favored the development of
+literary tendencies, may be judged after looking to the single case of
+dramatic writers, who are not protected against representation without
+their consent; and, as that is their mode of publication, it follows that
+they do not enjoy the advantages granted to other authors. The consequence
+is, that we make so little progress in that department of literature,
+while advancing rapidly in every other. Permit me, my dear sir, to suggest
+that this is a matter worthy of your attention. There would seem to be no
+good reason for refusing to one class of authors what we grant so freely
+to all others.
+
+Whether or not I shall have convinced you that international copyright
+should not be established, I cannot say, but I feel quite safe in
+believing that you must be convinced it is a question which requires to be
+publicly and fully discussed before we adopt any action looking in that
+direction. It is not a case of urgency. If the treaty be not confirmed,
+the only inconvenience to the authors will be delay, and this should be
+afforded, were it only to enable them to reflect at leisure upon the
+probable consequences of the measure in aid of which they have invoked the
+Executive power. Should they continue to believe their interests likely to
+be promoted by the adoption of such a measure as that which has been so
+pertinaciously urged the doors of Congress will always be open to them,
+and justice, though it may be delayed, will assuredly be done. Let them
+proceed in a constitutional way, and then, should their desires be
+gratified, they will have the satisfaction of knowing that their rights
+have been admitted after full and fair discussion before the people.
+Should they now succeed in obtaining, in secret session, the confirmation
+of a treaty negotiated in private, and in haste, they will, I think,
+"repent at leisure;" but repentance may, and probably will, come too late.
+The mischief will then have been done.
+
+Having now, my dear sir, to the best of my ability, complied with your
+request, I remain,
+
+Yours, very respectfully,
+
+                                             HENRY C. CAREY.
+                                _Burlington_, Nov. 28, 1853.
+
+Hon. James Cooper.
+
+
+
+
+
+NOTE.
+
+                                           December 31, 1867.
+
+Mr. Dickens's tale of "No Thoroughfare" is now being reprinted here in
+daily and weekly journals, and to such extent as to warrant the belief
+that the number in the hands of readers of the Union, will speedily exceed
+a million; obtained, too, at a cost so small as scarcely to admit of
+calculation. Under a system of International Copyright a similar number
+would, at the least, have cost $500,000. At 50 cents, however, the sale
+would not have exceeded 50,000, yielding to author and publisher probably
+$10,000. Would it be now expedient that, to enable these latter to divide
+among themselves this small amount, the former should tax themselves in
+one so greatly larger? Would it be right or proper that they should so do
+in the hope that American novelists and poets-should in like manner be
+enabled to tax the British people? Outside of the class of gentlemen who
+live by the use of their pens, there are few who, having examined the
+question, would, it is believed, be disposed to give to these questions an
+affirmative reply.
+
+Of all living authors there is none that, in his various capacities of
+author, editor, and lecturer, is, in both money and fame, so largely paid
+as Mr. Dickens. That he and others are not doubly so is due to the fact
+that British policy, from before the days of Adam Smith, has tended
+uniformly to the division of society, at home and abroad, into two great
+classes, the very poor becoming daily more widely separated from the very
+rich, and daily more and more unfitted for giving support to British
+authors. That the reader may understand this fully, let him turn to recent
+British journals and study the accounts there given of "an agricultural
+gang system," whose horrors, as they tell their readers, "make the British
+West Indies almost an Arcadia" when compared with many of the home
+districts. Next, let him study in the "Spectator," now but a fortnight
+old, the condition of the 630,000 wretched people inhabiting Eastern
+London; and especially that of the 70,000 mainly dependent on ship and
+engine building, "too poor to go afield for employment, too poor to
+emigrate, too poor to do any thing but die," and wholly dependent on a
+weekly allowance per house, of front twenty to forty cents and a loaf of
+bread; that allowance, wretched as it is, to be obtained only at the cost
+of "standing hours among crowds made brutal by misery and privation."
+Further, let him read in the same journal its description of the almost
+universal dishonesty which has resulted from a total repudiation of the
+idea that international morality could exist; and then determine for
+himself if, under a different system, Britain might not have made at home
+a market for her authors that would far more than have compensated for
+deprivation of that one they now so anxiously covet abroad.
+
+Seeking further evidence in reference to this important question, let him
+then turn to the "North British Review" for the current month and study
+the social sores of Britain.
+
+For more than a century she has been sowing the wind, carrying, and in the
+direct ratio of their connection with her, poverty and slavery into
+important countries of the earth. She is now only reaping the whirlwind.
+When her literary men shall have begun to teach her people this--when
+they shall have said to them that public immorality and private morality
+cannot co-exist--when they shall have commenced to repudiate the idea
+that the end sanctifies the means--then, _but not till then_, the time
+may, perhaps, have come for lecturing the world on the moral side of the
+question of International Copyright. To this moment, so far as the
+writer's memory serves him, no one of them has yet entered on the
+performance of this important work.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Letters on International Copyright;
+Second Edition, by Henry C. Carey
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK INTERNATIONAL COPYRIGHT ***
+
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diff --git a/old/14295-8.zip b/old/14295-8.zip
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@@ -0,0 +1,3826 @@
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Letters on International Copyright; Second
+Edition, by Henry C. Carey
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Letters on International Copyright; Second Edition
+
+Author: Henry C. Carey
+
+Release Date: December 7, 2004 [EBook #14295]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK INTERNATIONAL COPYRIGHT ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by A Project Gutenberg Volunteer
+
+
+
+
+LETTERS
+
+ON
+
+INTERNATIONAL COPYRIGHT:
+
+BY
+
+H. C. CAREY,
+
+AUTHOR OF "PRINCIPLES OF SOCIAL SCIENCE," ETC. ETC.
+
+SECOND EDITION.
+
+NEW YORK:
+
+PUBLISHED BY HURD AND HOUGHTON,
+
+459 BROOME STREET.
+
+1868.
+
+RIVERSIDE, CAMBRIDGE:
+
+PRINTED BY H. O. HOUGHTON AND COMPANY.
+
+
+
+
+
+PREFACE.
+
+
+At the date, now fourteen years since, of the first publication of these
+letters, the important case of authors _versus_ readers--makers of books
+_versus_ consumers of facts and ideas--had for several years been again
+on trial in the high court of the people. But few years previously the
+same plaintiffs had obtained a verdict giving large extension of _time_ to
+the monopoly privileges they had so long enjoyed. Not content therewith,
+they now claimed greater _space_, desiring to have those privileges so
+extended as to include within their domain the vast population of the
+British Empire. To that hour no one had appeared before the court on the
+part of the defendants, prepared seriously to question the plaintiffs'
+assertion to the effect that literary property stood on the same precise
+footing, and as much demanded perpetual and universal recognition, as
+property in a house, a mine, a farm, or a ship. As a consequence of
+failure in this respect there prevailed, and most especially throughout
+the Eastern States, a general impression that there was really but one
+side to the question; that the cause of the plaintiffs was that of truth;
+that in the past might had triumphed over right; that, however doubtful
+might be the expediency of making a decree to that effect, there could be
+little doubt that justice would thereby be done; and that, while rejecting
+as wholly _inexpedient_ the idea of perpetuity, there could be but slight
+objection to so far recognizing that of universality as to grant to
+British authors the same privileges that thus far had been accorded to our
+own.
+
+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.
+
+A thoroughly adverse popular will having thus been manifested, it was now
+determined to try the Senate, and here the chances for privilege were
+better. With a population little greater than that of Pennsylvania, the
+New England States had six times the Senatorial representation. With
+readers not a fifth as numerous as were those of Ohio, Carolina, Florida,
+and Georgia had thrice the number of Senators. By combining these
+heterogeneous elements the will of the people--so frequently and
+decidedly expressed--might, it was thought, be set aside. To that end,
+the Secretary of State, himself one of the plaintiffs, had negotiated the
+treaty then before the Senate, of the terms of which the defendants had
+been kept in utter ignorance, and by means of which the principle of
+taxation without representation was now to be established.
+
+Such was the state of affairs at the date at which, in compliance with the
+request of a Pennsylvania Senator, the author of these letters put on
+paper the ideas he had already expressed to him in conversation. By him
+and other Senators they were held to be conclusive, so conclusive that the
+plaintiffs were speedily brought to see that the path of safety, for the
+present at least, lay in the direction of abandoning the treaty and
+allowing it to be quietly laid in the grave in which it since has rested.
+That such should have been their course was, at the time, much regretted
+by the defendants, as they would have greatly preferred an earnest and
+thorough discussion of the question before the court. Had opportunity been
+afforded it _would_ have been discussed by one, at least, of the master
+minds of the Senate;[1] and so discussed as to have satisfied the whole
+body of our people, authors and editors, perhaps, excepted, that their
+cause was that of truth and justice; and that if in the past there had
+been error it had been that of excess of liberality towards the plaintiffs
+in the suit.
+
+   [Footnote 1: Senator Clayton of Delaware.]
+
+The issue that was then evaded is now again presented, eminent counsel
+having been employed, and the opening speech having just now been made.[2]
+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 $200,000; 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 $40,000, 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 $1000 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.
+
+   [Footnote 2: See _Atlantic Monthly_ for October.]
+
+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 $200,000 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.
+
+Such being the facts, and, that they are facts cannot be denied, let us
+now suppose a proposition to be made that, with a view to add one, two,
+three, or four thousand dollars to the annual income of ex-presidents, and
+ex-legislators, and half as much to that of the widows and children of
+distinguished officers, there should be established a general pension
+system, involving an expenditure of the public moneys, and consequent
+taxation, to the extent of ten or fifteen millions a year, and then
+inquire by whom it might be supported. Would any single one of the editors
+who are now so earnest in their appeals for further grants of privilege
+venture so to do? Would not the most earnest of them be among the first to
+visit on such a proposition the most withering denunciations? Judging from
+what, in the last two years, we have read in various editorial columns, we
+should say that they would be so. Would, however, any member of either
+house of Congress venture to commit himself before the world by offering
+such a proposition? We doubt it very much. Nevertheless it is now coolly
+proposed to establish a system that would not only tax the present
+generation as many millions annually, but that would grow in amount at a
+rate far exceeding the growth of population, doing this in the hope that
+future essayists might be enabled to count their receipts by half instead
+of quarter millions, and future novelists to collect abroad and at home
+the hundreds of thousands that, as we are assured, are theirs of _right_,
+and that are now denied them. When we shall have determined to grant to
+the widows and children of the men who in the last half dozen years have
+perished in the public service, some slight measure of justice, it may be
+time to consider that question, but until then it should most certainly be
+deferred.
+
+The most active and earnest of all the advocates of literary _rights_
+was, two years since, if the writer's memory correctly serves him, the
+most thorough and determined of all our journalists in insisting on the
+prompt dismissal of thousands and tens of thousands of men who, at their
+country's call, had abandoned the pursuits and profits of civil life. Did
+he, however, ever propose that they should be allowed any extra pay on
+which to live, and by means of which to support their wives and children,
+in the interval between discharge from military service and
+re-establishment in their old pursuits? Nothing of the kind is now
+recollected. Would he now advocate the enactment of a law by means of
+which the widow and children of a major-general who had fallen on the
+field should, so far as pay was concerned, be placed on a level with an
+ordinary police officer? He might, but that he would do so could not with
+any certainty be affirmed. She and they would, nevertheless, seem to have
+claims on the consideration of American men and women fully equal to those
+of the authoress of "Lady Audley's Secret," already, as she is understood
+to be, in the annual receipt from this country of more than thrice the
+amount of the widow's pension, in addition to tens of thousands at home.[1]
+
+   [Footnote 1: The London correspondent of Scribner and Co.'s "_Book
+   Buyer_" says that Miss Braddon's first publisher, Mr. Tinsley (who died
+   suddenly last year), called the elegant villa he built for himself at
+   Putney "Audley House," in grateful remembrance of the "Lady" to whose
+   "Secret" he was indebted for fortune; and Miss Braddon herself, through
+   her man of business, has recently purchased a stately mansion of Queen
+   Anne's time, "Litchfield House," at Richmond.]
+
+It is, however, as we are gravely told, but ten per cent. that she asks,
+and who could or should object to payment of such a pittance? Not many,
+perhaps, if unaccompanied by monopoly privleges that would _multiply the
+ten by ten and make it an hundred!_ Alone, the cost to our readers might
+not now exceed an annual million. Let Congress then pass an act
+appropriating that sum to be distributed among foreign authors whose works
+had been, or might be republished here. _That_ should have the writer's
+vote, but he objects, and will continue to object, to any legislative
+action that shall tend towards giving to already "great and wealthy"
+publishing houses the _nine_ millions that they certainly will charge for
+collecting the single _one_ that is to go abroad.
+
+"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.
+
+On all former occasions Northern advocates of literary monopolies assured
+us that it was in that direction, and in that alone, we were to look for
+the cheapening of books. Now, nothing of this sort is at all pretended. On
+the contrary, we are here told of the extreme impropriety of a system
+which makes it necessary for a New England essayist to accept a single
+dollar for a volume that under other circumstances would sell for half a
+guinea; of the wrong to such essayists that results from the issue of
+cheap "periodicals made up of selections from the reviews and magazines of
+Europe;" of the "abominable extravagance of buying a great and good novel
+in a perishable form for a few cents;" of the increased accessibility of
+books by the "masses of the people" that must result from increasing
+prices; and of the greatly increased facility with which circulating
+libraries may be formed whensoever the "great and wealthy houses" shall
+have been given power to claim from each and every reader of Dickens's
+novels, as their share of the monopoly profits, thrice as much as he now
+pays for the book itself! This, however, is only history repeating itself
+with a little change of place, the argument of to-day, coming from the
+North, being an almost exact repetition of that which, twenty years since,
+came from the South--from the mouths of men who rejoiced in the fact
+that no newspapers were published in their districts, and who well _knew_
+that the way towards preventing the dissemination of knowledge lay in the
+direction of granting the monopoly privileges that had been asked. The
+anti-slavery men of the present thus repeat the argument of the
+pro-slavery men of the past, extremes being thus brought close together.
+
+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:
+
+  "We have so long enjoyed the advantage of unrestricted competition in the
+  production of the works of the best English writers of the past, that we
+  can hardly realize what our position would have been had the right to
+  produce Shakespeare, or Milton, or Goldsmith, or any of our great classic
+  writers, been monopolized by any one publishing-house,--certainly we
+  should never have seen a shilling Shakespeare, or a half-crown Milton;
+  and Shakespeare, instead of being, as he is,' familiar in our mouths as
+  household words,' would have been known but to the scholar and the
+  student. We are far from condemning an enlightened system of copyright,
+  and have not a word to say in favor of unreasoning competition; but we do
+  think that publishers and authors often lose sight of their own interest
+  in adhering to a system of high prices and restricted sale. Tennyson's
+  works supply us with a case in point--here, to possess a set of
+  Tennyson's poems, a reader must pay something like 38_s_. or 40_s_.--in
+  Boston you may buy a magnificent edition of all his works in two volumes
+  for something like 15_s_., and a small edition for some four or five
+  shillings. The result is the purchasers in England are numbered by
+  hundreds, in America by thousands. In Germany we have almost a parallel
+  case. There the works of the great German poets, of Schiller, of Goethe,
+  of Jean Paul, of Wieland, and of Herder, are at the present time 'under
+  the protecting privileges of the most illustrious German Confederation,'
+  and, by special privilege, the exclusive property of the Stuttgart
+  publishing firm of J. G. Cotta. On the forthcoming 9th of November this
+  monopoly will cease, and all the works of the above-mentioned poets will
+  be open to the speculation of German publishers generally. It may be
+  interesting to our readers to learn the history of these peculiar legal
+  restrictions, which have so long prevailed in the German booktrade, and
+  the results likely to follow from their removal.
+
+  "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 (on the
+  reconstruction of Germany in the year 1815) 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.
+
+  "It was to be expected that the firm of J. G. Cotta, favored until now
+  with so valuable a monopoly, would make all possible exertions not to be
+  surpassed in the coming battle of the Publishers, though it is a somewhat
+  curious sight to see this haughty house, after having used its privileges
+  to the last moment, descend now suddenly from its high monopolistic stand
+  into the arena of competition, and compete for public favor with its
+  plebeian rivals. Availing itself of the advantage which the monopoly
+  hitherto attached to it naturally gives it, the house has just commenced
+  issuing a cheap edition of the German classics, under the title
+  'Bibliothek fuer Alle. Meisterwerke deutscher Classiker,' in weekly parts,
+  6 cts. each; containing the selected works of Schiller, at the price of
+  75 cts., and the selected works of Goethe, at the price of $1.50. And
+  now, just as the monopoly is gliding from their hands, the same firm
+  offers, in a small 16mo edition, Schiller's complete works, 12 vols.,
+  for 75 cts.
+
+  "Another publisher, A. H. Payne, of Leipzig, announces a complete edition
+  of Schiller's works, including some unpublished pieces, for 75 cts.
+
+  "Again, the well-known firm of F. A. Brockhaus holds out a prospectus of
+  a corrected critical edition of the German poets of the eighteenth and
+  nineteenth century, which we have every reason to believe will merit
+  success. A similar enterprise is announced, just now, by the
+  Bibliographical Institution of Hildburghausen, under the title,
+  'Bibliothek der deutschen Nationalliteratur,' edited by Heinr. Kurz, in
+  weekly parts of 10 sheets, at the price of 12 cts. each. Even an
+  illustrated edition of the Classics will be presented to the public, in
+  consequence of the expiration of the copyright. The Grotesche
+  Buchhandlung, of Berlin, is issuing the 'Hausbibliothek deutscher
+  Classiker,' with wood-cut illustrations by such eminent artists as
+  Richter, Thumann, and others; and the first part, just published,
+  containing Louise, by Voss, with truly artistic illustrations, has met
+  with general approbation. But, above all, the popular edition of the
+  poets, issued by G. Hempel, of Berlin, under the general title of
+  'National Bibliothek saemmtlicher deutscher Classiker,' 8vo. in parts, 6
+  cts. each, seems destined to surpass all others in popularity, though not
+  in merit. _Of the first part (already published), containing Buerger's
+  Poems, 300,000 copies have been sold, and 150,000 subscribers' names have
+  been registered for the complete series. This immense sale, unequalled in
+  the annals of the German book-trade, will certainly induce many other
+  publishers to embark in similar enterprises._"--Truebner's _Literary
+  Record_, Oct. 1867.
+
+Judging from this, there will, five years hence, be a million of families
+in possession of the works of Schiller, Buerger, Goethe, Herder and others,
+that thus far have been compelled to dispense with their perusal. Sad to
+think, however, they will be of those cheap editions now so much despised
+by American advocates of monopoly privileges! How much better for the
+German people would it not have been had their Parliament recognized the
+perpetuity of literary _rights_, and thus enabled the "great and wealthy
+house" of Cotta and Co. to carry into full effect the idea that their own
+editions should alone be published, thereby adding other millions to the
+very many of which they already are the owners!
+
+At this moment a letter from Mr. Bayard Taylor advises us that German
+circulating libraries impede the sale of books; that the circulation of
+even highly popular works is limited within 20,000; and that, as a
+necessary consequence, German authors are not paid so well as of right
+they should be.[1] This, however, is precisely the state of things that,
+as we are now assured, should be brought about in this country, prices
+being raised, and readers being driven to the circulating library by
+reason of the deficiency of the means required for forming the private
+one. It is the one that _would_ be brought about should our authors,
+unhappily for themselves, succeed in obtaining what is now demanded.
+
+   [Footnote 1: New York _Tribune_, Nov. 29]
+
+The day has passed, in this country, for the recognition of either
+perpetuity or universality of literary _rights_. The wealthy Carolinian,
+anxious that books might be high in price, and knowing well that monopoly
+privileges were opposed to freedom, gladly cooperated with Eastern authors
+and publishers, anti-slavery as they professed to be. The enfranchised
+black, on the contrary, desires that books may be cheap, and to that end
+he and his representatives will be found in all the future co-operating
+with the people of the Centre and the West in maintaining the doctrine
+that literary _privileges_ exist in virtue of grants from the people who
+own the materials out of which books are made; that those privileges have
+been perhaps already too far extended; that there exists not even a shadow
+of reason for any further extension; and that to grant what now is asked
+would be a positive wrong to the many millions of consumers, as well as an
+obstacle to be now placed in the road towards civilization.
+
+The amount now paid for public service under our various governments is
+more than, were it fairly distributed, would suffice for giving proper
+reward to all. Unfortunately the _distribution_ is very bad, the largest
+compensation generally going to those who render the smallest service. So,
+too, is it with regard to literary employments; and so is it likely to
+continue throughout the future. Grant all that now is asked, and the
+effect will be seen in the fact, that of the vastly increased taxation
+ninety per cent. will go to those who work for money alone, and are
+already overpaid, leaving but little to be added to the rewards of
+conscientious men with whom their work is a labor of love, as is the case
+with the distinguished author of the "History of the Netherlands."
+
+Twenty years ago, Macaulay advised his literary friends to be content,
+believing, as he told them, that the existing "wholesome copyright" was
+likely to "share in the disgrace and danger" of the more extended one
+which they then so much desired to see created. Let our authors reflect on
+this advice! Success now, were it possible that it should be obtained,
+would be productive of great danger in the already not distant future. In
+the natural course of things, most of our authorship, for many years to
+come, will be found east of the Hudson, most of the buyers of books,
+meanwhile, being found south and west of that river. International
+copyright will give to the former limited territory an absolute monopoly
+of the business of republication, the then great cities of the West being
+almost as completely deprived of participation therein as are now the
+towns and cities of Canada and Australia. On the one side, there will be
+found a few thousand persons interested in maintaining the monopolies that
+had been granted to authors and publishers, foreign and domestic. On the
+other, sixty or eighty millions, tired of taxation and determined that
+books shall be more cheaply furnished. War will then come, and the
+domestic author, sharing in the "disgrace and danger" attendant upon his
+alliance with foreign authors and domestic publishers, may perhaps find
+reason to rejoice if the people fail to arrive at the conclusion that the
+last extension of _his own privileges_ had been inexpedient and should be
+at once recalled. Let him then study that well-known fable of Aesop
+entitled "The Dog and the Shadow," and take warning from it!
+
+The writer of these Letters had no personal interest in the question
+therein discussed. Himself an author, he has since gladly witnessed the
+translation and republication of his works in various countries of Europe,
+his sole reason for writing them having been found in a desire for
+strengthening the many against the few by whom the former have so long, to
+a greater or less extent, been enslaved. To that end it is that he now
+writes, fully believing that the _right_ is on the side of the consumer of
+books, and not with their producers, whether authors or publishers.
+Between the two there is, however, a perfect harmony of all real and
+permanent interests, and greatly will he be rejoiced if he shall have
+succeeded in persuading even some few of his literary countrymen that such
+is the fact, and that the path of safety will be found in the direction of
+letting well enough alone.
+
+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.
+
+PHILADELPHIA,_
+Dec_. 1867.
+
+
+
+
+
+LETTERS
+
+ON
+
+INTERNATIONAL COPYRIGHT.
+
+
+
+
+
+LETTER I.
+
+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.
+
+In the claim now made in behalf of English authors, there is great
+apparent justice; but that which is not true, often puts on the appearance
+of truth. For thousands of years, it seemed so obviously true that the sun
+revolved around the earth that the fact was not disputed, and yet it came
+finally to be proved that the earth revolved around the sun. Ricardo's
+theory of the occupation of the earth, the foundation-stone of his system,
+had so much apparent truth to recommend it, that it was almost universally
+adopted, and is now the basis of the whole British politico-economical
+system; and yet the facts are directly the reverse of what Ricardo had
+supposed them to be. Such being the case, it might be that, upon a full
+examination of the subject, we should find that, in admitting the claim of
+foreign authors, we should be doing injustice and not justice. The English
+press has, it is true, for many years been engaged in teaching us that we
+were little better than thieves or pirates; but that press has been so
+uniformly and unsparingly abusive of us, whenever we have failed to grant
+all that it has claimed, that its views are entitled to little weight. At
+home, many of our authors have taken the same side of the question; and
+the only answer that has ever, to my knowledge, been made, has been, that
+if we admitted the claims of foreign authors, the prices of books would be
+raised, and the people would be deprived of their accustomed supplies of
+cheap literature--as I think, a very weak sort of defense. If nothing
+better than this can be said, we may as well at once plead guilty to the
+charge of piracy, and commence a new and more honest course of action.
+Evil may not be done that good may come of it, nor may we steal an
+author's brains that our people may be cheaply taught. To admit that the
+end justifies the means, would be to adopt the line of argument so often
+used by English speakers, in and out of Parliament, when they defend the
+poisoning of the Chinese people by means of opium introduced in defiance
+of their government, because it furnishes revenue to India; or that which
+teaches that Canada should be retained as a British colony, because of the
+facility it affords for violation of our laws; or that which would have us
+regard smugglers, in general, as the great reformers of the age. We stand
+in need of no such morality as this. We can afford to pay for what we
+want; but, even were it otherwise, our motto here, and everywhere, should
+be the old French one: "_Fais ce que doy, advienne que pourra_"--Act
+justly, and leave the result to Providence. Before acting, however, we
+should determine on which side justice lies. Unless I am greatly in error,
+it is not on the side of international copyright. My reasons for this
+belief will now be given.
+
+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.
+
+For what, then, is copyright given? For the clothing in which the body is
+produced to the world. Examine Mr. Macaulay's "History of England" and you
+will find that the body is composed of what is common property. Not only
+have the facts been recorded by others, but the ideas, too, are derived
+from the works of men who have labored for the world without receiving,
+and frequently without the expectation of receiving, any pecuniary
+compensation for their labors. Mr. Macaulay has read much and carefully,
+and he has thus been enabled to acquire great skill in arranging and
+clothing his facts; but the reader of his books will find in them no
+contribution to positive knowledge. The works of men who make
+contributions of that kind are necessarily controversial and distasteful
+to the reader; for which reason they find few readers, and never pay their
+authors. Turn now to our own authors, Prescott and Bancroft, who have
+furnished us with historical works of so great excellence, and you will
+find a state of things precisely similar. They have taken a large quantity
+of materials out of the common stock, in which you, and I, and all of us
+have an interest; and those materials they have so reclothed as to render
+them attractive of purchasers; but this is all they have done. Look to Mr.
+Webster's works, and you will find it the same. He was a great reader. He
+studied the Constitution carefully, with a view to understand what were
+the views of its authors, and those views he reproduced in different and
+more attractive clothing, and there his work ended. He never pretended, as
+I think, to furnish the world with any new ideas; and if he had done so,
+he could have claimed no property in them. Few now read the heavy volumes
+containing the speeches of Fox and Pitt. They did nothing but reproduce
+ideas that were common property, and in such clothing as answered the
+purposes of the moment. Sir Robert Peel did the same. The world would now
+be just as wise had he never lived, for he made no contribution to the
+general stock of knowledge. The great work of Chancellor Kent is, to use
+the words of Judge Story, "but a new combination and arrangement of old
+materials, in which the skill and judgment of the author in the selection
+and exposition, and accurate use of those materials, constitute the basis
+of his reputation, as well as of his copyright." The world at large is the
+owner of all the facts that have been collected, and of all the ideas that
+have been deduced from them, and its right in them is precisely the same
+that the planter has in the bale of cotton that has been raised on his
+plantation; and the course of proceeding of both has, thus far, been
+precisely similar; whence I am induced to infer that, in both cases, right
+has been done. When the planter hands his cotton to the spinner and the
+weaver, he does not say, "Take this and convert it into cloth, and keep
+the cloth;" but he does say, "Spin and weave this cotton, and for so doing
+you shall have such interest in the cloth as will give you a fair
+compensation for your labor and skill, but, when that shall have been
+paid, _the cloth will be mine_." This latter is precisely what society,
+the owner of facts and ideas, says to the author: "Take these raw
+materials that have been collected, put them together, and clothe them
+after your own fashion, and for a given time we will agree that nobody
+else shall present them in the same dress. During that time you may
+exhibit them for your own profit, but at the end of that period the
+clothing will become common property, as the body now is. It is to the
+contributions of your predecessors to our common stock that you are
+indebted for the power to make your book, and we require you, in your
+turn, to contribute towards the augmentation of the stock that is to be
+used by your successors." This is justice, and to grant more than this
+would be injustice.
+
+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.
+
+
+
+
+
+LETTER II.
+
+Let us suppose, now, that you should move, in the Senate, a resolution
+looking to the establishment of the exclusive right of making known the
+facts, or ideas, that might be brought to light, and see what would be the
+effect. You would, as I think, find yourself at once surrounded by the
+gentlemen who dress up those facts and ideas, and issue them in the form
+of books. The geographer would say to you: "My dear sir, this will never
+do. Look at my book, and you will see that it is drawn altogether from the
+works of others, many of whom have sunk their fortunes, while others have
+lost their lives, in pursuit of the knowledge that I so cheaply give the
+world. You will find there the essence of the works of Humboldt, and of
+Wilkes. All of Franklin's discoveries are there, and I am now waiting only
+for the appearance of McClure's voyage in the Arctic regions to give a new
+edition of my book. Reflect, I beseech you, upon what you are about to do.
+Very few persons have leisure to read, or means to pay for the books of
+these travellers. A few hundred copies are sufficient to satisfy the
+demand, and then their works die out. Of mine, on the contrary, the sale
+is ten, fifteen, or twenty thousand annually, and thus is knowledge
+disseminated throughout the world, enabling the men who furnish me with
+facts to reap _a rich harvest of never dying fame_. Grant them a copyright
+to the new ideas they may supply to the world, and at once you put a stop
+to the production of such books as mine, to my great injury and to the
+loss of mankind at large. Facts and ideas are common property, and their
+owners, the public, have a right to use them as they will."
+
+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."
+
+The teacher of natural science would say: "My friend, have you reflected
+on what you are about to do? Look at our collections, and see how they
+have been enlarged within the last half century. Asia and Africa, and the
+islands of the Southern Ocean, have been traversed by indefatigable men
+who, at the hazard of life, and often at the cost of fortune, have
+quadrupled our knowledge of vegetable and animal life. Such men do not ask
+for compensation of any kind. They are willing to work for nothing. Why,
+then, not let them? Look at the vast contributions to geological knowledge
+that have been made throughout the Union by men who were content with a
+bare support, and glad to have the results of their labors published, as
+they have been, at the public cost. Such men ask no copyright. When they
+publish, it is almost always at a loss. Wilson lived and died poor. So did
+Audubon, to whose labors we are indebted for so much ornithological
+knowledge. Morton expended a large sum in the preparation and publication
+of his work on crania. Agassiz did the same with his great work on fishes.
+Cuvier had nothing but fame to bequeath to his family. Lamarck's great
+work on the _invertebratae_ sold so slowly that very many years elapsed
+before the edition was exhausted; but he would have found his reward had
+he lived to see his ideas appropriated without acknowledgment, and
+reclothed by the author of 'Vestiges of Creation,' of which the sale has
+been so large. This, my friend, is the use for which such men as Lamarck
+and Cuvier were intended. They collect and classify the facts, and we
+popularize them to our own profit. Look at my works and see, bulky as they
+are, how many editions have been printed, and think how profitable they
+must have been to the publisher and myself. Look further, and see how
+numerous are the books to which my labors have indirectly given birth. See
+the many school-books in relation to botany and other departments of
+natural science, the authors of which know little of what they undertake
+to teach, except what they have drawn from me and others like myself.
+Again, see how numerous are the 'Flora's Emblems,' and the 'Garlands of
+Flowers,' and the 'Flora's Dictionaries,' and how large is their sale--
+and how large must be the profits of those engaged in their production. To
+recognize in such men as Cuvier and Lamarck the existence of any right to
+either their facts or their deductions would be an act of great injustice
+towards the race of literary men, while most inexpedient as regards the
+world at large, now so cheaply supplied with knowledge. As regards the
+question of international copyright now before the Senate, my views are
+different. Several of my books have been published abroad, and my
+publisher here tells me, that to prevent the republication of others he is
+obliged to supply them cheaply for foreign markets, and thus am I deprived
+of a fair and just reward for my labors. Copyright should be universal and
+eternal, and such, I am persuaded, will be the result at which you will
+arrive when you shall have thoroughly studied the subject."
+
+Having studied it, and having given full consideration to the views that
+they and others had presented, your answer would probably be to the
+following effect: "It is clear, gentlemen, from your own showing, that
+there are two distinct classes of persons engaged in the production of
+books--the men who furnish the body, and those who dress it up for
+production before the world. The first class are generally poor, and
+likely to continue so. They labor without any view to pecuniary advantage.
+They are, too, very generally helpless. Animated to their work solely by a
+desire to penetrate into the secrets of nature the character of their
+minds unfits them for mixing in a money-getting world, while you are
+always in that world, ready to enforce your claims to its consideration.
+As a consequence of this, they are rarely allowed even the credit that is
+due to them. Their discoveries become at once common property, to be used
+by men like yourselves, and for your own individual profit. We have here
+among ourselves a gentleman who has given to astronomy a new and highly
+important law essential to the perfection of the science, the discovery of
+which has cost him the labor of a life, as a consequence of which he is
+poor and likely so to remain. Important as was his discovery, his name is
+already so completely forgotten that there is probably not a single one
+among you that can now recall it, and yet his law figures in all the
+recent books. Is this right? Has _he_ no claim to consideration?"
+
+"In answer, you will say, that 'to admit the existence of any such rights
+is not only impossible, but _inexpedient_, even were it possible.
+Knowledge advances by slow and almost imperceptible steps, and each is but
+the precursor of a new and more important one. Were each discoverer of a
+new truth to be authorized to monopolize the teaching of it millions of
+men, to whom, by our aid, it is communicated, would remain in ignorance of
+it, and thus would farther advance be prevented. In all times past, such
+truths have been regarded as common property; and so,' you will add, 'they
+must continue to be regarded. Rely upon it, the best interests of society
+require that such shall continue to be the case, however great the
+apparent injustice to the discoverer.'
+
+"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 question is often asked: Why should a man not have the same claim to
+the perpetual enjoyment of his book that his neighbor has in regard to the
+house he has built? The answer is, that the rights of the parties are
+entirely different. The man who builds a house quarries the stone and
+makes the bricks of which it is composed, or he pays another for doing it
+for him. When finished, his house is all, materials and workmanship, his
+own. The man who makes a book uses the common property of mankind, and all
+he furnishes is the workmanship. Society permits him to use its property,
+but it is on condition that, after a certain time, the whole shall become
+part of the common stock. To find a parallel case, let it be supposed that
+liberal men should, out of their earnings, place at the disposal of the
+people of your town stone, bricks, and lumber, in quantity sufficient to
+find accommodation for hundreds of people that were unable to provide for
+themselves; next suppose that in this state of things your authorities
+should say to any man or men, "Take these materials, and procure lime in
+quantity sufficient to build a house; employ carpenters, bricklayers, and
+architects, and then, in consideration of having found the lime and the
+workmanship, you shall have a right to charge your own price to every
+person who may, for all times, desire to occupy a room in it "; would this
+be doing justice to the men who had given the raw materials for public
+use? Would it be doing justice to the community by which they had been
+given? Would it not, on the contrary, be the height of injustice?
+Unquestionably it would, and it would raise a storm that would speedily
+displace the men who had thus abused their trust. Their successors would
+then say: "Messrs.---- our predecessors, did what they had no right to
+do. These materials are common property. They were given without fee or
+reward, with a view to benefit the whole people of our town, many of whom
+are badly accommodated, while others are heavily taxed for helping those
+who are unable to help themselves. To carry out the views of the
+benevolent men to whom we are indebted for all these stone, bricks, and
+lumber, they must remain common property. You may, if you will, convert
+them into a house, and, in consideration of the labor and skill required
+for so doing, we will grant you, during a certain time, the privilege of
+letting the rooms, at your own price, to those who desire to occupy them;
+but at the close of that time the building must become common property, to
+be disposed of as we please." This is exactly what the community says to
+the gentlemen who employ themselves in converting its common property into
+books, and to say more would be doing great injustice.
+
+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.
+
+The people of this country own a vast quantity of wild land, which by slow
+degrees acquires a money value, that value being due to the contributions
+of thousands and tens of thousands of people who are constantly making
+roads towards them, and thus facilitating the exchange of such commodities
+as may be raised from them. These lands are common property, but the whole
+body of their owners has agreed that whenever any one of their number
+desires to purchase out the interest of his partners he may do so at $1.25
+per acre. They do not _give_ him any of the common property; they require
+him to purchase and pay for it.
+
+With authors they pursue a more liberal course. They say: "We have
+extensive fields in which hundreds of thousands of men have labored for
+many centuries. They were at first wild lands, as wild as those of the
+neighborhood of the Rocky Mountains, but this vast body of laborers has
+felled the trees and drained the swamps, and has thus removed nearly all
+the difficulties that stood opposed to profitable cultivation. They have
+also' opened mines of incalculable richness; mines of gold, silver, lead,
+copper, iron, and other metals, and all of these are common property. The
+men who executed these important works were our slaves, ill fed, worse
+clothed, and still worse lodged; and thousands of the most laborious and
+useful of them have perished of disease and starvation. Great as are the
+improvements already made, their number is constantly increasing, for we
+continue to employ such slaves--active, intelligent, and useful men--
+in extending them, and scarcely a day elapses that does not bring to light
+some new discovery, tending greatly to increase the value of _our common
+property_. We invite you, gentlemen, to come and cultivate these lands and
+work these mines. They are free to all. During the long period of
+forty-two years you shall have the whole product of your labor, and all we
+shall ask of you, at the close of that period, will be that you leave
+behind the common property of which we are now possessed, increased by the
+addition of such machinery as you may yourselves have made. The corn that
+you may have extracted, and the gold and silver that you may have mined
+during that long period, will be the property of yourselves, your wives,
+and your children. We charge no rent for the use of the lands, no wages
+for the labor of our slaves." Not satisfied with this, however, the
+persons who work these rich fields and mines claim to be absolute owners,
+not only of all the gold and silver they extract, but of all the machinery
+they construct out of the common property; and out of this claim grows the
+treaty now before the Senate.
+
+If justice requires the admission of foreigners to the enjoyment of a
+monopoly of the sale of their books it should be conceded at once to all,
+and it should be declared that no book should be printed here without the
+consent of its author, let him be Englishman, Frenchman, German, Russian,
+or Hindoo. This would certainly greatly increase the difficulty now
+existing in relation to the dissemination of knowledge; but if justice
+does require it let it be done. Would it, however, benefit the men who
+have real claims on our consideration? Let us see. A German devotes his
+life to the study of the history of his country, and at length produces a
+work of great value, but of proportional size. Real justice says that his
+work may not be used without his permission; that the facts he has brought
+to light from among the vast masses of original documents he has examined
+are his property, and can be published by none others but himself. The
+legislation, whose aid is invoked in the name of justice by literary men,
+speaks, however, very differently. It says: "This work is very cumbrous.
+To establish his views this man has gone into great detail. If translated,
+his book will scarcely sell to such extent as to pay the labor. The facts
+are common property. Out of this book you can make one that will be much
+more readable, and that will sell, for it will not be of more than one
+third the size. Take it, then, and extract all you need, and you will do
+well. You will have, too, another advantage. Translation confers no
+reputation; but an _original_ work, such as I now recommend to you, will
+give you such a standing as may lead you on to fortune. Few people know
+any thing of the original work, and it will not be necessary for you to
+mention that all your materials are thence derived." On the other hand, a
+lady who has read the work of this poor German finds in it an episode that
+she expands into a novel, which sells rapidly, and she reaps at home a
+large reward for her labors; while the man who gave her the idea starves
+in a garret. A literary friend of the lady novelist, delighted with her
+success, finds in his countrywoman's treasury of facts the material for a
+poem out of which he, too, reaps a harvest. Both of these are protected by
+international copyright, _because they have furnished nothing but the
+clothing of ideas;_ but the man who supplied them with the ideas finds
+that his book is condensed abroad, and given to the public, perhaps,
+without even the mention of his name.
+
+The whole tendency of the existing system is to give the largest reward to
+those whose labors are lightest, and the smallest to those whose labors
+are most severe; and every extension of it must necessarily look in that
+direction. The "Mysteries of Paris" were a fortune to Eugene Sue, and
+"Uncle Tom's Cabin" has been one to Mrs. Stowe. Byron had 2,000 guineas
+for a volume of "Childe Harold," and Moore 3,000 for his "Lalla Rookh;"
+and yet a single year should have more than sufficed for the production of
+any one of them. Under a system of international copyright, Dumas, already
+so largely paid, would be protected, whereas Thierry, who sacrificed his
+sight to the gratification of his thirst for knowledge, would not.
+Humboldt, the philosopher _par excellence_ of the age, would not, because
+he furnishes his readers with things, and not with words alone. Of the
+books that record his observations on this continent, but a part has, I
+believe, been translated into English, and of these but a small portion
+has been republished in this country, although to be had without claim for
+copyright. In England their sale has been small, and can have done little
+more than pay the cost of translation and publication. Had it been
+required to pay for the privilege of translation, but a small part of
+even those which have been republished would probably have ever seen the
+light in any but the language of the author. This great man inherited a
+handsome property which he devoted to the advancement of science, and what
+has been his pecuniary reward may be seen in the following statement,
+derived from an address recently delivered in New York:--
+
+"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 $70,000 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.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+LETTER III.
+
+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.
+
+What is claimed by English authors is perpetuity and universality of
+property in the clothing they supply for the body that is furnished to the
+world by other and unpaid men; and an examination of the course of
+proceeding in that country for the last century and a half shows that each
+step that has been taken has been in that direction. While denying to the
+producers of facts and ideas any right whatsoever, every act of
+legislation has tended to give more and more control over their
+dissemination to men who appropriated them to their own use, and brought
+them in an attractive form before the reader. Early in the last century
+was passed an act well known as the Statute of Queen Anne, giving to
+authors fourteen years as the period during which they were to have a
+monopoly of the peculiar form of words they chose to adopt in coming
+before the world. The number of persons then living in England and Wales,
+and subjected to that monopoly, was about five millions. Since that time
+the field of its operation has been enlarged, until it now embraces not
+only England and Wales, but Scotland, Ireland, and the British colonies,
+containing probably thirty-two millions of people who use the English
+language. The time, too, has been gradually extended until it now reaches
+forty-two years, or thrice the period for which it was originally granted.
+Nevertheless, no life is more precarious than that of an Englishman
+dependent upon literary pursuits for support. Such men are almost
+universally poor, and leading men among them, Tennyson and Sir Francis
+Head for instance, gladly accept the public charity, in the form of
+pensions for less than five hundred dollars a year. This is not a
+consequence of limitation in the field of action, for that is six times
+greater than it was when Gay netted L1,600 from a single opera, and Pope
+received L6,000 for his "Homer;" five times greater than when Fielding had
+L1,000 for his "Amelia;" and four times more than when Robertson had
+L4,500 for his "Charles V.," Gibbon L5,000 for the second part of his
+history, and McPherson L1,200 for his "Ossian."[1] Since that time money
+has become greatly more abundant and less valuable; and if we desired to
+compare the reward of these authors with those of the present day, the
+former should be trebled in amount, which would give Robertson more than
+sixty thousand dollars for a work that is comprised in three 8vo. volumes
+of very moderate size. It is not a consequence of limitation of time, for
+that has grown from fourteen to forty-two years--more than is required
+for any book except, perhaps, one in five or ten thousand. It should not
+be a consequence of poverty in the nation, for British writers assure us
+that wealth so much abounds that wars are needed to prevent its too rapid
+growth, and that foreign loans are indispensable for enabling the people
+of Britain to find an outlet for all their vast accumulations. What, then,
+is the cause of disease? Why is it that in so wealthy a nation literary
+men and women are so generally poor that it should be required to bring
+their poverty before the world, to aid in the demand for an extension to
+other countries of the monopoly so well secured at home? In that country
+the fortunes of wealthy men count by millions, and, that being the case,
+an average contribution of a shilling a head towards paying for the
+copyright of books, would seem to be the merest trifle to be given in
+return for the pleasure and the instruction derived from the perusal of
+the works of English authors, and yet even that small sum does not appear
+to be paid. Thirty-two millions of shillings make almost eight millions of
+dollars; a sum sufficient to give to six hundred authors more than
+thirteen thousand dollars a year, being more than half the salary of the
+chief magistrate of our Union. Admitting, however, that there were a
+thousand authors worthy to be paid, and that would most certainly cover
+them all, it would give to each eight thousand dollars, or one third more
+than we have been accustomed to allow to men who have devoted their lives
+to the service of the public, and have at length risen to be Secretaries
+of State. If English authors were thus largely paid, it would be deemed an
+absurdity to ask an enlargement of their monopoly; but, as they are not
+thus paid, it is asked. There is probably but a single literary man in
+England that receives $8,000 a year for his labors, and it may be doubted
+if it would be possible to name ten whose annual receipts equal $6,000;
+while those of a vast majority of them are under $1,500, and very many of
+them greatly under it. Even were we to increase the number of authors to
+fifteen hundred, one to every 4,000 males between the ages of 20 and 60 in
+the kingdom, and to allow them, on an average, $2,000 per annum, it would
+require but three millions of dollars to pay them, and that could be done
+by an average contribution of five pence per head of the population, a
+wonderfully small amount to be paid for literary labor by a nation
+claiming to be the wealthiest in the world. A shilling a head would give
+to the whole fifteen hundred salaries nearly equal to those of our
+Secretaries; and yet we see clever and industrious men, writers of
+eminence whose readers are to be found in every part of the civilized
+world, living on in hopeless poverty, and dying with the knowledge that
+they are leaving widows and children to the "tender mercies" of a world in
+which they themselves have shone and starved. Viewing all these facts, it
+may, I think, well be doubted if the annual contributions of the people
+subject to the British copyright act for the support of the persons who
+produce their books, much exceeds three pence, or six cents, per head; and
+here it is that we are to find the real difficulty--one not to be
+removed by us. The home market is the important one, whether for words or
+things, and when that is bad but little benefit can be derived from any
+foreign one; and every effort to extend the latter will, under such
+circumstances, be found to result in disappointment. It can act only as a
+plaster to conceal the sore, while the sore itself becomes larger and more
+dangerous from day to day. To effect a cure, the sore itself must be
+examined and its cause removed. To cure the disease so prevalent among
+British authors we must first seek for the causes why the home market for
+the products of their labor is so very small, and that will be found in
+the steadily growing tendency towards centralization, so obvious in every
+part of the operations of the British empire. Centralization and
+civilization have in all countries, and at all periods of the world, been
+opposed to each other, and that such is here the case can, I think,
+readily be shown.
+
+   [Footnote 1: The several figures here given are from a statement in a
+   British journal. Whether they are perfectly accurate, or not, I have no
+   means of determining.]
+
+Among the earliest cases in which this tendency was exhibited was that of
+the Union by which the kingdom of Scotland was reduced to the condition of
+a province of England, and Edinburgh, from being the capital of a nation,
+to becoming a mere provincial town. By many and enlightened Scotchmen a
+federal union would have been preferred; but a legislative one was formed,
+and from that date the whole public revenue of Scotland tended towards
+London, towards which tended also, and necessarily, all who sought for
+place, power, or distinction. An absentee government produced, of course,
+absentee landholders, and with each step in this direction there was a
+diminution in the demand at home for talent, which thenceforward sought a
+market in the great city to which the rents were sent. The connection
+between the educated classes of Scotland and the Scottish seats of
+learning tended necessarily to decline, while the connection between the
+former and the universities of England became more intimate. These results
+were, of course, gradually produced, but, as is the case with the stone as
+it falls towards the earth, the attraction of centralization grew with the
+growth of the city that was built out of the contributions of distant
+provinces, while the counteracting power of the latter as steadily
+declined, and the greater the decline the more rapid does its progress now
+become. Seventy years after the date of the Union, Edinburgh was still a
+great literary capital, and could then offer to the world the names of
+numerous men of whose reputation any country of the world might have been
+proud: Burns and McPherson; Robertson and Hume; Blair and Kames; Reid,
+Smith, and Stewart; Monboddo, Playfair, and Boswell; and numerous others,
+whose reputation has survived to the present day. Thirty-five years later,
+its press furnished the world with the works of Jeffrey and Brougham;
+Stewart, Brown, and Chalmers; Scott, Wilson, and Joanna Baillie; and with
+those of many others whose reputation was less widely spread, among whom
+were Galt, Hogg, Lockhart, and Miss Ferrier, the authoress of "Marriage."
+The "Edinburgh Review" and "Blackwood's Magazine," then, to a great
+extent, represented Scottish men, and Scottish modes of thought. Looking
+now on the same field of action, it is difficult, from this distance, to
+discover more than two Scottish authors, Alison and Sir William Hamilton,
+the latter all "the more conspicuous and remarkable, as he now," says the
+"North British Review" (Feb. 1853), "stands so nearly alone in the ebb of
+literary activity in Scotland, which has been so apparent during this
+generation." McCulloch and Macaulay were both, I believe, born in
+Scotland, but in all else they are English. Glasgow has recently presented
+the world with a new poet, in the person of Alexander Smith, but, unlike
+Ramsay and Burns, there is nothing Scottish about him beyond his place of
+birth. "It is not," says one of his reviewers, "Scottish scenery, Scottish
+history, Scottish character, and Scottish social humor, that he represents
+or depicts. Nor is there," it continues, "any trace in him of that feeling
+of intense nationality so common in Scottish writers. London," as it adds,
+"a green lane in Kent, an English forest, an English manorhouse, these are
+the scenes where the real business of the drama is transacted."[1]
+
+   [Footnote 1: _North British Review_, Aug. 1863.]
+
+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." [1]
+
+   [Footnote 1: _North British Review_, May, 1853.]
+
+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 $1,200 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[1] 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.
+
+   [Footnote 1: See Blackwood's Magazine, Sept. 1853, art. "Scotland since
+   the Union."]
+
+Looking to Ireland, we find a similar state of things. Seventy years
+since, that country was able to insist upon and to establish its claim for
+an independent government, and, by aid of the measures then adopted, was
+rapidly advancing. From that period to the close of the century the demand
+for books for Ireland was so great as to warrant the republication of a
+large portion of those produced in England. The _kingdom_ of Ireland of
+that day gave to the world such men as Burke and Grattan, Moore and
+Edgeworth, Curran, Sheridan, and Wellington. Centralization, however,
+demanded that Ireland should become a province of England, and from that
+time famines and pestilences have been of frequent occurrence, and the
+whole population is now being expelled to make room for the "slow and
+unimpressible" Saxon race. Under these circumstances, it is matter of
+small surprise that Ireland not only produces no books, but that she
+furnishes no market for those produced by others. Half a century of
+international copyright has almost annihilated both the producers and the
+consumers of books.
+
+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" [2] 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.
+
+   [Footnote 2: April, 1853, art. "The Church in the Mountains."]
+
+
+
+
+
+LETTER IV.
+
+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,[1]
+   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.
+
+
+   [Footnote 1: Wellington's dispatches place him in the first rank of
+    historians.]
+
+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 $15,000, 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."[1] 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.
+
+   [Footnote 1: _North British Review_, November, 1852.]
+
+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.
+
+Low-priced laborers cannot exercise self-government. All they earn is
+required for supplying themselves with indifferent food, clothing, and
+lodging, and they cannot control the expenditure of their wages to such
+extent as to enable them to educate their children, and hence it is that
+the condition of the people of England is as here described:--
+
+"About one half of our poor can neither read nor write. The test of
+signing the name at marriage is a very imperfect absolute test of
+education, but it is a very good relative one: taking that test, how
+stands Leeds itself in the Registrar-General's returns? In Leeds, which is
+the centre of the movement for letting education remain as it is, left
+entirely to chance and charity to supply its deficiencies, how do we find
+the fact? This, that in 1846, the last year to which these returns are
+brought down, of 1,850 marriages celebrated in Leeds and Hunslet, 508 of
+the men and 1,020 of the women, or considerably more than one half of the
+latter, signed their names with marks. 'I have also a personal knowledge
+of this fact--that of 47 men employed upon a railway in this immediate
+neighborhood, only 14 can sign their names in the receipt of their wages;
+and this not because of any diffidence on their part, but positively
+because they cannot write.' And only lately, the "Leeds Mercury" itself
+gave a most striking instance of ignorance among persons from Boeotian
+Pudsey: of 12 witnesses, 'all of respectable appearance, examined before
+the Mayor of Bradford at the court-house there, only one man could sign
+his name, and that indifferently.' Mr. Neison has clearly shown, in
+statistics of crime in England and Wales from 1834 to 1844, that crime is
+invariably the most prevalent in those districts where the fewest numbers
+in proportion to the population can read and write. Is it not, indeed,
+beginning at the wrong end to try and reform men after they have become
+criminals? Yet you cannot begin with children, from want of schools.
+Poverty is the result of ignorance, and then ignorance is again the
+unhappy result of poverty. 'Ignorance makes men improvident and
+thoughtless--women as well as men; it makes them blind to the future--
+to the future of this life as well as the life beyond. It makes them dead
+to higher pleasures than those of the mere senses, and keeps them down to
+the level of the mere animal. Hence the enormous extent of drunkenness
+throughout this country, and the frightful waste of means which it
+involves.' At Bilston, amidst 20,000 people, there are but two struggling
+schools--one has lately ceased; at Millenhall, Darlaston, and Pelsall,
+amid a teeming population, no school whatever. In Oldham, among 100,000,
+but one public day-school for the laboring classes; the others are an
+infant-school, and some dame and factory schools. At Birmingham, there are
+21,824 children at school, and 23,176 at no school; at Liverpool, 50,000
+out of 90,000 at no school; at Leicester, 8,200 out of 12,500; and at
+Leeds itself, in 1841 (the date of the latest returns), some 9,600 out of
+16,400 were at no school whatever. It is the same in the counties. 'I have
+seen it stated that a woman for some time had to officiate as clerk in a
+church in Norfolk, there being no adult male in the parish able to read
+and write.' For a population of 17,000,000 we have but twelve normal
+schools; while in Massachusetts they have three such schools for only
+800,000 of population."
+
+Poverty and ignorance produce intemperance and crime, and hence it is that
+both so much abound throughout England. Infanticide, as we are told,
+prevails to an extent unknown in any other part of the world. Looking at
+all these facts, we can readily see that the local demand for information
+throughout England must be very small, and this enables us to account for
+the extraordinary fact, that in all that country there has been no daily
+newspaper printed out of London. There is, consequently, no local demand
+for literary talent. The weekly papers that are published require little
+of the pen, but much of the scissors. The necessary consequence of this
+is, that every young man who fancies he can write, must go to London to
+seek a channel through which he may be enabled to come before the public.
+Here we have centralization again. Arrived in London, he finds a few daily
+papers, but only one, as we are told, that pays its expenses, and around
+each of them is a corps of writers and editors as ill-disposed to permit
+the introduction of any new laborers in their field as are the
+street-beggars of London to permit any interference with their "beat." If
+he desires to become contributor to the magazines, it is the same. To
+obtain the privilege of contributing his "cheap labor" to their pages, he
+must be well introduced, and if he make the attempt without such
+introduction he is treated with a degree of insolence scarcely to be
+imagined by any one not familiar with the "answers to correspondents" in
+London periodicals. If disposed to print a book he finds a very limited
+number of publishers, each one surrounded with his corps of authors and
+editors, and generally provided with a journal in which to have his own
+books well placed before the world. If, now, he succeeds in gaining
+favorable notice, he finds that he can obtain but a very small proportion
+of the price of his book, even if it sell, because centralization requires
+that all books shall be advertised in certain London journals that charge
+their own prices, and thus absorb the proceeds of no inconsiderable
+portion of the edition. Next, he finds the Chancellor of the Exchequer
+requiring a share of the proceeds of the book for permission to use paper,
+and further permission to advertise his work when printed.[1] Inquiring to
+what purpose are devoted the proceeds of all these taxes, he learns that
+the centralization which it is the object of the British cheap-labor
+policy to establish, requires the maintenance of large armies and large
+fleets which absorb more than all the profits of the commerce they
+protect. The bookseller informs him that he must take the risk of finding
+paper, and of paying the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and the "Times" and
+numerous other journals; that every editor will expect a copy; that the
+interests of science require that he, poor as he is, shall give no less
+than eleven copies to the public; and that the most that can be hoped for
+from the first edition is, that it will not bring him in debt. His book
+appears, but the price is high, for the reason that the taxes are heavy,
+and the general demand for books is small. Cheap laborers cannot buy
+books; soldiers and sailors cannot buy books; and thus does centralization
+diminish the market for literary talent while increasing the cost of
+bringing it before the world. Centralization next steps in, in the shape
+of circulating libraries, that, for a few guineas a year, supply books
+throughout the kingdom, and enable hundreds of copies to do the work that
+should be done by thousands, and hence it is that, while first editions of
+English works are generally small, so very few of them ever reach second
+ones. Popular as was Captain Marryat, his first editions were, as he
+himself informed me, for some time only 1,500, and had not then risen
+above 2,000. Of Mr. Bulwer's novels, so universally popular, the first
+edition never exceeded 2,500; and so it has been, and is, with others.
+With all Mr. Thackeray's popularity, the sale of his books has, I believe,
+rarely gone beyond 6,000 for the supply of above thirty millions of
+people. Occasionally, a single author is enabled to fix the attention of
+the public, and he is enabled to make a fortune--not from the sale of
+large quantities at low prices, but of moderate quantities at high prices.
+The chief case of the kind now in England is that of Mr. Dickens, who
+sells for twenty shillings a book that costs about four shillings and
+sixpence to make, and charges his fellow-laborers in the field of
+literature an enormous price for the privilege of attaching to his numbers
+the advertisements of their works, as is shown in the following paragraph
+from one of the journals of the day:--
+
+"Thus far, no writer has succeeded in drawing so large pecuniary profits
+from the exercise of his talents as Charles Dickens. His last romance,
+"Bleak House," which appeared in monthly numbers, had so wide a
+circulation in that form that it became a valuable medium for advertising,
+so that before its close the few pages of the tale were completely lost in
+sheets of advertisements which were stitched to them. The lowest price for
+such an advertisement was L1 sterling, and many were paid for at the rate
+of L5 and L6. From this there is nothing improbable in the supposition
+that, in addition to the large sum received for the tale, its author
+gained some L15,000 by his advertising sheets. The "Household Words"
+produces an income of about L4,000, though Dickens, having put it entirely
+in the hands of an assistant editor, has nothing to do with it beyond
+furnishing a weekly article. Through his talents alone he has raised
+himself from the position of a newspaper reporter to that of a literary
+Croesus."
+
+   [Footnote 1: The tax on advertisements has just now been repealed, but
+   that tax was a small one when compared with that imposed by
+   centralization.]
+
+Centralization produces the "cheap and abundant supply of labor" required
+for the maintenance of the British manufacturing system, and "cheap labor"
+furnishes Mr. Dickens with his "Oliver Twist," his "Tom-all-alone's," and
+the various other characters and situation by aid of whose delineation he
+is enabled, as a German writer informs us, to have dinners
+
+  "at which the highest aristocracy is glad to be present, and where he
+  equals them in wealth, and furnishes an intellectual banquet of wit and
+  wisdom which they, the highest and most refined circles, cannot
+  imitate."
+
+Centralization enables Mr. Dickens to obtain vast sums by advertising the
+works of the poor authors by whom he is surrounded, most of whom are not
+only badly paid, but insolently treated, while even of those whose names
+and whose works are well known abroad many gladly become recipients of the
+public charity. In the zenith of her reputation, Lady Charlotte Bury
+received, as I am informed, but L200 ($960) for the absolute copyright of
+works that sold for $7.50. Lady Blessington, celebrated as she was, had
+but from three to four hundred pounds; and neither Marryat nor Bulwer ever
+received, as I believe, the selling price of a thousand copies of their
+books as compensation for the copyright.[1] Such being the facts in regard
+to well-known authors, some idea may be formed in relation to the
+compensation of those who are obscure. The whole tendency of the "cheap
+labor" system, so generally approved by English writers, is to destroy the
+value of literary labor by increasing the number of persons who must look
+to the pen for means of support, and by diminishing the market for its
+products. What has been the effect of the system will now be shown by
+placing before you a list of the names of all existing British authors
+whose reputation can be regarded as of any wide extent, as follows:--
+
+
+   Tennyson,  Thackeray,  Grote,       McCulloch,
+   Carlyle,   Bulwer,     Macaulay,    Hamilton,
+   Dickens,   Alison,     J. S. Mill,  Faraday.
+
+
+   [Footnote 1: This I had from Captain Marryat himself.]
+
+This list is very small as compared with that presented in the same field
+five-and-thirty years since, and its difference in weight is still greater
+than in number. Scott, the novelist and poet, may certainly be regarded as
+the counterpoise of much more than any one of the writers of fiction in
+this list. Byron, Moore, Rogers, and Campbell enjoyed a degree of
+reputation far exceeding that of Tennyson. Wellington, the historian of
+his own campaigns, would much outweigh any of the historians. Malthus and
+Ricardo were founders of a school that has greatly influenced the policy
+of the world, whereas McCulloch and Mill are but disciples in that school.
+Dalton, Davy, and Wollaston will probably occupy a larger space in the
+history of science than Sir Michael Faraday, large, even, as may be that
+assigned to him.
+
+Extraordinary as is the existence of such a state of things in a country
+claiming so much to abound in wealth, it is yet more extraordinary that we
+look around in vain to see who are to replace even these when age or death
+shall withdraw them from the literary world. Of all here named,
+Mr. Thackeray is the only one that has risen to reputation in the last ten
+years, and he is no longer young; and even he seeks abroad that reward for
+his efforts which is denied to him by the "cheap labor" system at home. Of
+the others, nearly, if not quite all, have been for thirty years before
+the world, and, in the natural course of things, some of them must
+disappear from the stage of authorship, if not of life. If we seek their
+successors among the writers for the weekly or monthly journals, we shall
+certainly fail to find them. Looking to the Reviews, we find ourselves
+forced to agree with the English journalist, who informs his readers that
+"it is said, and with apparent justice, that the quarterlies are not as
+good as they were." From year to year they have less the appearance of
+being the production of men who looked to any thing beyond mere pecuniary
+compensation for their labor. In reading them we find ourselves compelled
+to agree with the reviewer who regrets to see that the centralization
+which is hastening the decline of the Scottish universities is tending to
+cause the mind of the whole youth of Scotland to be
+
+  "Cast in the mould of English universities, institutions which, from
+  their very completeness, exercise on second-rate minds an influence
+  unfavorable to originality and power of thought."--_North British
+  Review_, May 1853.
+
+Their pupils are, as he says, struck "with one mental die," than which
+nothing can be less favorable to literary or scientific development.
+
+Thirty years since, Sir Humphrey Davy spoke with his countrymen as
+follows:--
+
+  "There are very few persons who pursue science with true dignity; it is
+  followed more as connected with objects of profit than fame."--
+  _Consolation in Travel_.
+
+Since then, Sir John Herschel has said to them:--
+
+  "Here whole branches of continental study are unstudied, and indeed
+  almost unknown by name. It is in vain to conceal the melancholy truth.
+  We are fast dropping behind."--_Treatise on Sound_.
+
+A late writer, already quoted, says that learning is in disrepute. The
+English people, as he informs us, have
+
+  "No longer time or patience for the luxury of a learned treatment of
+  their interests; and a learned lawyer or statesmen, instead of being
+  eagerly sought for, is shunned as an impediment to public business."
+--_North British Review_.
+
+The reviewer is, as he informs us, "far from regarding this tendency,
+unfavorable as it is to present progress, as a sign of social
+retrogression." He thinks that
+
+  "Reference to general principles for rules of immediate action on the
+  part of those actually engaged in the dispatch of business, must, from
+  the delay which it necessarily occasions, come to be regarded as a
+  worse evil than action which is at variance with principle altogether."
+
+Demand tends to procure supply. Destroy the demand, and the supply will
+cease. Science, whether natural or social, is not in demand in Great
+Britain, and hence the diminution of supply. We have here the secret of
+literary and scientific decline, so obvious to all who study English books
+or journals, or read the speeches of English statesmen. Empiricism
+prevails everywhere, and there is a universal disposition to avoid the
+study of principles. The "cheap labor" system, which it is the object of
+the whole British policy to establish, cannot be defended on principle,
+and therefore principles are avoided. Centralization, cheap labor, and
+enslavement of the body and the mind, travel always in company, and with
+each step of their progress there is an increasing tendency towards the
+accumulation of power in the hands of men who should be statesmen, the
+difficulties of whose positions forbid, however, that they should refer to
+scientific principles for their government. Action must be had, and
+immediate action in opposition to principle is preferable to delay; and
+hence it is that real statesmen are "shunned as an impediment to public
+business." The greater the necessity for statesmanship, the more must
+statesmen be avoided. The nearer the ship is brought to the shoal, the
+more carefully must her captain avoid any reference to the chart. That
+such is the practice of those charged with the direction of the affairs of
+England, and such the philosophy of those who control her journals, is
+obvious to all who study the proceedings of the one or the teachings of
+the other. From year to year the ship becomes more difficult of
+management, and there is increasing difficulty in finding responsible men
+to take the helm. Such are the effects upon mind that have resulted from
+that "destruction of nationalities" required for the perfection of the
+British system of centralization.
+
+England is fast becoming one great shop, and traders have, in general,
+neither time nor disposition to cultivate literature. The little
+proprietors disappear, and the day laborers who succeed them can neither
+educate their children nor purchase books. The great proprietor is an
+absentee, and he has little time for either literature or science. From
+year to year the population of the kingdom becomes more and more divided
+into two great classes; the very poor, with whom food and raiment require
+all the proceeds of labor, and the very rich who prosper by the cheap
+labor system, and therefore eschew the study of principles. With the one
+class, books are an unattainable luxury, while with the other the absence
+of leisure prevents the growth of desire for their purchase. The sale is,
+therefore, small; and hence it is that authors are badly paid. In strong
+contrast with the limited sale of English books at home, is the great
+extent of sale here, as shown in the following facts: Of the octavo
+edition of the "Modern British Essayists," there have been sold in five
+years no less than 80,000 volumes. Of Macaulay's "Miscellanies," 3 vols.
+12mo., the sale has amounted to 60,000 volumes. Of Miss Aguilar's
+writings, the sale, in two years, has been 100,000 volumes. Of Murray's
+"Encyclopedia of Geography," more than 50,000 volumes have been sold, and
+of McCulloch's "Commercial Dictionary," 10,000 volumes. Of Alexander
+Smith's poems, the sale, in a few months, has reached 10,000 copies. The
+sale of Mr. Thackeray's works has been quadruple that of England, and that
+of the works of Mr. Dickens counts almost by millions of volumes. Of
+"Bleak House," in all its various forms--in newspapers, magazines, and
+volumes--it has already amounted to several hundred thousands of copies.
+Of Bulwer's last novel, since it was completed, the sale has, I am told,
+exceeded 35,000. Of Thiers's "French Revolution and Consulate," there have
+been sold 32,000, and of Montagu's edition of Lord Bacon's works 4,000
+copies.
+
+If the sales of books were as great in England as they are here, English
+authors would be abundantly paid. In reply it will be said their works are
+cheap here because we pay no copyright. For payment of the authors,
+however, a very small sum would be required, if the whole people of
+England could afford, as they should be able to do, to purchase books. A
+contribution of a shilling per head would give, as has been shown, a sum
+of almost eight millions of dollars, sufficient to pay to fifteen hundred
+salaries nearly equal to those of our Secretaries of State.
+Centralization, however, destroys the market for books, and the sale is,
+therefore, small; and the few successful writers owe their fortunes to the
+collection of large contributions made among a small number of readers;
+while the mass of authors live on, as did poor Tom Hood, from day to day,
+with scarcely a hope of improvement in their condition.
+
+Sixty years since, Great Britain was a wealthy country, abounding in
+libraries and universities, and giving to the world some of the best, and
+best paid, writers of the age. At that time the people of this country
+were but four millions, and they were poor, while unprovided with either
+books or libraries. Since then they have grown to twenty-six millions,
+millions of whom have been emigrants, in general arriving here with
+nothing but the clothing on their backs. These poor men have had every
+thing to create for themselves--farms, roads, houses, libraries,
+schools, and colleges; and yet, poor as they have been, they furnish now a
+demand for the principal products of English mind greater than is found at
+home. If we can make such a market, why cannot they? If they had such a
+market, would it not pay their authors to the full extent of their merits?
+Unquestionably it would; and if they see fit to pursue a system tending to
+cheapen the services of the laborer in the field, in the workshop, and at
+the desk, there is no more reason for calling upon the people of this
+country to make up their deficiencies towards those who contribute to
+their pleasure or instruction by writing books, than there would be in
+asking us to aid in supporting the hundreds of thousands of day laborers,
+their wives and children, whom the same system condemns, unpitied, to the
+workhouse.
+
+But, it will be asked, is it right that we should read the works of
+Macaulay, Dickens, and others, without compensation to the authors? In
+answer, it may be said, that we give them precisely what their own
+countrymen have given to their Dalton, Davy, Wollaston, Franklin, Parry,
+and the thousands of others who have furnished the bodies of which books
+are composed--and more than we ourselves give to the men among us
+engaged in cultivating science--fame. This, it will be said, is an
+unsubstantial return; yet Byron deemed it quite sufficient when he first
+saw an American edition of his works, coming, as it seemed to him, "from
+posterity." Miss Bremer found no small reward for her labors in knowing
+the high regard in which she was held; and it was no small payment when,
+even in the wilds of the West, she met with numerous persons who would
+gladly have her travel free of charge, because of the delight she had
+afforded them. Miss Carlen tells her readers that "of one triumph" she was
+proud. "It was," she says, "when I held in my hand, for the first time,
+one of my works, translated and published in America. My eyes filled with
+tears. The bright dreams of youth again passed before me. Ye Americans had
+planted the seed, and ye also approved of the fruit!" This is the feeling
+of a writer that cultivates literature with some object in view other than
+mere profit. It differs entirely from that of English authors, because in
+England, more than in any other country, book-making is a trade, carried
+on exclusively with a view to profit; and hence it is that the character
+of English books so much declines.
+
+But is it really true that foreign authors derive no pecuniary advantage
+from the republication of their books in this country? It is not. Mr.
+Macaulay has admitted that much of his reputation, and of the sale of his
+books at home, had been a consequence of his reputation here, where his
+Essays were first reprinted. At the moment of writing this, I have met
+with a notice of his speeches, first collected here, from which the
+following is an extract:--
+
+  "We owe much to America. Not content with charming us with the works of
+  her native genius, she teaches us also to appreciate our own. She steps
+  in between the timidity of a British author, and the fastidiousness of
+  the British public, and by using her' good offices' brings both parties
+  to a friendly understanding."--_Morning Chronicle_.
+
+If the people of England are largely indebted to America for being made
+acquainted with the merits of their authors, are not these latter also
+indebted to America for much of their pecuniary reward? Undoubtedly they
+are. Mr. Macaulay owes much of his fortune to American publishers,
+readers, and critics; and such is the case to perhaps a greater extent
+with Mr. Carlyle, whose papers were first collected here, and their merits
+thus made known to his countrymen. Lamb's papers of "Elia" were first
+collected here. It is to the diligence of an American publisher that De
+Quincey owes the publication of a complete edition of his works, now to be
+followed by a similar one in England. The papers of Professor Wilson owe
+their separate republication to American booksellers. The value of Mr.
+Thackeray's copyrights has been greatly increased by his reception here.
+So has it been with Mr. Dickens. All of those persons profit largely by
+their fame abroad, while the men who contribute to the extension of
+knowledge by the publication of facts and ideas never reap profit from
+their publication abroad, and are rarely permitted to acquire even fame.
+Godfrey died poor. The merchants of England gave no fortune to his
+children, and Hadley stole his fame. The people of that country, who
+travel in steam-vessels, have given to the family of Fulton no pecuniary
+reward, while her writers have uniformly endeavored to deprive him of the
+reputation which constituted almost the sole inheritance of his family.
+The whole people of Europe are profiting by the discovery of chloroform;
+but who inquires what has become of the family of its unfortunate
+discoverer? Nobody! The people of England profit largely by the
+discoveries of Fourcroy, Berzelius, and many other of the continental
+philosophers; but do those who manufacture cheap cloth, or those who wear
+it, contribute to the support of the families of those philosophers? Did
+they contribute to their support while alive? Certainly not. To do so
+would have been in opposition to the idea that the real contributors to
+knowledge should be "hewers of wood and drawers of water" for the
+gentlemen who dress up their facts and ideas in an attractive form and
+place them before the world in the form of cloth or books.
+
+We are largely indebted to the labors of literary men, and they should be
+well paid, but their claims to pecuniary reward have been much
+exaggerated, because they have held the pen and have had always a high
+degree of belief in their own deserts. Their right in the books they
+publish is precisely similar to, and no greater than, that of the man who
+culls the flowers and arranges the bouquets; and, when that is provided
+for, their books are entitled to become common property. English authors
+are already secured in a monopoly for forty-two years among a body of
+people so large that a contribution of a shilling a head would enable each
+and all of them to live in luxury; and if British policy prevents their
+countrymen from paying them, it is to the British Parliament they should
+look for redress, and not to our Executive. When they shall awaken to the
+fact that "cheap labor" with the spade, the plough, and the loom, brings
+with it necessarily "cheap labor" with the pen, they will become
+opponents, and cease to be advocates of the system under which they
+suffer. All that, in the mean time, we can say to them is, that we protect
+our own authors by giving them a monopoly of our own immense and rapidly
+growing market, and that if they choose to come and live among us we will
+grant them the same protection. We may now look to the condition of our
+own literary men.
+
+
+
+
+
+LETTER V.
+
+Our system is based upon an idea directly the reverse of the one on which
+rests the English system--that of decentralization; and we may now study
+its effects as shown in the development of literary tendencies and in the
+reward of authors.
+
+Centralization tends towards taxing the people for building up great
+institutions at a distance from those who pay the taxes; decentralization
+towards leaving to the people to tax themselves for the support of common
+and high schools in their immediate neighborhood. The first tends towards
+placing the man who has instruction to sell at a distance from those who
+need to buy it; while the other tends towards bringing the teacher to the
+immediate vicinity of the scholars, and thus diminishing the cost of
+education. The effects of the latter are seen in the fact that the new
+States, no less than the old ones, are engaged in an effort to enable all,
+without distinction of sex or fortune, to obtain the instruction needful
+for enabling them to become consumers of books, and customers to the men
+who produce them. Massachusetts exhibits to the world 182,000 scholars in
+her public schools; New York, 778,000 in the public ones, and 75,000 in
+the private ones; and Iowa and Wisconsin are laying the foundation of a
+system that will enable them, at a future day, to do as much. Boston taxes
+herself $365,000 for purposes of education, while Philadelphia expends
+more than half a million for the same purposes, and exhibits 50,000
+children in her public schools. Here we have, at once, a great demand for
+instructors, offering a premium on intellectual effort, and its effect is
+seen in the numerous associations of teachers, each anxious to confer with
+the others in regard to improvement in the modes of education. School
+libraries are needed for the children, and already those of New York
+exhibit about a million and a half of volumes. Books of a higher class are
+required for the teachers, and here is created another demand leading to
+the preparation of new and improved books by the teachers themselves. The
+scholars enter life and next we find numerous apprentices' libraries and
+mercantile libraries, producing farther demand for books, and aiding in
+providing reward for those to whom the world is indebted for them.
+Everybody must learn to read and write, and everybody _must_ therefore
+have books; and to this universality of demand it is due that the sale of
+those required for early education is so immense. Of the works of Peter
+Parley it counts by millions; but if we take his three historical books
+(price 75 cents each) alone, we find that it amounts to between half a
+million and a million of volumes. Of Goodrich's United States it has been
+a quarter of a million. Of Morse's Geography and Atlas (50 cents) the sale
+is said to be no less than 70,000 per annum. Of Abbott's histories the
+sale is said to have already been more than 400,000, while of Emerson's
+Arithmetic and Reader it counts almost by millions. Of Mitchell's several
+geographies it is 400,000 a year.
+
+In other branches of education the same state of things is seen to exist.
+Of the Boston Academy's collection of sacred music the sale has exceeded
+600,000; and the aggregate sale of five books by the same author has
+probably exceeded a million, at a dollar per volume. Leaving the common
+schools we come to the high schools and colleges, of which latter the
+names of no less than 120 are given in the American Almanac. Here again we
+have decentralization, and its effect is to bring within reach of almost
+the whole people a higher degree of education than could be afforded by
+the common schools. The problem to be solved is, as stated by a recent and
+most enlightened traveller, "How are citizens to be made thinking beings
+in the greatest numbers?" Its solution is found in making of the
+educational fabric a great pyramid, of which the common schools form the
+base and the Smithsonian Institute the apex, the intermediate places being
+filled with high schools, lyceums, and colleges of various descriptions,
+fitted to the powers and the means of those who need instruction. All
+these make, of course, demand for books, and hence it is that the sale of
+Anthon's series of classics (averaging $1) amounts, as I am told, to
+certainly not less than 50,000 volumes per annum, while of the "Classical
+Dictionary" of the same author ($4) not less than thirty thousand have
+been sold. Of Liddell and Scott's "Greek Lexicon" ($5), edited by Prof.
+Drisler, the sale has been not less than 25,000, and probably much larger.
+Of Webster's 4to. "Dictionary" ($6) it has been, I am assured, 60,000, and
+perhaps even 80,000; and of the royal 8vo. one ($3.50), 250,000. Of
+Bolmar's French school books not less than 150,00 volumes have been sold.
+The number of books used in the higher schools--text-books in
+philosophy, chemistry, and other branches of science--is exceedingly
+great, and it would be easy to produce numbers of which the sale is from
+five to ten thousand per annum; but to do so would occupy too much space,
+and I must content myself with the few facts already given in regard to
+this department of literature.
+
+Decentralization, or local self-government, tends thus to place the whole
+people in a condition to read newspapers, while the same cause tends to
+produce those local interests which give interest to the public journals,
+and induce men to purchase them. Hence it is that their number is so
+large. The census of 1850 gives it at 2,625; and the increase since that
+time has been very great. The total number of papers printed can scarcely
+be under 600,000,000, which would give almost 24 for every person, old and
+young, black and white, male and female, in the Union. But recently the
+newspaper press of the United Kingdom was said to require about 160,000
+reams of paper, which would give about 75,000,000 of papers, or two and a
+half per head.
+
+The number of daily papers was returned at 350, but it has greatly
+increased, and must now exceed four hundred. Chicago, which then was a
+small town, rejoices now in no less than 24 periodicals, seven of which
+are daily, and five of them of the largest size. At St. Louis, which but a
+few years since was on the extreme borders of civilization, we find
+several, and one of these has grown from a little sheet of 8 by 12 inches
+to the largest size, yielding to its proprietors $50,000 per annum, while
+Liverpool, Manchester, and Birmingham are still compelled to depend upon
+their tri-weekly sheets. St. Louis itself furnishes the type, and
+Louisville furnishes the paper. Everywhere, the increase in size is
+greater than that in the number of newspapers, and the increase of ability
+in both the city and country press, greater than in either number or size.
+These things are necessary consequences of that decentralization which
+builds school-houses and provides teachers, where centralization raises
+armies and provides generals. The schools enable young men to read, think,
+and write, and the local newspaper is always at hand in which to publish.
+Beginning thus with the daily or weekly journal, the youth of talent makes
+his way gradually to the monthly or quarterly magazine, and ultimately to
+the independent book.
+
+Examine where we may through the newspaper press, there is seen the
+activity which always accompanies the knowledge that men _can rise_ in the
+world _if they will_; but this is particularly obvious in the daily press
+of cities, whose efforts to obtain information, and whose exertions to lay
+it before the public, are without a parallel. Centralization, like that of
+the London "Times," furnishes its readers with brief paragraphs of
+telegraphic news, where decentralization gives columns. The New York
+"Tribune" furnishes, for two cents, better papers than are given in London
+for ten, and it scatters them over the country by hundreds of thousands.
+Decentralization is educating the whole mind of the country, and it is to
+this it is due that the American farmer is furnished with machines which
+are, according to the London "Times," "about twice as light in draught as
+the lightest of English machines of the same description, doing as much,
+if not more work than the best of them, and with much less power; dressing
+the grain, which they do not, and which can be profitably disposed of at
+one half, or at least one third less money than its British rivals"--and
+is thus enabled to purchase books. Centralization, on the other hand,
+furnishes the English farmer, according to the same authority, "with
+machines strong and dear enough to rob him of all future improvements, and
+tremendously heavy, either to work or to draw;" and thus deprives him of
+all power to educate his children, or to purchase for himself either books
+or newspapers.
+
+Religious decentralization exerts also a powerful influence on the
+arrangements for imparting that instruction which provides purchasers for
+books. The Methodist Society, with its gigantic operations; the
+Presbyterian Board of Publication; the Baptist Association; the
+Sunday-school, and other societies, are all incessantly at work creating
+readers. The effect of all these efforts for the dissemination of cheap
+knowledge is shown in the first instance in the number of semi-monthly,
+monthly, and quarterly journals, representing every shade of politics and
+religion, and every department of literature and science.
+
+The number of these returned to the census was 175; but that must, I
+think, have been even then much below the truth. Since then it has been
+much increased. Of two of them, Putnam's and Harper's, the first
+exclusively original, and the latter about two thirds so, the sale is
+about two millions of numbers per annum; while of three others, published
+in Philadelphia, it is about a million. Cheap as are these journals, at
+twenty-five cents each, the sum total of the price paid for them by the
+consumers is about $700,000. The quantity of paper required for a single
+one of them is about 16,000 reams of double medium, being one tenth as
+much as has recently been given as the consumption of the whole newspaper
+press of Great Britain and Ireland. Every pursuit in life, and almost
+every shade of opinion, has its periodical. A single city in Western New
+York furnishes no less than four agricultural and horticultural journals,
+one of them published weekly, with a circulation of 15,000, and the
+others, monthly, with a joint circulation of 25,000. The "Merchants'
+Magazine," which set the example for the one now published in London, has
+a circulation of 3,500. The "Bankers' Magazine" also set the example
+recently followed in England. Medicine and Law have their numerous and
+well supported journals; and Dental Surgery alone has five, one of which
+has a circulation of 5,000 copies, while all Europe has but two, and those
+of very inferior character.[1] North, south, east, and west, the
+periodical press is collecting the opinions of all our people, while
+centralization is gradually limiting the expression of opinion, in
+England, to those who live in and near London. Upon this extensive base of
+cheap domestic literature rests that portion of the fabric composed of
+reproduction of foreign books, the quantities of some of which were given
+in my last. The proportion which these bear to American books has been
+thus given for the six months ending on the 30th of June last:
+
+
+   Republications   169
+   Original         522
+
+                    691
+
+
+   [Footnote 1: It is a remarkable fact that there should be in this
+   country no less than four Colleges of Dental Surgery, while all Europe
+   presents not even a single one.]
+
+Of these last, 17 were original translations.
+
+We see, thus, that the proportion of domestic to foreign products is
+already more than three to one. How the sale of the latter compares with
+that of the former, will be seen by the following facts in relation to
+books of almost all sizes, prices, and kinds; some of which have been
+furnished by the publishers themselves, whilst others are derived from
+gentlemen connected with the trade whose means of information are such as
+warrant entire reliance upon their statements.
+
+Of all American authors, those of school-books excepted, there is no one
+of whose books so many have been circulated as those of Mr. Irving. Prior
+to the publication of the edition recently issued by Mr. Putnam, the sale
+had amounted to some hundreds of thousands; and yet of that edition,
+selling at $1.25 per volume, it has already amounted to 144,000 vols. Of
+"Uncle Tom," the sale has amounted to 295,000 copies, partly in one, and
+partly in two volumes, and the total number of volumes amounts probably to
+about 450,000.
+
+
+                                 _Price per vol._ _Volumes._
+
+
+   Of the two works of Miss Warner,
+    Queechy, and the Wide, Wide World, the
+    price and sale have been.                  $ 88  104,000
+
+   Fern Leaves, by Fanny Fern, in six months.  1 25   45,000
+
+   Reveries of a Bachelor, and other books,
+    by Ike Marvel.                             1 25   70,000
+
+   Alderbrook, by Fanny Forester, 3 vols.        50   33,000
+
+   Northup's Twelve Years a Slave              1 00   20,000
+
+   Novels of Mrs. Hentz, in three years          63   93,000
+
+   Major Jones' Courtship and Travels            50   31,000
+
+   Salad for the Solitary, by a new author,
+    in five months                              1 25   5,000
+
+   Headley's Napoleon and his Marshals, Washington
+    and his Generals, and other works.         1 25  200,000
+
+   Stephen's Travels in Egypt and Greece.        87   80,000
+
+    " " Yucatan and Central America            2 50   60,000
+
+   Kendall's Expedition to Santa Fe            1 25   40,000
+
+   Lynch's Expedition to the Dead Sea, 8vo.   $3 00   15,000
+
+    " " 2mo.                                   1 25    8,000
+
+   Western Scenes                              2 50   14,000
+
+   Young's Science of Government               1 00   12,000
+
+   Seward's Life of John Quincy Adams.         1 00   30,000
+
+   Frost's Pictorial History of the World,
+    3 vols.                                    2 50   60,000
+
+   Sparks' American Biography, 25 vols           75  100,000
+
+   Encyclopaedia Americana, 14 vols.           2 00  280,000
+
+   Griswold's Poets and Prose Writers
+    of America, 3 vols.                        3 00   21,000
+
+   Barnes' Notes on the Gospels, Epistles, &c.,
+    11 vols.                                     75  300.000
+
+   Aiken's Christian Minstrel, in two years.     62   40,000
+
+   Alexander on the Psalms, 3 vols.            1 17   10,000
+
+   Buist's Flower Garden Directory             1 25   10,000
+
+   Cole on Fruit Trees.                          50   18,000
+
+    " Diseases of Domestic Animals               50   34,000
+
+   Downing's Fruits and Fruit Trees.             50   15,000
+
+    " Rural Essays.                            3 50    3,000
+
+    " Landscape Gardening.                     3 50    9,000
+
+    " Cottage Residences.                      2 00    6,250
+
+    " Country Homes.                           4 00    3,500
+
+   Mahan's Civil Engineering.                  3 00    7,500
+
+   Leslie's Cookery and Receipt-books.         1 00   96,000
+
+   Guyot's Lectures on Earth and Man.          1 00    6,000
+
+   Wood and Bache's Medical Dispensatory       5 00   60,000
+
+   Dunglison's Medical Writings,
+    in all 10 vols.                            2 50   50,000
+
+   Pancoast's Surgery, 4to.                   10 00    4,000
+
+   Rayer, Ricord, and Moreau's Surgical Works
+   (translations).                            15 00    5,500
+
+   Webster's Works, 6 vols.                    2 00   46,800
+
+   Kent's Commentaries, 4 vols.                3 38   84,000
+
+
+Next to Chancellor Kent's work comes Greenleaf on Evidence, 3 vols.,
+$16.50; the sale of which has been exceedingly great, but what has been
+its extent, I cannot say.
+
+Of Blatchford's General Statutes of New York, a local work, price $4.50,
+the sale has been 3,000; equal to almost 30,000 of a similar work for the
+United Kingdom.
+
+How great is the sale of Judge Story's books can be judged only from the
+fact that the copyright now yields, and for years past has yielded, more
+than $8,000 per annum. Of the sale of Mr. Prescott's works little is
+certainly known, but it cannot, I understand, have been less than 160,000
+volumes. That of Mr. Bancroft's History, has already risen, certainly to
+30,000 copies, and I am told it is considerably more; and yet even that is
+a sale, for such a work, entirely unprecedented.
+
+Of the works of Hawthorne, Longfellow, Bryant, Willis, Curtis, Sedgwick,
+Sigourney, and numerous others, the sale is exceedingly great; but, as not
+even an approximation to the true amount can be offered, I must leave it
+to you to judge of it by comparison with those of less popular authors
+above enumerated. In several of these cases, beautifully illustrated
+editions have been published, of which large numbers have been sold. Of
+Mr. Longfellow's volume there have been no less than ten editions. These
+various facts will probably suffice to satisfy you that this country
+presents a market for books of almost every description, unparalleled in
+the world.
+
+In reflecting upon this subject, it is necessary to bear in mind that the
+monopoly, granted to authors and their families, is for the term of no
+less than forty-two years, and that in that period the number of persons
+subjected to it is likely to grow to little short of a hundred millions,
+with a power of consumption that will probably be ten times greater than
+now exists. If the Commentaries of Chancellor Kent continue to maintain
+their present position, as they probably will, may we not reasonably
+suppose that the demand for them will continue as great, or nearly so, as
+it is at present, and that the total sale during the period of copyright
+will reach a quarter of a million of volumes? So, too, of the histories of
+Bancroft and Prescott, and of other books of permanent character.
+
+Such being the extent of the market for the products of literary labor, we
+may now inquire into its rewards.
+
+Beginning with the common schools, we find a vast number of young men and
+young women acting as teachers of others, while qualifying themselves for
+occupying other places in life. Many of them rise gradually to become
+teachers in high schools and professors in colleges, while all of them
+have at hand the newspaper, ready to enable them, if gifted with the power
+of expressing themselves on paper, to come before the world. The numerous
+newspapers require editors and contributors, and the amount appropriated
+to the payment of this class of the community is a very large one. Next
+come the magazines, many of which pay very liberally. I have now before me
+a statement from a single publisher, in which he says that to Messrs.
+Willis, Longfellow, Bryant, and Alston, his price was uniformly $50 for a
+poetical article, long or short--and his readers know that they were
+generally very short; in one case only fourteen lines. To numerous others
+it was from $25 to $40. In one case he has paid $25 per page for prose. To
+Mr. Cooper he paid $1,800 for a novel, and $1,000 for a series of naval
+biographies, the author retaining the copyright for separate publication;
+and in such cases, if the work be good, its appearance in the magazine
+acts as the best of advertisements. To Mr. James he paid $1,200 for a
+novel, leaving him also the copyright. For a single number of the journal
+he has paid to authors $1,500. The total amount paid for original matter
+by two magazines--the selling price of which is $3 per annum--in ten
+years, has exceeded $130,000, giving an average of $13,000 per annum. The
+Messrs. Harper inform me that the expenditure for literary and artistic
+labor required for their magazine is $2,000 per month, or $24,000 a year.
+
+Passing upwards, we reach the producers of books, and here we find rewards
+not, I believe, to be paralleled elsewhere. Mr. Irving stands, I imagine,
+at the head of living authors for the amount received for his books. The
+sums paid to the renowned Peter Parley must have been enormously great,
+but what has been their extent I have no means of ascertaining. Mr.
+Mitchell, the geographer, has realized a handsome fortune from his
+schoolbooks. Professor Davies is understood to have received more than
+$50,000 from the series published by him. The Abbotts, Emerson, and
+numerous other authors engaged in the preparation of books for young
+persons and schools, are largely paid. Professor Anthon, we are informed,
+has received more than $60,000 for his series of classics. The French
+series of Mr. Bolmar has yielded him upwards of $20,000. The school
+geography of Mr. Morse is stated to have yielded more than $20,000 to the
+author. A single medical book, of one 8vo. volume, is understood to have
+produced its authors $60,000, and a series of medical books has given to
+its author probably $30,000. Mr. Downing's receipts from his books have
+been very large. The two works of Miss Warner must have already yielded
+her from $12,000 to $15,000, and perhaps much more. Mr. Headley is stated
+to have received about $40,000; and the few books of Ike Marvel have
+yielded him about $20,000; a single one, "The Reveries of a Bachelor,"
+produced more than $4,000 in the first six months. Mrs. Stowe has been
+very largely paid. Miss Leslie's Cookery and Receipt books have paid her
+$12,000. Dr. Barnes is stated to have received more than $30,000 for the
+copyright of his religious works. Fanny Fern has probably received not
+less than $6,000 for the 12mo. volume published but six months since. Mr.
+Prescott was stated, several years since, to have then received $90,000
+from his books, and I have never seen it contradicted. According to the
+rate of compensation generally understood to be received by Mr. Bancroft,
+the present sale of each volume of his yields him more than $15,000, and
+he has the long period of forty-two years for future sale. Judge Story
+died, as has been stated, in the receipt of more than $8,000 per annum;
+and the amount has not, as it is understood, diminished. Mr. Webster's
+works, in three years, can scarcely have paid less than $25,000. Kent's
+Commentaries are understood to have yielded to their author and his heirs
+more than $120,000, and if we add to this for the remainder of the period
+only one half of this sum, we shall obtain $180,000, or $45,000 as the
+compensation for a single 8vo. volume, a reward for literary labor
+unexampled in history. What has been the amount received by Professor
+Greenleaf I cannot learn, but his work stands second only, in the legal
+line, to that of Chancellor Kent. The price paid for Webster's 8vo.
+Dictionary is understood to be fifty cents per copy; and if so, with a
+sale of 250,000, it must already have reached $125,000. If now to this we
+add the quarto, at only a dollar a copy, we shall have a sum approaching
+to, and perhaps exceeding, $180,000; more, probably, than has been paid
+for all the dictionaries of Europe in the same period of time. What have
+been the prices paid to Messrs. Hawthorne, Longfellow, Bryant, Willis,
+Curtis, and numerous others, I cannot say; but it is well known that they
+have been very large. It is not, however, only the few who are liberally
+paid; all are so who manifest any ability, and here it is that we find the
+effect of the decentralizing system of this country as compared with the
+centralizing one of Great Britain. There Mr. Macaulay is largely paid for
+his Essays, while men of almost equal ability can scarcely obtain the
+means of support. Dickens is a literary Croesus, and Tom Hood dies leaving
+his family in hopeless poverty. Such is not here the case. Any
+manifestation of ability is sure to produce claimants for the publication
+of books. No sooner had the story of "Hot Corn" appeared in "The Tribune,"
+than a dozen booksellers were applicants to the author for a book. The
+competition is here for the _purchase_ of the privilege of printing, and
+this competition is not confined to the publishers of a single city, as is
+the case in Britain. Boston, New York, Philadelphia, and even Auburn and
+Cincinnati, present numerous publishers, all anxious to secure the works
+of writers of ability, in any department of literature; and were it
+possible to present a complete list of our well-paid authors, its extent
+could not fail to surprise you greatly, as the very few facts that have
+come to my knowledge in reference to some of the lesser stars of the
+literary world have done by me. You will observe that I have confined
+myself to the question of demand for books and compensation to their
+authors, without reference to that of the ability displayed in their
+preparation. That we may have good books, all that is required is that we
+make a large market for them, which is done here to an extent elsewhere
+unknown.
+
+Forty years since, the question was asked by the "Edinburgh Review," Who
+reads an American book? Judging from the facts here given, may we not
+reasonably suppose that the time is fast approaching, when the question
+will be asked, Who does not read American books?
+
+Forty years since, had we asked where were the _homes of American
+authors_, we should generally have been referred to very humble houses in
+our cities. Those who now inquire for them will find their answer in the
+beautiful volume lately published by Messrs. Putnam and Co., the precursor
+of others destined to show the literary men of this country enjoying
+residences as agreeable as any that had been occupied by such men in any
+part of the world; and in almost every case, those homes have been due to
+the profits of the pen. Less than half a century since, the race of
+literary men was scarcely known in the country, and yet the amount now
+paid for literary labor is greater than in Great Britain and France
+combined, and will probably be, in twenty years more, greater than in all
+the world beside. With the increase of number, there has been a
+corresponding increase in the consideration in which they are held; and
+the respect with which even unknown authors are treated, when compared
+with the disrespect manifested in England towards such men, will be
+obvious to all familiar with the management of the journals of that
+country who read the following in one of our principal periodicals:--
+
+"The editor of Putnam's Monthly will give to every article forwarded for
+insertion in the Magazine a careful examination, and, when requested to do
+so, will return the MS. if not accepted."
+
+Here, the competition is among the publishers to _buy_ the products of
+literary labor, whereas, abroad, the competition is to _sell_ them, and
+therefore is the treatment of our authors, even when unknown, so
+different. Long may it continue to be so!
+
+Such having been the result of half a century, during which we have had to
+lay the foundation of the system that has furnished so vast a body of
+readers, what may not be expected in the next half century, during which
+the population will increase to a hundred millions, with a power to
+consume the products of literary labor growing many times faster than the
+growth of numbers? If this country is properly termed "the paradise of
+women," may it not be as correctly denominated the paradise of authors,
+and should they not be content to dwell in it as their predecessors have
+done? Is it wise in them to seek a change? Their best friends would, I
+think, unite with me in advising that it is not. Should they succeed in
+obtaining what they now desire, the day will, as I think, come, when they
+will be satisfied that their real friends had been, those who opposed the
+confirmation of the treaty now before the Senate.
+
+
+
+
+
+LETTER VI.
+
+We have commenced the erection of a great literary and scientific edifice.
+The foundation is already broad, deep, and well laid, but it is seen to
+increase in breadth, depth, and strength, with every step of increase in
+height; and the work itself is seen to assume, from year to year, more and
+more the natural form of a true pyramid. To the height that such a
+building may be carried, no living man will venture to affix a limit. What
+is the tendency to durability in a work thus constructed, the pyramids of
+Egypt and the mountains of the Andes and of the Himalaya may attest. That
+edifice is the product of decentralization.
+
+Elsewhere, centralization is, as has been shown, producing the opposite
+effect, narrowing the base, and diminishing the elevation. Having
+prospered under decentralization, our authors seek to introduce
+centralization. Failing to accomplish their object by the ordinary course
+of legislation, they have had recourse to the executive power; and thus
+the end to be accomplished, and the means used for its accomplishment, are
+in strict accordance with each other.
+
+We are invited to grant to the authors and booksellers of England, and
+their agent or agents here, entire control over a highly important source
+from which our people have been accustomed to derive their supplies of
+literary food. Before granting to these persons any power here, it might
+be well to inquire how they have used their power at home. Doing this, we
+find that, as is usually the case with those enjoying a monopoly, they
+have almost uniformly preferred to derive their profits from high prices
+and small sales, and have thus, in a great degree, deprived their
+countrymen of the power to purchase books; a consequence of which has been
+that the reading community has, very generally, been driven to dependence
+upon circulating libraries, to the injury of both the authors and the
+public. The extent to which this system of high prices in regard to
+school-books has been carried, and the danger of intrusting such men with
+power, are well shown in the fact that the same government which has so
+recently concluded a copyright treaty with our own, has since entered
+"into the bookselling trade on its own account," competing "with the
+private dealer, who has to bear copyright charges." The subjects of this
+"reactionary step" on the part of a government that so much professes to
+love free trade, are, as we are told, "the famous school-books of the
+Irish national system."[1] A new office has been created, "paid for with a
+public salary," for "the issue of books to the retail dealers;" and the
+centralization of power over this important portion to the trade is, we
+are told,[2] defended in the columns of the "Times," as "tending to bring
+down the price of school-books; for booksellers who possess copyrights,
+now sell their books at exorbitant prices, and, by underselling them, the
+commissioners will be able to beat them." Judging from this, it would seem
+almost necessary, if this treaty is to be ratified, that there should be
+added some provision authorizing our government to appoint commissioners
+for the regulation of trade, and for "underselling" those persons who "now
+sell their books at exorbitant prices." If it be ratified, we shall be
+only entering on the path of centralization; and it may not be amiss that,
+before ratification, we should endeavor to determine to what point it will
+probably carry us in the end.
+
+   [Footnote 1: _Spectator_, June 4, 1853.]
+
+   [Footnote 2: _Ibid_.]
+
+The question is often asked, What difference can it make to the people of
+this country whether they do, or do not, pay to the English author a few
+cents in return for the pleasure afforded by the perusal of his book? Not
+very much, certainly, to the wealthy reader; but as every extra cent is
+important to the poorer one, and tends to limit his power to purchase, it
+may be well to calculate how many cents would probably be required; and,
+that we may do so, I give you here a list[1] of the comparative prices of
+English and American editions of a few of the books that have been
+published within the last few years:--
+
+
+
+                                          _English._ _Amer._
+
+   Brande's Encyclopaedia                      $15 00  $4 00
+
+   Ure's Dictionary of Manufactures             15 00   5 00
+
+   Alison's Europe, cheapest edition            25 00   5 00
+
+   D'Aubignd's Reformation                      11 50   2 25
+
+   Bulwer's "My Novel"                          10 50     75
+
+   Lord Mahon's England                         13 00   4 00
+
+   Macaulay's England, per vol.                  4 50     40
+
+   Campbell's Chief Justices.                    7 50   3 50
+
+    " Lord Chancellors                          25 50  12 00
+
+   Queens of England, 8 vols.                   24 00  10 00
+
+   Queens of Scotland                           15 00   6 00
+
+   Hallam's Middle Ages                          7 50   1 75
+
+   Arnold's Rome                                12 00   3 00
+
+   Life of John Foster                           6 00   1 25
+
+   Layard's Nineveh, complete edition.           9 00   1 75
+
+   Mrs. Somerville's Physical Sciences           2 50     50
+
+   Whewell's Elements of Morality.               7 50   1 00
+
+   Napier's Peninsular War                      12 00   3 25
+
+   Thirlwall's Greece, cheapest edition          7 00   3 00
+
+   Dick's Practical Astronomer                   2 50     50
+
+   Jane Eyre                                     7 50     25
+
+
+   [Footnote 1: Copied from an article in the New York _Daily Times_.]
+
+The difference, as we see, between the selling price in London and in New
+York, of the first book in this list, is no less than eleven dollars, or
+almost three times as much as the whole price of the American edition. To
+what is this extraordinary difference to be attributed? To any excess in
+the cost of paper or printing in London? Certainly not; for paper and
+printers' labor are both cheaper there than here. Is it, then, to the
+necessity for compensating the author? Certainly not; for there are in
+this country fifty persons as fully competent as Mr. Brande for the
+preparation of such a work, who would willingly do it for a dollar a copy,
+calculating upon being paid out of a large sale. As the sale of books in
+England is not large, it might be necessary to allow him two dollars each;
+but even this would still leave nine dollars to be accounted for. Where
+does all this go? Part of it to the Chancellor of the Exchequer, part to
+the "Times," and other newspapers and journals that charge monopoly prices
+for the privilege of advertising, and the balance to the booksellers who
+"possess copyrights," and "sell their books at such exorbitant prices"
+that they have driven the government to turn bookseller, with a view to
+bring down prices; and these are the very men to whom it is now proposed
+to grant unlimited control over the sale of all books produced abroad.
+
+It will, perhaps, be said that the treaty contains a proviso that the
+author shall sell his copyright to an American publisher, or shall himself
+cause his book to be republished here. Such a proviso may be there, but
+whether it is so, or not, no one knows, for every thing connected with
+this effort to extend the Executive power is kept as profoundly secret as
+were the arrangements for the Napoleonic _coup d'etat_ of the 2d of
+December. Secrecy and prompt and decisive action are the characteristics
+of centralized governments--publicity and slow action those of
+decentralized ones. Admit, however, that such limitations be found in the
+treaty, by what right are they there? The basis of such a treaty is the
+absolute right of the author to his book; and if that be admitted, with
+what show of consistency or of justice can we undertake to dictate to him
+whether he shall sell or retain it--print it here or abroad? With none,
+as I think.
+
+Admit, however, that he does print it, does the treaty require that the
+market shall _always_ be supplied? Perhaps it does, but most probably it
+does not. If it does, does it also provide for the appointment of
+commissioners to see that the provision is always complied with? If it
+does not, nothing would seem to be easier than to send out the plates of a
+large book, print off a small edition, and by thus complying with _the
+letter_ of the law, establishing the copyright for the long term of
+forty-two years, the moment after which the plates could be returned to
+the place whence they came, and from that place the consumers could be
+supplied on condition of paying largely to the Chancellor of the
+Exchequer, to the "Times," to the profits of Mr. Dickens' advertising
+sheet, to the author, to the London bookseller, to his agent in America,
+and the retail dealer here. In cases like this, and they would be
+numerous, the "few cents" would probably rise to be many dollars; and no
+way can, I think, be devised to prevent their occurrence, except to take
+one more step forward in centralization by the appointment of
+commissioners in various parts of the Union, to see that the market is
+properly supplied, and that the books offered for sale have been actually
+printed on this side of the Atlantic.
+
+If the treaty does provide for publication here, it probably allows some
+time therefor, say one, two, or three months. It is, however, well-known
+that of very many books the first few weeks' sales constitute so important
+a part of the whole that were the publisher here deprived of them, the
+book would never be republished. No one could venture to print until the
+time had elapsed, and by that time the English publisher would so well
+have occupied the ground with the foreign edition that publication here
+would be effectually stopped. Even under the present _ad valorem_ system
+of duties this is being done to a great extent. One, two, or three hundred
+copies of large works are cheaply furnished, and the market is thus just
+so far occupied as to forbid the printing of an edition of one or more
+thousands--to the material injury of paper-makers, printers, and
+book-binders, and without any corresponding benefit to the foreign author.
+Under the proposed system this would be done to a great extent.
+
+Admit, however, that the spirit of the law be fully complied with, and let
+us see its effects. Mr. Dickens sells his book in England for 21_s_.
+($5.00); and he will, of course, desire to have for it here as large a
+price as it will bear. Looking at our prices for those books which are
+copyright and of which the sale is large, he finds that "Bleak House"
+contains four times as much as the "Reveries of a Bachelor," which sells
+for $1.25, and he will be most naturally led to suppose that $3 is a
+reasonable price. The number of copies of his book that has been supplied
+to American readers, through newspapers and magazines, is certainly not
+less than 250,000, and the average cost has not been' more than fifty
+cents, giving for the whole the sum of
+
+  $125,000
+
+To supply the same number at his price would cost.
+  750,000
+
+Difference
+  $625,000
+
+
+Of Mr. Bulwer's last work, the number that has been supplied to American
+consumers is probably but about two thirds as great, and the difference
+might not amount to more than
+
+  $350,000
+
+Mr. Macaulay would not be willing to sell his book more cheaply than that
+of Mr. Bancroft's is sold, or $2 per volume, and he might ask $2.50.
+Taking it at the former price, the 125,000 copies that have been sold
+would cost the consumer
+  $500,000
+
+They have been supplied for
+  100,000
+
+The difference would be
+  $400,000
+
+
+Mr. Alison's work would make twelve such volumes as those of Mr. Bancroft,
+and his price would not be less than $25. The sale has amounted, as I
+understand, to 25,000 copies, which would give as the cost of the whole
+
+  $625,000
+
+The price at which they have been sold is $5, giving
+  125,000
+
+Difference
+  $500,000
+
+
+Of "Jane Eyre" there have been sold 80,000, and if the price had been
+similar to that of "Fanny Fern," they would have cost the consumers.
+
+
+  $100,000
+
+They have cost about
+  25,000
+
+Difference
+  $75,000
+
+
+Total result of a "few cents" on five books, $1,950,000
+
+Under the system of international copyright, one of two things must be
+done--either the people _must_ be taxed in the whole of this amount for
+the benefit of the various persons, abroad and at home, who are now to be
+invested with the monopoly power, or they must largely diminish their
+purchases of literary food.
+
+The quantity of books above given cannot be regarded as more than one
+twentieth of the total quantity of new ones annually printed. Admit,
+however, that the total were but ten times greater, and that the
+differences were but one fourth as great, it would be required that this
+sum of $1,950,000 should be multiplied two and a half times, and that
+would give about five millions of dollars; which, added to the sum already
+obtained, would make seven millions _per annum_; and yet we have arrived
+only at the commencement of the operation. All these books would require
+to be reprinted in the next year, and the next, and so on, and for the
+long period of forty-two years the payment on old books would require to
+be added to those on new ones, until the sum would become a very startling
+one. To enable us to ascertain what it must become, let us see what it
+would now be had this system existed in the past. Every one of Scott's
+novels would still be copyright, and such would be the case with Byron's
+poems, and with all other books that have been printed in the last
+forty-two years, of which the annual sale now amounts to many millions of
+volumes. To the present price of these let us add the charge of the
+author, and the monopoly charges of the English and American publishers,
+and it will be found quite easy to obtain a further sum of five millions,
+which, added to that already obtained, would make twelve millions _per
+annum_, or enough to give to one in every four thousand males in the
+United Kingdom, between the ages of twenty and sixty, a salary far
+exceeding that of our Secretaries of State. Let this treaty be confirmed,
+and let the consumption of foreign works continue at its present rate, and
+payment of this sum must be made. We can escape its payment only on
+condition of foregoing consumption of the books.
+
+The real cause of difficulty is not to be found in "the few cents"
+required for the author, but in the means required to be adopted for their
+collection. Everybody that reads "Bleak House," or "Oliver Twist," would
+gladly pay their author some cents, however unwilling he might be to pay
+dollars, or pounds. So, too, everybody who uses chloroform would willingly
+pay something to its discoverer; and every one who believes in and profits
+by homeopathic medicines would be pleased to contribute "a few cents" for
+the benefit of Hahnemann, his widow, or his children. A single cent paid
+by all who travel on steam vessels would make the family of Fulton one of
+the richest in the world; but how collect these "few cents"? Grant me a
+monopoly, says the author, and I will appoint an agent, who shall supply
+other agents with my books, and I will settle with him. Grant us a
+monopoly, say the representatives of Hahnemann, and we will grant
+licenses, throughout the Union, to numerous men who shall be authorized to
+practice homeopathically and collect our taxes. Were this experiment
+tried, it would be found that millions would be collected, out of which
+they would receive tens of thousands. Grant us a monopoly, might say the
+representatives of Fulton, and we will permit no vessels to be built
+without license from us, and our agents will collect "a few cents" from
+each passenger, by which we shall be enriched. So they might be; but for
+every cent that reached them the community would be taxed dollars in loss
+of time and comfort, and in extra charges. It is the monopoly privilege,
+and not the "few cents," that makes the difficulty.
+
+We are, however, advised by the advocates of this treaty that English
+authors must be "required" to present their books in American "mode and
+dress," and that regard to their own interests will cause them to be
+presented "at MODERATE PRICES for general consumption." If, however, they
+have acted differently at home, why should they pursue this course here?
+That they have so acted, we have proof in the fact that the British
+government has just been forced to turn bookseller, with a view to
+restrain the owners of copyrights in the exercise of power. Who, again, is
+to determine what prices are really "moderate" ones? The authors? Will Mr.
+Macaulay consent that his books shall be sold for less than those of Mr.
+Bancroft or Mr. Prescott? Assuredly not. The bookseller, then? Will he not
+use his power in reference to foreign books precisely as he does now in
+regard to domestic ones? If he deems it now expedient to sell a 12mo
+volume for a dollar or a dollar and a quarter, is it probable that the
+ratification of this treaty will open his eyes to the fact that it would
+be better for him to sell Mr. Dickens's works at fifty cents than at three
+dollars? Scarcely so, as I think. It is now about thirty years since the
+"Sketch Book" was printed, and the cheapest edition that has yet been
+published sells for one dollar and twenty-five cents. "Jane Eyre" contains
+probably about the same quantity of matter, and sells for twenty-five
+cents. Of the latter, about 80,000 have been printed, costing the
+consumers $20,000; but if they were to purchase the same quantity of the
+former, they would pay for them $100,000; difference, $80,000. What, now,
+would become of this large sum? But little of it would reach the author;
+not more, probably, than $10,000. Of the remaining $70,000, some would go
+to printers, paper-makers, and bookbinders, and the balance would be
+distributed among the publisher, the trade-sale auctioneers, and the
+wholesale and retail dealers; the result being that the public would pay
+five dollars where the author received one, or perhaps the half of one. We
+have here the real cause of difficulty. The monopoly of copyright can be
+preserved only by connecting it with the monopoly of publication. Were it
+possible to say that whoever chose to publish the "Sketch Book" might do
+so, on paying to its author "a few cents," the difficulty of this _double
+monopoly_ would be removed; but no author would consent to this, for he
+could have no certainty that his book might not be printed by unprincipled
+men, who would issue ten thousand while accounting to him for only a
+single thousand. To enable him to collect his dues, he _must_ have a
+monopoly of publication.
+
+It may be said that if he appropriate to his use any of the common
+property of which books are made up, and so misuse his privilege as to
+impose upon his readers the payment of too heavy a tax, other persons may
+use the same facts and ideas, and enter into competition with him. In no
+other case, however, than in those of the owners of patents and
+copyrights, where the public recognizes the existence of exclusive claim
+to any portion of the common property, does it permit the party to fix the
+price at which it may be sold. The right of eminent domain is common
+property. In virtue of it, the community takes possession of private
+property for public purposes, and frequently for the making of roads. Not
+unfrequently it delegates to private companies this power, but it always
+fixes the rate of charge to be made to persons who use the road. This is
+done even when general laws are passed authorizing all who please, on
+compliance with certain forms, to make roads to suit themselves. In such
+cases, limitation would seem to be unnecessary, as new roads could be made
+if the tolls on old ones were too high; and yet it is so well understood
+that the making of roads does carry with it monopoly power, that the rates
+of charge are always limited, and so limited as not to permit the
+road-makers to obtain a profit disproportioned to the amount of their
+investments. In the case of authors there can be no such limitation. They
+must have monopoly powers, and the law therefore very wisely limits the
+time within which they may be exercised, as in the other case it limits
+the price that may be charged. In France, the prices to be paid to
+dramatic authors are fixed by law, and all who pay may play; and if this
+could be done in regard to all literary productions, permitting all who
+paid to print, much of the difficulty relative to copyright would be
+removed; but this course of operation would be in direct opposition to the
+views of publishers who advocate this treaty on the ground that it would
+add to "the security and respectability of the trade." They would
+_prefer_ to pay for the copyright of every foreign book, because it would
+bring with it monopoly prices and monopoly profits, both of which would
+need to be paid by the consumers of books. To the paper-maker, printer,
+and bookbinder, called upon to supply one thousand of a book for _the
+few_, where before they had supplied ten thousand for _the many_, it
+would be small consolation to know that they were thereby building up the
+fortunes of two or three large publishing houses that had obtained a
+monopoly of the business of republication, and were thus adding to the
+"security and respectability of the trade." As little would probably be
+derived from this source by the father of a family who found that he had
+now to pay five dollars for what before had cost but one, and must
+therefore endeavor to borrow, where before he had been accustomed to buy,
+the books required for the amusement and instruction of his children.
+
+Our State of New Jersey levies a transit duty of eight cents per ton on
+all the merchandise that crosses it. Had the imposition of this tax been
+accompanied by a law permitting all who chose to make roads, no one would
+have complained of it, as it would have been little more than a fair tax
+on the property of the railroad and other companies. Unfortunately,
+however, the course was different. To the company that collected it was
+granted a monopoly of the power of transportation, and that power has been
+so used that while the State received but eight cents the transporters
+charged three, five, six, and eight dollars for work that should have been
+done for one. The position in which the authors are necessarily placed is
+precisely the one in which our State has voluntarily placed itself. To
+enable them to collect their dues, some person or persons must have a
+monopoly of publication, and they must and will collect five, ten, and
+often twenty dollars for every one that reaches the author. The Union
+would gain largely by paying into our treasury thrice the sum we receive
+for transit duty, on the simple condition that we abolished the monopoly
+of transportation; and it would gain far more largely by doing the same
+with foreign authors. If justice does really call upon us to pay them, our
+true course would be to do it directly from the Treasury, placing, if
+necessary, a million of dollars annually at the disposal of the British
+government, upon the simple condition that it releases us from all claim
+to the monopoly of publication. Such a release would be cheap, even at two
+millions; enough to give $4,000 a year to five hundred persons, and that
+number would certainly include all who can even fancy us under any
+obligation to them. My own impression is, that no such payment is required
+by justice, either as regards our own authors or foreign ones. Of the
+former, all can be and are well paid, _who can produce books that the
+public are willing to read_, and no law that could be made would secure
+payment to those who cannot. Their monopoly extends over a smaller number
+of persons than does the English one; and if the more than thirty millions
+of people who are subject to the latter cannot support their few writers,
+the cause of difficulty is to be found at home, and there must the remedy
+be applied. Nevertheless, by adopting the course suggested, we should
+certainly free ourselves from any necessity for choosing between the
+payment of many millions annually to authors and the men who stand between
+them and the public, on the one hand, and of dispensing largely with the
+purchase of books, on the other. If the nation must pay, the fewer persons
+through whose hands the money passes the smaller will be the cost to it,
+and the greater the gain to authors.
+
+The ratification of the treaty would impose upon us a very large amount of
+taxation that must inevitably be paid either in money or in abstinence
+from intellectual nourishment; and our authors should be able to satisfy
+themselves that the advantage to them would bear some proportion to the
+loss inflicted upon others. Would it do so? I think not. On the contrary,
+they would find their condition greatly impaired. All publishers prefer
+copyright books, because, having a monopoly, they can charge monopoly
+profits. To obtain a copyright, they constantly pay considerable sums at
+home for editorship of foreign books; but from the moment that this treaty
+shall take effect, the necessity for doing this will cease, and thus will
+our literary men be deprived of one considerable source of profit. Again,
+literary labor in England is cheap, because of want of demand; but
+international copyright, by opening to it our vast market, will quicken
+the demand, and many more books will be produced, the authors of all of
+which will be competitors with our own, who will then possess no
+advantages over them. The rates of American authors will then fall
+precisely as those of the British ones will rise; and this result will be
+produced as certainly as the water in the upper chamber of a canal lock
+will fall as that in the lower one is made to rise. On one side of the
+Atlantic literary labor is well paid, and on the other it is badly paid.
+International copyright will establish a level; and how much reason our
+authors have to desire that it shall be established, I leave it for them
+to determine.
+
+The direct tendency of the system now proposed will be found to be that of
+diminishing the domestic competition for the production of books, and
+increasing our dependence on foreigners for the means of amusement and
+instruction; and yet the confirmation of the treaty is urged on the ground
+that it will increase the first and diminish the last. If it would have
+this latter effect, it is singular that the authors of England should be
+so anxious for the measure as they are. It is not usual for men to seek to
+diminish the dependence of others on themselves.
+
+These, however, are, as I think, but a small part of the inconveniences to
+which our authors are now proposing to subject themselves. They have at
+present a long period allowed them, during which they have an absolute
+monopoly of the particular forms of words they offer to the reading
+public; and this monopoly has, in a very few years, become so productive,
+that authorship offers perhaps larger profits than any other pursuit
+requiring the same amount of skill and capital. Twenty years hence, when
+the market shall be greatly increased, it may, and as I think will, become
+a question whether the monopoly has not been granted for too long a
+period, and many persons may then be found disposed to unite with Mr.
+Macaulay in the belief that the disadvantages of long periods preponderate
+so greatly over their advantages, as to make it proper to retrace in part
+our steps, limiting the monopoly to twenty-one years, or one half the
+present period. The inquiry may then come to be made, what is the present
+value of a monopoly of forty-two years, as compared with what would be
+paid for one of twenty-one years; and when it is found that, in nine
+hundred and ninety-nine cases out of a thousand, one will sell for exactly
+as much as the other, it will perhaps be decided that no reason exists for
+maintaining the present law, even if no change be now made. Suppose,
+however, the treaty to be confirmed, establishing the monopoly of
+foreigners in our market, and that the people who have been accustomed to
+consume largely of cheap literature now find themselves deprived of it,
+would not this tend to hasten the period at which the existing law would
+come under consideration? I cannot but think it would. The common school
+makes a great demand for school-books, and both make a great demand for
+newspapers. All of these combine to make a demand for cheap books among an
+immense and influential portion of our community, that cannot yet afford
+to pay $1.25 for "Fern Leaves" or for the "Reveries of a Bachelor,"
+although they can well afford 25 cents for a number of "Harper's
+Magazine," or for "Jane Eyre." Let us now suppose that the novels of
+Dickens and Bulwer, the books of Miss Aguilar, and those of other authors
+with which they have been accustomed to supply themselves, should at once
+be raised to monopoly prices and thus placed beyond their reach, would it
+not produce inquiry into the cause, and would not the answer be that we
+had given English authors a monopoly in our market to enable our own to
+secure a monopoly in that of England? Would not the sufferers next inquire
+by what process this had been accomplished, seeing that the direct
+representatives of the people had always been so firmly opposed to it; and
+would not the answer be that the literary men of the two countries had
+formed a combination for the purpose of taxing the people of both; and
+that when they had failed to accomplish their object by means of
+legislation, they had induced the Executive to interpose and make a law in
+their favor, in defiance of the well-known will of the House of
+Representatives? Under such circumstances, would it be extraordinary if we
+should, within three years from the ratification of the treaty, see the
+commencement of an agitation for a change in the copyright system? It
+seems to me that it would not.
+
+The time for the arrival of this agitation would probably be hastened by
+an extension of the system of centralization that would next be claimed;
+for the present measure can be regarded as little more than the entering
+wedge for others. France and England profit enormously by setting the
+fashions for the world. New patterns and new articles are invented that
+sell in the first season for treble or quadruple the price at which they
+are gladly supplied in the second; and it is by aid of the perpetual
+changes bf fashion that foreigners so much control our markets. Recently,
+our manufacturers have been enabled to reproduce many new articles in very
+short time, and this has tended greatly to reduce the profits of
+foreigners, who are of course dissatisfied. Copyrights are now granted in
+both those countries for new patterns, new forms of clothing, &c. &c., and
+our next step will be towards the arrangement of a treaty for, securing to
+the inventor of a print, or a new fashion of paletot, the monopoly of its
+production in our markets; and when the claim for this shall be made, it
+will be found to stand on precisely the same ground with that now made in
+behalf of the producers of books, and must be granted. The Frenchman will
+then have the exclusive right of supplying us with new _mousselines de
+laine_, and the Englishman with new carpets and new forms of earthenware;
+and we shall be told that that is the true mode of developing
+manufacturing and artistic skill among ourselves. How much farther the
+system may be carried it is difficult to tell, for, when we shall once
+have established the system of regulating foreign and domestic trade by
+treaty, the House of Representatives will scarcely be troubled with much
+discussion of such affairs. Extremes generally meet, and it will be
+extraordinary, if progress in that direction shall not be followed by
+progress in the other, until our authors shall, at length, become
+perfectly satisfied of the accuracy of Mr. Macaulay, when he told the
+British authors, then claiming an extension of their monopoly to sixty
+years, that "the wholesome copyright" already existing would "share in the
+disgrace and danger of the new copyright" they desired to create.[1] They
+could scarcely do better than study his speech at length. At present, they
+are ill-advised, and their best friends will be those senators who, like
+Mr. Macaulay, shall oppose their literary countrymen.
+
+   [Footnote 1: _Macaulay's Speeches_, vol. i. p. 403.]
+
+Admitting, however, that the measure proposed should not in any manner
+endanger existing privileges, what would be the gain to our authors in
+obtaining the control of the British market, compared with what they would
+lose from surrendering the control of our own? In the former, the sale of
+books is certainly not large. Few have been more popular than Tupper's
+"Proverbial Philosophy," and the price has been, as I learn, only 7_s._,
+or $1,68. Nevertheless, a gentleman fully informed in regard to it assures
+me that in fifteen years the average sale has been but a thousand a year,
+or 15,000 in all.[2] Compare this with the sale of a larger number of the
+"Reveries of a Bachelor," or of thrice the quantity of "Fern Leaves," at
+but little lower prices, in the short period of six months, and it will be
+seen how inferior is the foreign market to the domestic one. Were it
+otherwise--were the market of Britain equal to our own--could it be
+that we should so rarely hear of her literary men, dependent on their own
+exertions, but as being poor and anxious for public employment? Were it
+otherwise, should we need now to be told of the "utter destitution" of the
+widow and children of Hogg, so widely known as author of "The Queen's
+Wake," and as "The Shepherd" of "Blackwood's Magazine?" Assuredly not. Had
+literary ability been there in the demand in which it now is here, he
+would have written thrice as much, would have been thrice as well paid,
+and would have provided abundantly for his widow and his children.
+Nevertheless, our authors desire to trade off this great market for the
+small one in which he shone and left his family to starve, and thus to
+make an exchange similar to that of Glaucus when he gave a suit of golden
+armor for one of brass.
+
+   [Footnote 2: The sale here has been 200,000, at an average price of 50
+   cents. Had it been copyright, the price would have been double, and
+   the "few cents" would have made a difference on this single book of
+   $100,000. The same gentleman to whom I am indebted for the above facts
+   informs me that he has paid to the author of a 12mo volume of 200 pages
+   more than $23,000, and could not now purchase the copyright for
+   $10,000; that for another small 12mo volume he has paid $7,000, and
+   Expects to pay as much more; that to a third author his payments for
+   the year have been $2500, and are likely to continue at that rate for
+   years to come; and that it would be easy to furnish other and numerous
+   cases of similar kind.]
+
+
+What, however, are the prospects for the future? Will the British market
+grow? It would seem not, for death and emigration are diminishing the
+population, and the people who remain are in a state of constant warfare
+with their employers, who promised "cheap food" that they might obtain
+"cheap labor," and now offer low wages in connection with high-priced corn
+and beef. The people who receive such wages cannot buy books. Hundreds of
+thousands of persons are now out "on strike," or are "locked out" by the
+gentlemen who advocate this "cheap labor" system; and the result of all
+this extraordinary cessation from labor can be none other than the
+continued growth of poverty, intemperance, and crime. The picture that is
+presented by that country is one of unceasing discord between _the few_
+and _the many_, in which the former always triumph; and a careful
+examination of it cannot result in leading us to expect an increase in the
+desire to purchase books, or in the ability to pay for them.
+
+Having looked upon that picture, let our authors next look to the one now
+presented by this country, as compared with that which could have been
+offered forty, thirty, or even twenty years since, and to obtain aid in
+understanding the facts presented to their view, let them read the
+following extract from a speech recently delivered by Mr. Cobden:--
+
+  "You cannot point to an instance in America, where the people are more
+  educated than they are here, of total cessation from labor by a whole
+  community or town, given over, as it were, to desolation. When I came
+  through Manchester the other day, I found many of the most influential
+  of the manufacturing capitalists talking very carefully upon a report
+  which had reached them from a gentleman who was selected by the
+  government to go out to America, to report upon the great exhibition in
+  New York. That gentleman was one of the most eminent mechanicians and
+  machine-makers in Manchester, a man known in the scientific world, and
+  appreciated by men of science, from the astronomer royal downwards. He
+  has been over to America, to report upon the progress of manufactures
+  and the state of the mechanical arts in the United States, and he has
+  returned. No report from him to the government has yet been published.
+  But it has oozed out in Manchester that he found in America a degree of
+  intelligence amongst the manufacturing operatives, a state of things in
+  the mechanical arts, which has convinced him that if we are to hold our
+  own, if we are not to fall back in the rear of the race of nations we
+  must educate our people to put them upon a level with the more educated
+  artisans of the United States. We shall all have the opportunity of
+   judging when that report is delivered; but sufficient has already oozed
+  out to excite a great interest, and I might almost say some alarm."
+
+
+Having done this, let them next ask themselves what have been the causes
+of the vast change in the relative positions of the two countries. Doing
+this, will not the answer be, common schools, cheap school-books, cheap
+newspapers, and cheap literature? Has not each and every one of these
+aided in making authors, and in creating a market for their products?
+Having thus laid the foundation of a great edifice, are we likely to stop
+in the erection of the walls? Having in so brief a period created a great
+market for literature, is it not certain that it must continue to grow
+with increased rapidity? Assuredly it is; and yet it is that vast market
+that our authors desire to barter for one in which Hood was permitted
+almost to starve, in which Leigh Hunt, Lady Morgan, Miss Mitford,
+Tennyson, and Sir Francis Head even now submit to the degradation of
+receiving the public charity to the extent of a hundred pounds a year! The
+law as it now exists, invites foreign authors to come and live among us,
+and participate in our advantages. The treaty offers to tax ourselves for
+the purpose of offering them a bounty upon staying at home and increasing
+their numbers and their competition with the well-paid literary labor of
+this country. Were Belgrave Square to make a treaty with Grub Street,
+providing that each should have a plate at the tables of the other, the
+population of the latter would probably grow as rapidly as the dinners of
+the former would decline in quality, and it might be well for our authors
+to reflect if such might not be the result of the treaty now proposed.
+
+Its confirmation is, as I understand, urged on some senators on the ground
+that consistency requires it. Being in favor of protection elsewhere, they
+are told that it would be inconsistent to refuse it here. In reply to
+this, it might fairly be retorted that nearly all the supporters of
+international copyright are advocates of the system called, in England,
+Free Trade; and that it is quite inconsistent in them to advocate
+protection here. To do this would however be as unnecessary as it would be
+unphilosophical. Both are perfectly consistent. Protection to the farmer
+and planter in their efforts to draw the artisan to their side, looks to
+carrying out the doctrine of decentralization by the annihilation of the
+monopoly of manufactures established in Britain; and our present copyright
+system looks to the decentralization of literature by offering to all who
+shall come and live among us the same perfect protection that we give to
+our own authors. What is called free trade looks to the maintenance of the
+foreign monopoly for supplying us with cloth and iron; and international
+copyright looks to continuing the monopoly which Britain has so long
+enjoyed of furnishing us with books; and both tend towards centralization.
+
+The rapid advance that has been made in literature and science is the
+result of the _perfect protection_ afforded by decentralization. Every
+neighborhood collects taxes to be expended for purposes of education, and
+it is from among those who would not otherwise be educated, and who are
+thus protected in their efforts to obtain instruction, that we derive many
+of our most thoughtful and intelligent men, and our best authors. The
+advocates of free trade and international copyright are, to a great
+extent, disciples in that school in which it is taught that it is an
+unjust interference with the rights of property to compel the wealthy to
+contribute to education of the poor. Common schools, and a belief in the
+duty of protection, are generally found together. Decentralization, by the
+production of local interests, _protects_ the poor printer in his efforts
+to establish a country newspaper, and thus affords to young writers of the
+neighborhood the means of coming before the world. Decentralization next
+raises money for the establishment of colleges in every part of the Union,
+and thus _protects_ the poor but ambitious student in his efforts to
+obtain higher instruction than can be afforded by the common school.
+Decentralization next _protects_ him in the manufacture of school-books,
+by creating a large market for the productions of his pen, very much of
+which is paid for out of the product of taxes the justice of which is
+denied by those who advocate the British policy. Rising to the dignity of
+author of books for the perusal of already instructed men and women he
+finds himself _protected_ by an absolute monopoly, having for its object
+to enable him to provide for himself, his wife, and his children. Of all
+the people of the Union, none enjoy such perfect protection as those
+connected with literature; yet many of them oppose protection to all
+others, while actively engaged in enlarging and extending the monopoly
+they themselves enjoy. It will scarcely answer for them to charge
+inconsistency on others.
+
+How far the protection already granted has favored the development of
+literary tendencies, may be judged after looking to the single case of
+dramatic writers, who are not protected against representation without
+their consent; and, as that is their mode of publication, it follows that
+they do not enjoy the advantages granted to other authors. The consequence
+is, that we make so little progress in that department of literature,
+while advancing rapidly in every other. Permit me, my dear sir, to suggest
+that this is a matter worthy of your attention. There would seem to be no
+good reason for refusing to one class of authors what we grant so freely
+to all others.
+
+Whether or not I shall have convinced you that international copyright
+should not be established, I cannot say, but I feel quite safe in
+believing that you must be convinced it is a question which requires to be
+publicly and fully discussed before we adopt any action looking in that
+direction. It is not a case of urgency. If the treaty be not confirmed,
+the only inconvenience to the authors will be delay, and this should be
+afforded, were it only to enable them to reflect at leisure upon the
+probable consequences of the measure in aid of which they have invoked the
+Executive power. Should they continue to believe their interests likely to
+be promoted by the adoption of such a measure as that which has been so
+pertinaciously urged the doors of Congress will always be open to them,
+and justice, though it may be delayed, will assuredly be done. Let them
+proceed in a constitutional way, and then, should their desires be
+gratified, they will have the satisfaction of knowing that their rights
+have been admitted after full and fair discussion before the people.
+Should they now succeed in obtaining, in secret session, the confirmation
+of a treaty negotiated in private, and in haste, they will, I think,
+"repent at leisure;" but repentance may, and probably will, come too late.
+The mischief will then have been done.
+
+Having now, my dear sir, to the best of my ability, complied with your
+request, I remain,
+
+Yours, very respectfully,
+
+                                             HENRY C. CAREY.
+                                _Burlington_, Nov. 28, 1853.
+
+Hon. James Cooper.
+
+
+
+
+
+NOTE.
+
+                                           December 31, 1867.
+
+Mr. Dickens's tale of "No Thoroughfare" is now being reprinted here in
+daily and weekly journals, and to such extent as to warrant the belief
+that the number in the hands of readers of the Union, will speedily exceed
+a million; obtained, too, at a cost so small as scarcely to admit of
+calculation. Under a system of International Copyright a similar number
+would, at the least, have cost $500,000. At 50 cents, however, the sale
+would not have exceeded 50,000, yielding to author and publisher probably
+$10,000. Would it be now expedient that, to enable these latter to divide
+among themselves this small amount, the former should tax themselves in
+one so greatly larger? Would it be right or proper that they should so do
+in the hope that American novelists and poets-should in like manner be
+enabled to tax the British people? Outside of the class of gentlemen who
+live by the use of their pens, there are few who, having examined the
+question, would, it is believed, be disposed to give to these questions an
+affirmative reply.
+
+Of all living authors there is none that, in his various capacities of
+author, editor, and lecturer, is, in both money and fame, so largely paid
+as Mr. Dickens. That he and others are not doubly so is due to the fact
+that British policy, from before the days of Adam Smith, has tended
+uniformly to the division of society, at home and abroad, into two great
+classes, the very poor becoming daily more widely separated from the very
+rich, and daily more and more unfitted for giving support to British
+authors. That the reader may understand this fully, let him turn to recent
+British journals and study the accounts there given of "an agricultural
+gang system," whose horrors, as they tell their readers, "make the British
+West Indies almost an Arcadia" when compared with many of the home
+districts. Next, let him study in the "Spectator," now but a fortnight
+old, the condition of the 630,000 wretched people inhabiting Eastern
+London; and especially that of the 70,000 mainly dependent on ship and
+engine building, "too poor to go afield for employment, too poor to
+emigrate, too poor to do any thing but die," and wholly dependent on a
+weekly allowance per house, of front twenty to forty cents and a loaf of
+bread; that allowance, wretched as it is, to be obtained only at the cost
+of "standing hours among crowds made brutal by misery and privation."
+Further, let him read in the same journal its description of the almost
+universal dishonesty which has resulted from a total repudiation of the
+idea that international morality could exist; and then determine for
+himself if, under a different system, Britain might not have made at home
+a market for her authors that would far more than have compensated for
+deprivation of that one they now so anxiously covet abroad.
+
+Seeking further evidence in reference to this important question, let him
+then turn to the "North British Review" for the current month and study
+the social sores of Britain.
+
+For more than a century she has been sowing the wind, carrying, and in the
+direct ratio of their connection with her, poverty and slavery into
+important countries of the earth. She is now only reaping the whirlwind.
+When her literary men shall have begun to teach her people this--when
+they shall have said to them that public immorality and private morality
+cannot co-exist--when they shall have commenced to repudiate the idea
+that the end sanctifies the means--then, _but not till then_, the time
+may, perhaps, have come for lecturing the world on the moral side of the
+question of International Copyright. To this moment, so far as the
+writer's memory serves him, no one of them has yet entered on the
+performance of this important work.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Letters on International Copyright;
+Second Edition, by Henry C. Carey
+
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