International Copyright | Page 6

of American ship-owners, who are allowed to pick up all the freights that offer inland and along the coast, but are forbidden to earn a single penny on the high seas.
It is not easy to understand the cause of this continued indifference to the claims of our literary workmen; they do not come into competition with the Delaware River or with any manufacturing interests for subsidies; they ask simply for markets.
It is true that there have been in the history of our country governments which seemed impatient of the claims of any "literary fellers;" but the majority of our administrations have shown a fair respect for such "fellers," and even a readiness to make use of their services.
The difficulty has really been, however, not with the administrations, but with the people at large, who have failed to fairly educate themselves on the subject, or to recognize that an international copyright was called for not merely on principles of general equity, but as a matter of simple justice to American authors.
These have suffered, and are suffering from the present state of things in two ways. In the first place, they lose the royalty on the sales of their books in Europe, Canada, Australia, etc., that ought to be secured to them by treaties of copyright reciprocity. These sales have become, with the growth of American literature, very considerable, and are each year increasing in importance. Even a quarter of a century ago there were enough American books whose fame was world-wide to have rendered a very moderate royalty on their sales a matter of great importance to their authors and to the community. "Uncle Tom's Cabin," Irving's "Sketch-Book" and other volumes, Thompson's "Land and the Book," Warner's "Wide, Wide World," Webster's Dictionary, James' "Two Years before the Mast," and Peter Parley's histories are a few random specimens from the earlier list, which is a great deal longer than might at first be thought.
In an official report of the 25th Congress it was stated that up to 1838 not less than 600 American works had been reprinted in England. According to the "American Facts" of G.P. Putnam, 382 American books, acknowledged to be such, were reprinted in Great Britain between 1833 and 1843, while a large amount of American literary material had been "adapted," or issued under new titles as if they had been original British works. Among these last he quotes Judge Story's "Law of Bailments," Everett's "Greek Grammar," Bancroft's Translation of Heeren's Histories, Dr. Harris' "Natural History," etc., etc.
Secondly, the want of an international copyright has placed American authors at a disadvantage because it has checked the sales of their wares at home. Other things being equal, the publisher will, like any other trader, manufacture such goods as will give him the largest profit, and as he can sell the most readily.
If he has before him an American novel on which, if he prints it, he must pay the author a royalty, and an English novel of apparently equal merit, on which he is not called upon by law to pay anything, the commercial inducement is on the side of the latter. If, on the score of patriotism or for some other reason, he may decide in favor of the former, his neighbor or rival will take the English work, and will have advantages for underselling him. As a matter of fact, as I shall specify further on, it is the custom of the leading publishing houses to make some payment for the English material that they reprint, but as they secure no legal title to such material, they cannot, as a rule, pay as much for it as they would for similar American work. There is also the advantage connected with English works that they usually come to the American publisher in type, in convenient form for a rapid examination, and that he can often obtain some English opinions about them which help him to make up his own publishing judgment, and are of very material assistance in securing for the books the favorable attention of the American public. It has therefore been the case that an American work of fiction has had to be a good deal better than a similar English work, and more marked in its attractiveness in order to have anything like the same chance of success. And what is the case with fiction, is true, though to a less degree, with books for young folks and works in other departments of literature. It is to be said, however, that this difference in favor of English productions has been very much greater in past years than at present, and is, I think, steadily decreasing.
American writers have, against all disadvantages, forced their books to the favorable attention, not only of the American but of the foreign