PIRATICAL PUBLISHERS. 6$ 7 



one common government to support it, so that legislation should always 

 be for the mutual advantage of all the inhabitants the same in one 

 section as in another then the reprinting of a book by or for any one 

 but its author would be a violation of right ; but as this Utopia does 

 not and never will exist, we must deal with men, and governments, 

 and their selfishness as w T e find them. Nations legislate for what they 

 believe to be to their own advantage, and without regard to the interests 

 of their neighbors. Thus, England manufactures goods, and the manu- 

 facturer claims that he has a natural right freely to offer these goods 

 as cheaply in one part of the world as in another, save only the cost 

 of conveyance. But do other countries recognize such right? Does 

 this country, for instance, acknowledge it when she lays a heavy duty 

 upon such manufactures ? "When such duty is so great as to prohibit 

 the importation of a manufactured article that would, if free of duty, 

 sell largely in the United States, is not the manufacturer as effectually 

 robbed as the author whose sales are rendered impossible by a reprint 

 of his book ? 



Doubtless I shall be told that the cases are not parallel, inasmuch 

 as in the one case the Government of the United States commits the 

 trespass, and in the other its private citizens. I confess I see no differ- 

 ence. Government represents and legislates for its private citizens. 

 Its tariff for revenue furnishes the means which would otherwise have 

 to be taken by direct taxation froni the pockets of the people. Its 

 tariff for protection gives encouragement to native manufacturers ; 

 the whole system of levying duties upon foreign merchandise is one 

 of pure selfishness, and as much a robbery or piracy of the natural 

 rights of the foreigner as anything yet done by an American repub- 

 lisher. Suppose there were no such market for English books as the 

 United States now offers, would English publishers any the less con- 

 tinue to print them ? These works are produced mainly for the mar- 

 kets of Great Britain and its English-speaking dependencies. The 

 withholding of an international copyright law does not take away 

 from them wdiat they never possessed or had any right to claim. The 

 American republisher, therefore, in the absence of such a law, buys the 

 English book at the English price, and thinks he has done all that is 

 required of him to become its absolute owner, to do with it whatever 

 the laws of his country do not forbid. Who shall say that among 

 these rights is not the right to reprint it ? " But," say the advocates 

 of copyright, " inventors are protected by international patent-right, 

 and, if the product of the inventor's brain is entitled to protection, 

 that of the author's is no less so." Here, however, self-interest is 

 again clearly indicated. There was a time when international patent- 

 right did not exist between the United States and Great Britain ; but 

 when it became notorious that the inventions of Americans were more 

 numerous and more valuable than those of other countries, our Gov- 

 ernment willingly consented to international patent-right, and I vent- 



VOL. XXII. 42 



