444 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



fixed, then also should the profit of the publisher be fixed, but that it is 

 much easier to do the last than to do the first. If so, then, it is com- 

 petent for the legislature to go a step further. If there is to be a Gov- 

 ernment officer to issue royalty stamps, there may as well be a Govern- 

 ment officer to whom a publisher shall take his printers' bills, and who 

 adding to these the trade allowances, authors' ten per cent royalty, and 

 publishers' ten per cent, commission, shall tell him at what price he 

 may advertise the book. This is the logical issue of the plan ; and this 

 is not free trade. 



Q. {Sir If. Solland). You will hardly contend that the system of 

 royalty is less in accord with free trade than the existing system of 

 monopoly ; you will not carry it so far as that, will you f 



A. I do not admit the propriety of the word " monopoly." 



Q. Without using the word " monopoly," let me saj', than the 

 present system of copyright for a certain term of years ? 



Jl. I regard that as just as much coming within the limits of free 

 trade as I hold the possession, or monopoly, of any other kind of prop- 

 erty to be consistent with free trade. There are people who call the 

 capitalist a monopolist : many working-men do that. I do not think he 

 is rightly so called ; and similarly if it is alleged that the author's claim 

 to the product of his brain-work is a monopoly, I do not admit it to be 

 a monopoly. I regard both the term "free trade" as applied to the 

 unrestrained issue of rival editions and the term " monopoly " as ap- 

 plied to the author's copyright as question-begging terms. 



Q. Without saying what opinion I hold upon the point, and avoid- 

 ing the use of the words " monopoly " and " free trade," I wish to know 

 whether you think it most consistent with the doctrines of political 

 economy that every person should be able, upon payment, to publish a 

 particular book, or that only one person should have it in his power to 

 do so for a certain time ? 



A. Every person is allowed and perfectly free to publish a book on 

 any subject. An author has no monopoly of a subject. An author 

 writes a novel ; another man may write a novel. An author writes a 

 book on geology ; another man may write a book on geology. He no 

 more monopolizes the subject than any trader who buys raw material 

 and shapes it into an article of trade is a monopolist. There is more 

 raw material which another man may buy. The only thing that the 

 author claims is, that part of the value of the article which has been 

 given to it by his shaping process ; which is what any artisan does. 

 The way in which this position of authors is spoken of as "monopoly" 

 reminds me of the doctrine of Proudhon — " Property is robbery." You 

 may give a stigma to a thing by attaching to it a name not in the least 

 appropriate. 



Q. {3fr. Trollope). I understand your objection to a system of 

 royalties to be this, that no possible quota that could be fixed would be 

 a j[ust payment for all works ? 



