PROCEEDINGS FOR 1900 XI 
ensure their being regularly made. The Honorary, Secretary has done 
his best for years to make the Council’s report as perfect as possible, 
but it is still wanting in certain details which alone can be given by 
specialists in their particular departments of study. We hope each 
section will take this matter into its serious consideration with the 
object of making the Transactions of the Society a complete review 
of the scientific and literary progress of Canada. 
11. THE QUESTION OF COPYRIGHT. 
The Hon. Mr. Fisher, Minister of Agriculture, has presented to 
Parliament a bill which deals with the vexed question of copyright. 
We draw the attention of the Society to the provisions of this measure, 
copies of which will be distributed at the present meeting for the infor- 
mation of members. It provides that, in case the owner of a copyright 
gives a license to reproduce in Canada an edition of a book first lawfuily 
published in any other part of Her Majesty’s dominions, the Minister 
may prohibit, except with the written consent of the licensee, into 
Canada of any copies of such book printed elsewhere. Two copies 
may be, however, specially imported for the bond fide use of any public 
free library, or of any college or university or incorporated society or 
institution, for the use of its members. The bill seems fair to both 
Canadian authors and publishers. The opinion, however, of the Society 
is asked on this question. On this question Professor Mavor has writ- 
ten an elaborate memorandum, which is given as Appendix A to the 
Proceedings. [The bill, now the law, appears in the Appendix. Editor. ] 
12. THE ProposepD NATIONAL MUSEUM. 
The Council deem it expedient to direct attention once more to a 
subject on which they have never failed to speak for eighteen years— 
in fact ever since the commencement of the Royal Society of Canada. 
As far back as 1883, a memorial was first presented to His Excellency 
the Governor-General-in-Council, “urging the necessity of immediate 
steps being taken for the erection of a suitable building to accommodate 
national collections of archives, and of archeological, biological, and 
geological specimens.” The large and increasing surplus in the public 
revenues of the Dominion happily makes it possible for the Govern- 
ment to take such “immediate steps” for the construction of a museum 
in Ottawa, which will be in every sense worthy of this growing nation. 
Such a building might well comprise not only the accommodation neces- 
sary for public archives, historical and scientific collections, but also a 
