CANADIAN COPYEIGHT. 17 



reasonable time, become the reversioners of literary property is sufficient indication of the 

 difference which the law has intentionally created." 



As the English law secures the author not only a life-rent property, but certain rights 

 as to its disposition thereafter, the contrast between those rights, and the proposed 

 Canadian wrongs render any detailed discussion on the point unnecessary. Literary pro- 

 perty, like property in laud, requires special legislation just because it cannot be put in 

 the pocket or locked up in the safe. So long as Homer and the old minstrels carried about 

 their epics and ballads in their brains their property was safe in their own keeping. 

 Shakespeare and his brother players of the " Globe " and " Blackfriars," did their best to 

 protect their popular tragedies and comedies, — the " Hamlet," the " Lear," the " Romeo 

 and Juliet," the "Tempest," and '■ Midsummer Night's Dream," — from the piratical 

 appropriators of such wares in the Elizabethan age, by keeping them out of the printers' 

 hands. But once the beneficent printing press has multiplied copies of our " Hamlet " 

 and "Midsummer Nii^ht's Dream," our "Alices in Wonderland," or our " Idyls of the 

 King," they are not only available for the delight of thousands of readers, but also for the 

 dishonest gain of a good many misappropriators beyond the reach of statute law. 



Au honest Canadian Copyright Act will place the author's rights foremost. The fact 

 that he has disposed of the copyright for the British market is no reason why he may not 

 negotiate with the Canadian printer and publisher for its issue here. Native Canadian 

 authors are as yet few ; but they are growing in number, and we may hope for a more 

 intelligent and honest recognition of the author's interest being supreme in the right of 

 property in the creations of his mind, and the products of his pen. It is a small return to 

 ask of the civilized world for all the pleasure and the profit it owes to its historians, poets, 

 biographers, scientific discoverers, novelists and other authors, that it shall protect them 

 in the same right to an honest payment for the fruits of their labour, as it extends to the 

 manufacturer of dry-goods or hardware, to the baker, the brewer, the larmer or the tailor. 



It is creditable to Great Britain that she has never yielded to the temptation to 

 retaliate on the American author, and deny him any right of property in his works. We 

 shall do well and wisely it we follow the honourable example of the mother country, 

 whose authors have a mueh stronger claim on us. If they are provoked to insist on 

 retaliation against Canadian authors, Canadian literature is just reaching the stage when 

 its elTect might prove most adverse. It will be in the true interest of the Dominion if we 

 are compelled to reconsider the basis on which a Canadittu Copyright Act should be 

 framed. In doing so suih bodies as the Eoyal Society, the Canadian Institute and the 

 Universities should be consulted, as well as the booksellers, printers and publishers. The 

 result may be the adoption of a measure framed on broad principles of justice and honour — 

 principles that pay better in the long run than those of a mere narrow selfishness. 



Sec. II., 1892. 3. 



