The Sun.
London, England, 1867-11-07 00:00:00

INTERNATIONAL COPYRIGHT,

Our great contemporary writes on the expediency
of a copyright law between England and the United
States, as if there was something peculiarly dis-
honest in Americans helping themselves gratis to
English literature ; a dishonesty they only began to
feel when English publishers retaliated by helping
themselves gratis to the product of the American
literary brain. Authors have nothing to do with
this piracy—they are the victims, the English to
the greater extent, as more works worth stealing are
produced in Great Britain than in the United States.
Nor is the publisher to blame, who may be a keen
lover of literature, or an author ; but as a publisher
be is engaged in a manufacturing business which
he has to conduct on the business principles of
his trade ; which are guided by the simple rule
—to make the most. In America, if the raw ma-
terial can be furnished for nothing, the publisher
is not likely to pay for it ; he does not make the
laws, he merely accepts what he finds. Whether
an International Copyright Law would be a gain
or loss to him is an open question, and one Mr.
TROLLOPPE, after minute inquiries, concludes would
be a gain. The heaviest individual loser is the
English author ; the national loser is, if there be
one, the United States. The individual gainer is
the American purchaser, and the national gainer is
England. The system in vogue has done much to
tie the American people to their old Father-land.
To what extent the separation might have gone,
had English literature in America been shackled,
it is impossible to say. The light literature
of the present day has something of the effect
of the ballads and poetry of olden times. It is
an expression of the nation's mind, very diffuse,
compared with the concentration of the poetical
expression, yet better reflecting the general tone of
thought, and exercising far more influence. If
English books obtain a free and general circu-
lation throughout America, English authors must
exert a strong power over the national mind ;
and England gains the advantage, to this ex-
tent, of educating the American people. The
influence thus brought to bear may have had
an effect for good, which has been overlooked. It
should be kept in mind that every year a mul-
titude of immigrants land in America, who carry
there a strong hostility to England. An equal
number arrive speaking another tongue, and wholly
indifferent to Great Britain. Compared with these,
the immigration from England and Scotland is
almost nothing. So year by year the throng,
either hostile or foreign to England, accumu-
late in America, which would, had it not been for
English literature, have swamped the English
element. No one pretends that the United
States is Irish, or German. 'Whatever is not
American in the United States is Eng-
lish. To what is this mainly due if not to
English literature ? Americans date their own
history from the English settlements on the
Continent. When they trace back further
they go straight to England, not to Germany,
nor to Ireland. The triumph of England, when
English history was theirs, is felt more strongly
in New York, and excites, when well represented
in a theatre, a wilder enthusiasm than even in Lon-
don. England is the country to which Americans
look for the stamp of excellence. They are to
be found in secluded villages, rooting out records,
conning ever the names in old moss-covered tomb-
stones, or among the hoary ruins of ancient castles,
monasteries, or cathedrals, because they have asso-
ciated with themselves this antiquity, and imagina-
tion may connect the spot with their ancestors.
However noisy'and offensive the ostentatious enmity
expressed by political demagogues, the avowed
object is to catch the support of the lower Irish who
cultivate an active hostility to England. But those
who look into the national mind will seethe strength
of American veneration and respect for what they
persist in considering the mother-country. With no
foreign nation, except England, has the United
States been at war, putting aside the expedition to
Mexico and such naval affairs as that directed
against
of Japan.
the
has, then, happened that the
history United States, as an independent
t e
Power, has tended to a wider severance with the
mother-country, and another element has been
added to those in force to make America hostile to
England. Yet all these causes have been more than
counteracted by English literature. It is for this
reason that we consider the absence of an Interna-
tional Copyright Law has been beneficial to England
at the expense of its literary men. We believe it
also in some respects to have been beneficial to the
United States. A young unformed country has
not the leisure to produce authors. If it trusted to
its own efforts it must descend in taste and know-
ledge. By degrees, as the community becomes
wealthier, a larger number are enabled to devote
themselves to pursuits which add nothing to the
actual means of living and the security of society,
which in early days task to the utmost the ener-
gies of the people. The free circulation of the lite-
rature of England has not only tended to knit
America in closer communion, but it has elevated
the taste, and cultivated the intellect, while main-
taining the purity of the language. In the last
number of Blackwood an article is devoted to the
Americanisms, of which many have been ac-
cepted by our tongue. Supposing that the literature
of England had been to a far less degree the
literature of America, what would have been the
extent of this inroad of barbarism? The language
might have split off into patois, instead of being, as
it is, maintained in greater purity both in America
and in the colonies, than in England. On the whole
then we rejoice that the American people have not
hitherto seen it to be for their interest to bring into
operation an International Copyright Law. So far
as regards the past ; —but the case is, we believe, dif-
ferent as regards the future. American authors are now
a numerous and highly intellectual class, and it would
be wise in their country to encourage the profession.
On the principle of protection to native industry
they have more right to prevent American publishers
from helping themselves untaxed to foreign publi-
cations than iron or woollen manufacturers have
to exclude British competition, for all they ask is
but the right to sell what they create. Eng-
land wishes to pass a copyright law to give to the
author, either American or English, in both coun-
tries, the property of his own work. This would
place the literary men of either nationality on an
equal footing, and tend largely to increase the num-
ber of authors, more especially in Amenea.— Anglo-
America n 7irnes.

The Attorney-General of Kentucky has given an
opinion on the Act of the Legislature taxing incomes as
to its effects on United States Bonds. The Act was
approved March 8, 1867, and Mr. Rodman thus interprets
it :—"State of Kentucky, Office of the Attorney-General,
Frankfort, Kentucky, October 1, 1867. Sir,—My con-
struction of the act of general Assemly to ' tax income on
United States Bonds,' approved March Bth, 1867, is that
all taxpayers is this Commonwealth who have actually
received interest upon United States Bonds, between the
10th of January, 1866, and the 10th of January, 1867,
whether for themselves or in trust for another, are re-
quired to state on oath before the Assessor the amount so
received. It is the duty of sheriffs to collect 5 per cent.
upon the gross amount of such income.—bro. RODMAN,
Attorney-General"