The Sun.
London, England, 1842-07-01 00:00:00

r
na rty property
gohutgahst
at
no
ybe e
tcheenrs
si dpeereed i
es bye
f foreignproperty
it should be no more subject to robbery—no more subject
to be seized and taken possession of by a person, not the
rightful owner, than other description of possession
whatever. If a gentleman traielling in a distant country
chanced to lose a diamond or any thing of that kind, if it
so happened that a man deprived him of it, either by
covet, fraud, or open violence, as a matter of course the
law of the land was brought into operation against the
person who so took the property of another—the pro-
perty, if found, was restored, and the person who had
taken' it was punished. He (Mr. James) would then
ask what could suggest itself to the mind of any one to
make him believe that any difference in this respect ex-
isted between literary property and that of any other
description? Was it because literary property was the
production of a man's brain, and not of his field,
that a person should be allowed to take it from
him? He could not think of any reason for admitting of
such laxity in the observance of the laws of property,
except that in this case fraud was more easy. But could
a man be thus in any wise justified in taking possession
of that which he had not laboured to produce, and in
making a profit of another man's industry. There
seemed to him (Mr. James) no doubt whatever on this
matter. He thought it was most clearly evident that it
was for the interest of all nations, as well as for the in-
terest of morality, that a stop should be put to this prac-
tice. The state of this very important question at the
present moment led him to say a few words on the rise
of the present system. Very long ago, at the time when
the literature of France was at its classical acme, certain
publishers in Amsterdam and Geneva used to pirate the
works of French authors. A great deal of noise was
made by the French publishers about the matter, but
in the claim tor protection which the French publishers
put forward the French authors took little or no part.
But they had a strong reason for not doing so. There
was a system of censorship exercised upon the French
press which prevented authors from making knowa their
sentiments and opinions, except under very stringent re-
gulations. On that account authors did not claim pro-
tection either for themselves or for booksellers. They

preferred seeing their works pirated and published
without any profit to themselves to having their opinions
crushed under the censorship of the French press. That
was the cause of the great anomaly during the period of
the re-printing of French works at Amsterdam and
Geneva. The long war subsequently interrupted this
traffic, but at its conclusion certain gentlemen in Paris
fixed their attention on the literary works of Great
Britain ; they resolved (to use their own phrase)
exploiter les cerveaux d'autrui, and necordingly they
took our works and published at a very cheap
rate those which - had cost us much thought,
anxiety,ondexpense, to produce, and that without any
indemnification to the British publishers or authors. At
first the matter seemed tolerably reasonable. They said
(it was an Italian first commenced the traffic) that they
only wanted the works for foreigners, but gradually they
found a very lucrative trade among British subjects, not
merely those happening to be on the Continent, but even
in our colonies. and in our own country. Each day pre-
sented new facilities, and suggested new methods of car-
rying on the trade. Depots were established where they
could most easily convey those works to England, which
they did by various means, and in vast quantities. This
trade was then taken up by America and Germany also,
and it thus reached that extraordinary pitch at
which it had now arrived, and which threatened
to destroy, not merely the literature of England,
but of the whole world. In America means had lately
been devised of publishing whole British works of three
volumes in the shape of a newspaper, of two sheets, which
by means of a postage, merely nominal, was sent not only
all over the Union, but into our Canadian possessions,
the West Indies, and, in fact, all over our colonies. He
(Mr. James), himself, had that very day received, in the
shape of a newspaper, a work published in this country
not six weeks ago. It had been sent over, by the Great
Western steamer, from America. It was a work which

cost him considerable labour to produce (for the work to
which he referred was his own), and it was now being
distributed all over the United States at the price of
25 cents, which he believed amounted to Is. lid. It was
impossible to suppose that the practice thus exercised in
America would not be brought into operation in other
countries also, and the ultimate result would be that

literature would be absolutely put an end to when
works sold in one country for 11. 1 ls. 6d. could be sent
over to that country from another at the price of
Is. 1-A-d. The effect of the system was felt severely by
those engaged in the book trade and paper trade.
Printers, too, who would otherwise be employed, were
in consequence thrown out of work, In France, the
gentlemen who carried on this system to the greatest
extent were MM. Brodie and Galignani. They had
printed 380 British works, and other houses had
printed about 100 more. Those works had a very large
sale ; but, taking the average at 2,000 copies of each
volume (reckoning every volume as weighing 11b.), the
amount of British paper that would have been con-
sumed, were they printed and published in England,
would be 960,0001b5., which would have returned a duty
of upwards of 6,0001. to the revenue. But in America,
where there hail been 26,000 copies of works reprinted
in this manner, what must be the loss sus-
tained by the British paper manufacturer, publisher,
and author ? This, then, was a question which ought to
command the speedy attention of Government. He be-
lieved that Government was most anxious to do what it
could in the matter ; and in referring to what Govern-
ment had done and was prepared to do on the subject, he
must inform the meeting how these works were brought
into England. Various means had been employed for
that purpose ; but the two principal modes were slipping
sheets of British works printed on the Continent between
the leaves of foreign books imported into this country.
As those books were imported in bales it was impossible
that the Custom-house officers would turn over all the
Continent,single copy
and the result of any British
leaves of each of the vast number of books in every bale.
The other mode, was introducing. single copies. Every pas-
sengerwork published
was allowed
on
o brithenga
was, that this permission, which had been granted
by Government in 1830, was the cause of
large numbers of books of this kind being imported.
Mr. James then referred to the Act passed on the
subject in 1838, which had become a dead letter, but
which he had reason to believe, would have been other-
enrio of
Heidelberg,s ; one from M.
and
wise, if the late Lord Sydenham, with whom he had
communicated on the subject, had not been compelled to
abandon the matter in consequence of his departure for
Canada. He then read letters which he had received
from the Continent, on the question of mutual protection
to
various
s h nations
who was one of the deputies to the Chamber at Baden,
which stated that it would, above all things, be ',needful
Winter
itint et
erra,r yt
he property
well-known
.kion o
it
publisher
that the English Government should diminish the great
and unnecessary duty upon German books ; so soon as
that was done, no further opposition might
be expected from the German States. Another
letter from M. Didot, the French publisher, gave
a similar assurance. He then went on to say that,
very little difficulty lay in the way of settling the ques-
tion properly, and he trusted that whatever slight ob-
s!acles there might be to the attainment of so desirable
an object, Government would remove them. How de-
sirable this was, must be evident to every one who saw
the vast number of British works, published in this
manner, by Mr. Harper, of New York. A Bill to give
British authors protection in that country had been
lately introduced into Congress by Mr. Clay, and for
this, and many other reasons, he (Mr. James) ) thought the
present the best opportunity of adopting measures on the
subject in this country. The Bill was so short that be
would read it to the meeting. (Mr. James then read
the Act, and continued). Such was the state of the
question at that moment ; and the object of Mr.
Longman, in calling them together, was that they might
determine what steps it was most desirable to take. He
would not trouble them with one word of rhetoric, but
he would earnestly urge them, both individually and col-
lectively, not to suffer the subject to drop, but to press
the Government energetically, though respectfully, to
adopt some effectul Pleasure fig remedying the evil.