The Publishers' Weekly,

FEBRUARY 10, 1883.

PUBLISHERS are requested to furnish title-page proofs and advance information of books forthcoming, both for entry in the lists and for descriptive mention. An early copy of each book published should be forwarded, to insure correctness in the final entry.

The trade are invited to send "Communications"

to the

editor on any topic of interest to the trade, and as to which an interchange of opinion is desirable. Also, matter for "Notes and Queries" gratefully received.

"Every man is a debtor to his profession, from the which, as men do of course seek to receive countenance and profit, so ought they of duty to endeavor themselves by way of amends to be a help thereunto."-LORD BACON.

MERELY as a sample of the venom which the London Athenæum seems to be unable to hold back whenever, even with the best intentions, it starts to view things that are American, we quote the following introductory paragraph from its editorial, headed "English and American Publishers," which appeared in its issue of January 20:

"An old controversy was renewed in our columns a few weeks ago by Mr. Clark Russell, and it may, therefore, be worth pointing out that while Mr. Marston in his able letters stigmatized as freebooters publishers like Mr. Munro and others who now reprint, without leave asked or acknowledgment made, the English works reproduced by the Messrs. Harper and other firms, a recent publication recalls to mind the fact that once upon a time Messrs. Harper used to reprint, without permission or payment, any English book which they thought would sell in the United States. Sir Archibald Alison in his autobiography describes a meeting with one of the Harpers at Mr. Bancroft's in 1846. Mr. Harper told Sir Archibald that his voluminous history had sold so largely in the United States as to have enabled him to reap a profit of thirty thousand dollars from the sale of a single edition; and the autobiographer omits to state what proportion of the profit was received by him-perhaps he received nothing. But Messrs. Harper no doubt can supply information on this point.'

INTERNATIONAL COPYRIGHT.

MR. PUTNAM's letter and the New York Evening Post editorial given below, refer to the following editorial paragraph which appeared in the New York Evening Post, January 26:

"Mr. George Munro, the eminent pirate, whose efforts in behalf of cheap books have attracted world-wide attention, has given another proof of his public spirit and zeal in the cause of learning, in endowing three tutorships in a Canadian college at Dalhousie, at $1000 a year each. How much more sensible this employment of the money made in his business is than the use the old pirate put his to in paying what he called an honorarium to the foreign author! The ill-conditioned fellows who got it were never satisfied; on the contrary, they were always complaining that they were not given enough, and even treating the payment of what was paid as a recognition of their rights,' and consequently as an argument for an international copyright law. No man can pretend that the Munro system suggests the idea of 'rights' of any description, except, of course, the right to cheap books. By the way, what has become of the copyright treaty, in the negotiation of which the old pirates were so much interested? We were assured at first that if we would only keep silent about its terms, it would be all right. Everybody has been silent about them now for some time, yet we do not hear of its having been signed. Have the wicked foreign publishers killed it?"

THE POSITION OF THE AMERICAN PUBlish-
ERS ON THE QUESTION.

(From the N. Y. Evening Post, Feb. 5.)
SIR: The standard of the Evening Post, with
reference as well to accuracy of information as
to fairness of view and precision of statement, is,
as a rule, so high that it is with diffidence I vent-
ure any criticism of its editorial utterances, but
some of its recent expressions concerning Ameri-
can publishers and their relations to international
copyright impress me as hardly in accord with
such standard. If the readers of the Evening
Post had no other information on the subject than

what was contained in its several recent articles concerning copyright, they might well be excused for concluding that American publishers were, without exception, a body of shameless "depredators, the profits of whose nefarious proceedings were now (as all right-minded persons were rejoiced to see) being to some extent curtailed by the competition of a new lot of pirates, not more shameless, but somewhat shrewder and graph in the Evening Post of Friday last, in more outspoken than themselves. The parawhich the former were pleasantly referred to as "old pirates," in contradistinction to the more recent variety of pirate to whose "libraries" of "appropriated" material the Evening Post gives such frequent editorial advertisement, is but one of a number of similar recent utter

So no doubt can the Athenæum on its insinuating "perhaps." But, unlike our famous contemporary, we will withhold no information that may act as an antidote, and therefore add the beginning of its second paragraph :

"While several novelists of note have volunteered their testimony as to the liberality with which Messrs. Harper have treated them, Mr. John Murray has furnished the interesting fact that their liberality swelled the sum paid to the Livingstone family by £1000. The leading American publishers have stated in the columns of our American contemporary, the Critic, that their custom is to pay for all the English works which they reprint."

The remaining part of the editorial is fair enough in its discussion, and will, space permiting, be given in a subsequent number of the WEEKLY.

ances.

Now, the literature on the subject of copyright and copy-wrong has during the past few years beer so considerable, and such comprehensive statistics and details have come into print concerning international literary and publike the Evening Post can hardly be excused if lishing arrangements, that a writer in a journal he has failed to provide himself with all essential information. It is, however, difficult to under

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position to it; nor have the signers to it received any authoritative information as to the grounds for its being pigeon-holed in the Department of the State, instead of being duly presented for consideration in the Senate. It is, therefore, hardly correct to refer to the publishers who have initiated the only measure that has for a number of years been planned, a measure which is now in shape for consideration, modification, and official action, as “obstructing" the establishment of international copyright. We are told incidentally that considerable pressure has been brought to bear upon the State Department on the part of certain printers and binders of Philadelphia to prevent this treaty from receiving favorable consideration, and it is certainly the case that in this headquarters of the so-called protective system of American industry" the opposition to international copyright has always been most active and most bitter. The protectionists have mainly, in the dread of some possible competition with the work of American printers, shown an utter disregard for the rightducers known as authors (while they have expressed an anxiety, which is for them unusual, in behalf of the interests of consumers), and their opposition appears for the present at least to be successful. But the Evening Post ought by this time to be familiar with the uniform influence of "protection" theories in twisting the ideas of right and wrong and in lowering the standard of national ethics, and ought not to throw upon the publishers a responsibility which belongs to the protectionist leaders, who are at present engaged (under the instructions of the manufacturing rings) in shaping the commercial policy of the nation.

stand how, if your contributor has so informed himself, he can justify the positions he has taken and the expressions he has used. He ought certainly to be aware that for a number of years the reprinting of English works by American publishers has, with but few exceptions, been done subject to arrangements entered into by these publishers with the authors or their representatives, such arrangements providing for the payment, in acknowledgment of authors' rights, of such sums as were mutually agreed upon. According to the testimony of authors before the Parliamentary Commission of 1878, and in various ways since, such sums are often very considerable, and have not unfrequently been even larger than the authors' receipts from their English editions. It has also been in evidence that the profits of English authors from their American issues would in many instances have been much more considerable, and that some criticism on their part would have been avoided, if their English publishers had always made a full and frank accounting to their clients concerning receipts from America. The agreements for Eng-ful claims of that other class of American prolish books entered into by one American house have, with hardly an exception, been duly respected by all other reputable firms, and have, in fact, constituted a provisional international copyright arrangement. Unsatisfactory and incomplete as such provisional arrangement has been (and to none more unsatisfactory than to the publishers making payments and " purchases," which gave them no property title or means of defence), I submit that it is hardly accurate to describe it as piracy." In fact, I do not at the moment call to mind any other class of traders in the country who make payments without any legal obligation to do so, for property to which the sellers can give them no title. The principal exceptions to the publishing custom above referred to are some Canadian firms doing business in New York and Chicago, who have built up a business by appropriating material for which American houses have paid, and who in such appropriation secure the advantage of the literary judgment and the advertising expenditure of the authorized publishers. I have been informed also by English authors that the publishers of the weekly issues of some of our leading journals do not always remember to make a business acknowledgment for their reprinted stories, but this, of course, cannot be the case with any of the journals which are striving to reform the "piratical book-publishers.'

"

Your contributor ought also to be aware that the suggestion for an international copyright treaty, which two years ago was submitted to the State Department, bore the signatures of nearly every publishing house in the country. This suggested treaty was doubtless in many of its provisions open to amendment, and it was the fact that a number of the leading publishers were in accord with my own firm in endeavoring to secure a measure that should be wider, simpler, and freer from restrictions. It is nevertheless the case that, imperfect or faulty as this treaty in certain of its provisions may be, it would constitute, if put into force, a long step in the right direction; while the tendency would doubtless be to widen and simplify it as experience might show the equity and the wisdom of so doing. It is in any case also a fact that the publishers of the country are on record in demanding the establishment of this treaty or of some equivalent measure, and are not on record in any op

Your contributor is, in my opinion, further in error in believing that the operations of the " new pirates" before referred to are furthering the work of securing international copyright. On the contrary, it is my conviction that the apparent advantage to the public of obtaining certain literature in cheap forms is doing a great deal to build up a public sentiment against paying" any author's tax" on books, and to develop a feeling that such tax is an 'oppressive monopoly," and the impression, industriously fostered by a certain class of reprinters, that copyright means of necessity dear books, may yet stand very much in the way of securing any popular recognition of the rights of authors. That such impression rests upon false assumptions, that the educational and literary interests of the community would in many ways be better served under a system which gave proper recognition and compensation to literary producers, that cheap literature for the million is perfectly compatible with such recognition, and that many literary enterprises of importance to the community which are now not practicable would, under a copyright system, be successfully undertaken, could easily be demonstrated. But it is useless to ignore the fact that at present the tendency of popular opinion is in favor of the freest possible "appropriation" and the cheapest possible results. The public standard of ethics is being lowered, and teachers whose special task it should be to guide the community in applying the principles of ethics have too often confused their own minds on this question of literary property, and have permitted themselves to be quoted on the side of the wrong.

Notwithstanding, however, the efforts of the

protectionists to maintain that copyright must be readers' and printers' wrong, and notwithstanding also the extent of the popular prejudice and ignorance to be overcome, it ought still to be possible to awaken on the subject an enlightened public opinion, which may at an early date secure the action necessary to put an end to this long-standing wrong. My desire that in this undertaking the influence of a journal like the Evening Post should be exercised with due discrimination and with justice to all concerned, is my excuse for troubling you with this letter. GEO. HAVEN PUTNAM.

we.

NEW YORK, January 29, 1883.

OLD AND NEW PIRATES.

nate this practice. Any one can see for himself that if Mr. Putnam's account of the system as it existed before the appearance of the new pirate on the scene were correct, the foreign author's complaints of the hardships of his lot were absurd.

It is very true that the suggestions for an international copyright treaty bore the signature of nearly every publisher in this country. The trouble with the treaty was that the publishers were unwilling to grant a foreign author a copyright unless he would consent to the manufacture of the book in this country, and even then, unless he made arrangements within three months of its appearance in England, anybody would have been at liberty to pirate his book. We favored the treaty because we thought it better than nothing, but it was a measure devised to protect the American manufacturer of books, and thus it aroused the hostility of foreign publishers.

WE publish elsewhere a letter from Mr. George Haven Putnam on the subject of international copyright, in which he makes a number of complaints of our treatment of the subject. With regard to the merits of the question there is no room for any dispute between Mr. Putnam and All that we have maintained with regard to ourselves. He is opposed to piracy; so are we. Mr. Munro is that this great and good man has He is in favor of international copyright; so are actually given us cheap books. The great arHe supported the proposed treaty as ap-gument in favor of international piracy always parently the best attainable way of dealing with the matter; so did we. He is sorry that it has not been signed; so are we. He finds fault with us, however, for misrepresenting the attitude of publishers with regard to the matter, and chiefly for calling them " pirates." How, he asks, can we speak of the "old pirate," when he was in the habit of paying an honorarium to the foreign author? He says that we ought to be aware" that

We are not aware of anything of the kind. We have the report of the Commission before us, and what it says on the subject is: "We

are assured that there are cases in which authors reap substantial results from these arrangements," and "instances are even known in which an English author's returns from the United States exceed the profits of his British sale; but in the case of a successful book by a new author it would appear that this understanding affords no protection. Even in the case of eminent men, we have no reason to believe that the arrangements possible under the existing conditions are at all equivalent to the returns which they would secure under a copyright convention."

This is exactly what we might expect from such a system. In the case of popular writers the publisher paid a royalty, and was protected against the other publishers in this country by the " courtesy of the trade;" but in the case of a new author (i e., in three cases out of four) he usually reprinted his book without paying anything for it-in other words, " pirated" it. The word " Firacy" is the usual term used to desig

used to be that it would do this for us; but it never really did. Now, the new system of piracy has made books almost as cheap as newspapers. But we are convinced that the new pirate is unconsciously doing a great work for the cause of international copyright by proving to the publishers that in their own interest the foreign author must be protected exactly as the domestic author is. There is no way for them to meet Munro except this, and we have no doubt that they will in a few years be converts to an authors' copyright. This is a matter of opinion, of course, about which Mr. Putnam may differ from us. But we shall continue to urge the new pirate not to falter in his noble undertaking, for we are convinced that he is a great public benefactor.

THE PROTECTION OF BOOKS.
From The Nation, February 1.

SIR In the excellent letter upon "The Interof yesterday, I note the following paragraph: ests of American Art," published in your issue

"The protection of books does come logically into our illogical system of political economy, because the capital and labor involved in the production of books are pure trade interests, and combined with our systematic piracy of foreign brains, the tariff on books probably does not make books dearer or discourage their production, for the books which without the tariff would be printed abroad are now printed at home.

The error of this statement is so manifest that it seems almost a waste of time and of your space to correct it. Yet it should be corrected; for it must be upon some such incomplete view of the case that those protectionists who are animated by sincere zeal for the public welfare maintain this American tax upon knowledge. The protection of books enters logically into our illogical system of political economy only so far as there are books to protect; in other words, the imposition of duty upon a foreign publication for the protection of American publishers is illogical unless that publication is reproduced here. The only escape is to hold-as the protectionists, to do them justice, perhaps do hold— that one book is as good as another, and that, if the reader is prevented by the duty from buying the foreign book he needs for his pleasure or instruction, he will seek his pleasure in some