MARK TWAIN Author,

"S. L. CLEMENS, Publisher." "This stamp-tax scheme is a matter that has been discussed thoroughly by a Parliamentary committee in England, and has been found to be a wholly impracticable and useless attempt; and, in fact, an attempt to abridge, instead of extend, the rights of authors; and there is no one, no publisher, who favors it, and no one, except some person who, apparently, wishes to write himself into notoriety by it. It seems hardly worth discussing, and yet it will have the effect to make a discussion. Possibly the measure may be introduced into Congress, and may in that way have an effect to show a division of sentiment. It is deeply to be regretted that any scheme of this kind has, at this time, come to the surface."

answered; and it seems to me we should be giving it to much importance if we should debate it publicly.

"I have been interested in the copyright question for some time. I first began to take active interest in it as long ago as 1860.. But it seems to me that things look much more favorable now than at any time within my memory. The committee of the Senate, before which I appeared a year ago, if not exactly sympathetic, was certainly not otherwise, and I was very much impressed with the ablity and fairness of the chairman-Mr. Platt, of Connecticut-a man of, I should say, remarkabie intelligence.

"The only thing that divides the question of copyright seems to be a question as to how much property there is in books; but that is a question we may be well content to waive till we have decided that there is any property at all in them. I think that, in order that the two sides should come together, nothing more is necessary than that both should understand clearly that property, whether in books or in land, or anything else, is artificial; that it is purely a creature of law; and, more than that, of local and municipal law. When we have come to an agreement of that sort I think we will not find it difficult to come to an agreement that it will be best for us to get whatever acknowledgment of property we can, in books, to start with.

"I am perfectly satisfied that if we get any act whatever, the operation of that act will so recommend itself that we shall be able by and by to improve it where it is wanting.

"The business before you is to choose a permanent president of this Association; and to name a committee, a secretary, and a treasurer, I think, will be necessary."

Mr. Estes was appointed temporary secretary, and Messrs. Charles C. Soule, Thomas Niles, and John Wilson a committee of organization. The latter then retired for consultation. While the committee were out the chairman called upon Congressman Long for some remarks on the

"Ladies and Gentlemen: As I feel obliged to take an early train. I shall have hardly time to warm the chair for my successor, but I will say one word in reference to what Mr. Estes has said. I think he made an admirable statement of the case.

"There are two points which I wish to notice; one is what he says about Professor PearsallSmith's plan. He says it has been introduced and examined into by a Parliamentary Commission, which is quite true. It was also rejected by that commission as impracticable, with the exception of a single member, whose name I have not been able to discover; but I think one may infer that it was the present Sir Thomas Farrar-then Mr. Farrar-who was rather in favor of the scheme of royalty.

"Now, this man was one of the great difficulties in the way of negotiating a copyright treaty, because he does not believe in any copyright whatever, and it is possible that he amused himself with a scheme which would really have made it look something like null.

"The other is, that Mr. Estes, it seems to me, in saying that the Smith proposition is impracticable, has answered it in the best way it can be

Mr. Long said :

"Mr. Estes has spoken of the inertia of Congress. That is true, and it is not true. There is no special inertia in Congress in regard to a matter of so much importance as this. There is always this great difficulty, that with the introduction at each term of something like fifty thousand bills, and in the enactment of only eight hundred, or nine hundred, or one thousand bills, of course many of the matters coming before Congress necessarily fall to the ground. The first thing, therefore, is to convince Congress, or, in other words, convince the country at large-for Congress is simply the expression, not the sentiment at large-that this a vital and important measure. By any other plan of expressing special interest conviction must be brought that the perfection of the measure is for the general good.

"The difficulties which will be met with, if you even induce Congress to take up this matter, are, first, that there will be a great fear that, in case of the passage of such a law as you propose, the American mechanic and workman would be deprived of a portion of the work he has been accustomed to. Second, the people at large would be deprived of the great education of cheap literature, and that

be happy to serve you at this meeting, but I must be regarded as a temporary officer."

The President then read the Constitution as submitted by the committee, and it was adopted seriatim.

President Eliot then said: "The meeting will be glad to hear from any person interested in this matter. Some of the veterans of literature are here present-of our literature. Will Mr. Hale say a word ?"

Rev. E. E. Hale then said: "In the consideration of such a measure, the fundamental difficulty is in the differences of the theories of different men. It might well be that every author might have a view somewhat different from every other of what the origin of literary property is, and how far it goes. For my own part, I am very much dissatisfied with the copyright laws of this country as they exist; and if we were merely considering our relations to foreign authors, I should have the same hesitation as to inviting one of them to the feast which is prepared for us as a man who lives in a bad hotel has when he meets a stranger from abroad as to asking him home to dine with him. Let us make up our minds from the beginning that we cannot probably achieve a perfect art, and that we will attempt the best we

can.

"As we are among friends, I am tempted to say that it seems to me unfortunate that from the beginning this matter has been crowded upon us from the other side in a very indecent manner. We were told that we were pirates here, and that we should come forward and do an act of justice, which we had refused to do, to the people of the small island on the other side of the Atlantic. I have been reading with a great deal of interest Lord Shelburne's plans for making a confederation of England and the United States. Supposing England and the United States are a confederation, it was proposed by Lord Shelburne to have one law for England and the United States. Suppose that plan had been adopted. There are only thirty million people in England, and there are sixty million in the United States. Certainly the sixty million people would be apt to determine in such a confederation what the law would be. I do not think it becomes the thirty million people to abuse the sixty million people any more than it becomes the sixty million to abuse the thirty million. I have received very decent recompenses on this side of the water for the little books which I have published. In England the circulation of some of my books has been twice as large, or even more than that, than they have ever received on this side of the ocean. Still I have never received from England-from people who called themselves my publishers, or from those who did not-one half-penny. On the other hand, as an editor, I have sent hundreds of dollars, not to say thousands of dollars, to English authors for their work which has been used here. I do not think, then, that it becomes the writers of England to talk about American piracies; and I could wish that that point of view should be dropped in the present discussion.

not the policy of the people of Great Britain. The result of this American policy is, if I may familiar, that such a State as Massachusetts, with take an illustration with which I am specially 1,900,000 people, pays very nearly as much money for the education of its people as England pays for the education of 26,000,000. We pay twenty dollars for each child. England pays rather less than one pound for the education of each child. I believe we pay, in money, 62 per cent. of what England pays for this purpose.

"Other States make similar expenditures. The consequence is that our people have been educated up to a higher taste in reading than the average people of England. Thus the Encyclopædia Britannica' sells more largely, I am told, in America than it does in England. Now, I say the country which furnishes that market is, on the whole, the country which will make the regulations for the editions and for the trade. I do not think that it is wise to urge the reform in this country as a matter demanded by a rather insignificant body of readers, who furnish but a very small part, in proportion, of the book market of English-speaking men.

"Let us, on the other hand, press this reform we are carrying out as representing the conscience and the honor of English-speaking people. We do not do it because we have been bidden to do so by a few publishers in London. We have failed in the past because we have had messages sent over from the other side that we ought to do this, that, and the other thing,' what they, in my experience, have never taken any pains to do there.

"But I have no wish to bring up the question of who has done most wrong. The difficulty is in the very great inefficiency of every copyright law which now exists, and in the fact that none of them are based upon right and eternal considerations. If we can educate the people to the idea that the uplifting of the human race is the noblest enterprise that is given to man, that authorship is part of the great ministry in which every man is trying to make the world better, and to bring in the Kingdom of God, I believe the American people are eager and desirous to do that thing in the best way.

"As to the two difficulties which have been hinted at, they are really nothing. There is no person in this country so poor but that he will pay eleven cents for a copy of 'Jane Eyre' as easily as ten. There is no reason why the reform should press upon the mechanic or other workmen employed.

"I think if we act together as much as possible this time we are quite sure of success. Men of business who are accustomed to succeed have taken the matter in hand, and it is now a matter of business, and no longer a matter of 'gush,' as Mr. Platt said. As the author of that epigram he ought to be proud. I hope now that we shal take hold of it as a matter of business."

Illinois; he thought the people of his State were opposed to international copyright because it would make books higher. I tried to convince him that the opposite would be the effect; that competition always made books and everything else cheaper than any other method; and, for the same reason, the fact that cotton cloth is sold here so much lower than years ago is because there is so much more made; and the effect would be to stimulate authorship, and there would be a great many more books published. There is no stimulus for an author. You know that, within our recollection, authors, the most celebrated to-day, not only had to write their own books, but had to pay for printing them, and they were sent out through the country on sale. We are beyond that now, and if there is a stimulus added, we shall have plenty of books and authors; and that stimulus must be added, and is being furnished to a very large extent by our public schools. The appetite for books does not increase in a superficial ratio, but in a geometrical ratio. We see how art has flourished here in the past few years. We can remember when cheap chromos adorned our walls; but they have all disappeared, and pictures of a higher order have taken their place. The fact is that when an American sees anything better than he had before, he will have that. I have never been troubled with the multitude of cheap books. People who buy a cheap book will throw it away soon, and come and buy the better book we publish, and they will keep it. In proportion as cheap literature had flourished, so had the better-made class of literature flourished. There will be no trouble about a market in this country.

"There is another consideration-we are not called upon to legislate for England, Germany, and France. We want the best minds of England, France, and Germany to come here and publish their books; and that tendency is coming about because we have a greater mass of readers. We are publishing an important historical work, and we have sold an edition to the English market, and the book is to be manufactured and published here first. Why do we get such men as Agassiz to come here? It is because we have a greater field here for their genius. The London publisher wants to get out his elegant edition for the English market, and then wants to get a cheap edition for this country. He wants us to take the remnants, and he does not want his books to come here until after they have had their market in England; but, if you want to publish an American book in England, you must publish it there first. Now, legislating for our own country, my own feeling is that we should give a copyright to anybody, whether he be Hottentot, Jew, Englishman, Frenchman, German, or whatever he may be, provided he will first publish that book in this country. It is our duty to protect our own authors. If they do that, we can still allow them to have a copyright here; and they will come here because we have the greatest market in the world. I don't care a fig for any mechanical protection. I am willing to compete with any of them, but I want the freshest and newest books published here first, because we have the greatest and best market; and we have gone so far in that direction that there can be no limits put upon it. No man can say 'Thus far and no farther,' because the public education has settled that matter already.

"There are two practicable objections to an international copyright, and I think this League and every other League should apply themselves,

as has been suggested by the honorable member of Congress here, to create a proper public sentiment on that ground. One is, the country newspapers think they will have nobody's field to poach from, under international copyright. They need not be afraid. There will be plenty of people willing to give their productions for nothing. We want to talk to these people, to influence them to believe that they should help their country and the cause of morality. The other question is, the matter of dear books. Now, you cannot have dear books in this country if you try. We are going to make all books cheaper than they are. The greater the demand, the cheaper they will be; and if we have international copyright, competition and the demand for books will settle that question. Therefore, as practical men, let us try and convince the country newspaper man to get rid of his fallacy, and try to get the public to understand that if it wants good books and cheap books it must go in for international copyright." (Applause.)

Upon the conclusion of Mr. Houghton's remarks President Eliot said: "We have been told we want less gush and more law, and I will call upon Mr. R. H. Dana for a few words." Mr. Dana replied as follows: "The only thing that struck me that I would like to speak about is this, that one often finds that a public sentiment has been created before it has been

brought to bear at all upon the Congressmen ; and nothing shows that more, I think, than experience in such things as civil-service reform and tariff reform. There are lots of people who believe that the tariff ought to be reduced, but they were so afraid of being called free-traders that they never met together. At last some one suggests to call a meeting, and they find that lots of people believe in it. Congress does not feel the influence of scattered people, who don't express their opinion; but, if they have an organization which meets together, that has a great deal more power, and, therefore, it will be well worth while to have a corresponding secretary to start organizations in various cities in the country, and soon you will find that there has been so much talk about it in the newspapers, that numbers of people will flock together to form organizations, and you will do much better than you can at desultory work."

The meeting was then declared adjourned. The number of approvals of the organization, at and since the meeting, were considerable.

HENRY JAMES ON INTERNATIONAL COPYRIGHT.

From the Critic, December 10.

THE bright American mind does not want exceptional terms, or humiliating bargains, or babytreatment, or pilfered pleasures of any kind, and it has a total disbelief in any privileges of which the source is not pure. It owes too much to books-which are the blessings of life-not to open its heart to the whole body of our English utterance, not to feel that we have all inherited together the magnificent library of our race, not to detest the idea of refusing the tax that will keep up the institution. I am comparatively of your opinion that we will read better, and write better, and think better, and feel better, as we say, when the air is clearer, and that the air will be clearer only when justice is done.

ADDRESS OF THE PUBLISHERS' COPYRIGHT LEAGUE

To American Bookbuyers and Booksellers. A
Plea for International Copyright on behalf of
the best interests of the Writers, Readers,
Makers, and Sellers of Books:

THE AMERICAN PUBLISHERS' COPYRIGHT LEAGUE,
OFFICE OF SECRETARY, 27 & 29 W. 23D ST., N. Y.

THE American Publishers' Copyright League ask for the coöperation of all who deal in books,

and of all who read books in obtaining an international copyright law.

International copyright is required— First.-For the purpose of relieving American authors from the competition of the unpaid work of foreign writers, and thus of promoting the production of American books, and of furthering the wholesome development of American literature.

Second. In order to secure for foreign authors whose works render service to American readers, and (under reciprocity arrangements) for American authors, whose writings are coming into increasing demand abroad, the return for their labors which is justly their due, and which should in equity be proportionate to the number of the readers deriving benefit from these labors.

Fifth. On the broad ground of justice and wise national policy.

We appeal, therefore, to all members of the book-trade and to all readers of books, to coöperate in the efforts now being made to secure from Congress an International Copyright Law. We invite them to associate themselves with one or the other of the Copyright Leagues, and we urge them also to write in behalf of the measure to their respective Senators and Representatives.

We ask, further, that they will aid in securing signatures to the memorials in behalf of international copyright which will shortly be placed in the book-stores for the purpose, and that they will do what may be in their power to develop and to bring to bear an enlightened public opinion on the subject.

WILLIAM H. APPLETON, Pres.,
GEO. HAVEN PUTNAM, Sec.,
CHARLES SCRIBNER, Treas.,
JOSEPH W. HARPER,
HENRY O. HOUGHTON,
CRAIGE LIPPINCOTT,
A. D. F. RANDOLPH.
DANA ESTES,

Executive Committee.

INTERNATIONAL COPYRIGHT AND CHEAP BOOKS.

Condensed from the Boston Post.

lar literature and in higher education, which undertakings can be entered upon only under inter. national arrangements and secure markets.

American buyers of books can be assured that under an international copyright which will enable the prime outlay to be divided among several markets, many important books will not be dearer but cheaper than at present, and that the publishers can be depended upon, on the ground of their own business interests, to provide for American readers the low-priced editions which are suited to the special requirements of this country.

Fourth. For the purpose of placing the American book-trade, the selling agent of authorship, on a more satisfactory and remunerative basis.

The business of American booksellers is being seriously undermined by the decrease in the sale of good books in shape for permanent preservation, and by the obstacles in the production of American literature. With smaller profits and diminished resources, the booksellers are each year becoming less instead of more effective in the all-important service of maintaining in their several communities centres of literary information and distribution.

It has not yet been shown that books would be dearer in America if the works of the living English authors were bought instead of stolen. It is not necessary to accept the statement that high-priced books and "monopoly control" are any part of the English system. Other English books than novels are on the whole cheaper than our own. There are "libraries" in paper from

many series of modern novels-some of them only a year or two published-excellently printed and substantially bound in boards, which sell at eighteen pence, or thirty-five cents, and are far superior in every way to the cheap editions pub

lished here. There are a number of series of cloth-bound books of a more solid character (some of which fairly deserve to be called exquisite) which are sold at prices from ninepence, or eighteen cents, to twice that amount. No such books have ever been published in this country, to our knowledge, at a price under half a dollar. Of course these low prices are partly due to the cheaper cost of production in England; but this could fairly be rated as only about one-third less than the cost here. Thus one of Routledge's nine pence or shilling books ought to be sold in America, if manufactured here, at thirty or forty Of the superiority in paper, print, and binding of these cheap English books to ours there is no question. In medium-priced books there is less to choose. Mr. Black's novels, for instance, can be bought in single cloth volumes in England for four shillings and sixpence and seller's, not the publisher's, which are 25 per cent. here for a dollar; these prices being the bookhigher in both cases. Other instances equally applicable might be quoted. But we have said 'cheap enough, we think, to dispose of the books" argument which does such yeoman's service with those unacquainted with the real facts in the case.

cents.