Latest / Historic Speeches of the UK House of Commons, Vol. 1 / 009 - Speech on copyright 1841

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009 - Speech on copyright 1841 · Historic Speeches of the UK House of Commons, Vol. 1

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  Speaker 1: Speech by Thomas Babington McCauley. This is a LibriVox recording.
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  Speaker 1: All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more
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  Speaker 1: information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox dot org. Recording
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  Speaker 1: by Philippa Jevins, speech given to the House of Commons
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  Speaker 1: on the fifth of February eighteen forty one, by Thomas
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  Speaker 1: Babington McCauley, m P. Though Sir, it is in some
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  Speaker 1: sense agreeable to approach a subject with which political animosities
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  Speaker 1: have nothing to do, I offer myself to your notice
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  Speaker 1: with some reluctance. It is painful to me to take
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  Speaker 1: a course which may possibly be misunderstood or misrepresented as
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  Speaker 1: unfriendly to the interests of literature and literary men. It
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  Speaker 1: is painful to me, our lad to oppose my honorable
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  Speaker 1: and learned friend, on a question which he has taken
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  Speaker 1: up from the purest motives, and which he regards with
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  Speaker 1: a parental interest. These feelings have hitherto kept me silent
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  Speaker 1: when the law of copyright has been under tas discussion,
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  Speaker 1: But as I am, on full consideration, satisfied that the
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  Speaker 1: measure before us, will, if adopted, inflict grievous injury on
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  Speaker 1: the public, without conferring any compensating advantage on men of letters.
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  Speaker 1: I think it my duty to avow that opinion and
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  Speaker 1: to defend it. The first thing to be done, sir,
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  Speaker 1: is to settle on what principles The question is to
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  Speaker 1: be argued. Are we free to legislate for the public
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  Speaker 1: good or are we not? Is this a question of
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  Speaker 1: expediency or is it a question of right? Many of
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  Speaker 1: those who have written and petitioned against the existing state
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  Speaker 1: of things treat the question as one of right. The
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  Speaker 1: law of nature, according to them, gives to every man
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  Speaker 1: a sacred and indefeasible property in his own ideas, in
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  Speaker 1: the fruits of his own reason and imagination. The legislature
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  Speaker 1: has indeed the power to take away this property, just
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  Speaker 1: as it has the power to pass an active attainder
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  Speaker 1: for cutting off an innocent man's head without a trial.
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  Speaker 1: But as such an active attainer would be legal murder.
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  Speaker 1: So would an act invading the right of an author
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  Speaker 1: to his copy be, according to these gentlemen, legal robbery. Now, sir,
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  Speaker 1: if this be so, let justice be done, cost what
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  Speaker 1: it may. I am not prepared, like my honorable and
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  Speaker 1: learned friend, to agree to a compromise between right and expediency,
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  Speaker 1: and to commit an injustice for the public convenience. But
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  Speaker 1: I must say that this theory sows far beyond the
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  Speaker 1: reach of my faculties. It is not necessary to go,
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  Speaker 1: on the present occasion into a metaphysical inquiry about the
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  Speaker 1: origin of the right of property, And certainly nothing but
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  Speaker 1: the strongest necessity would lead me to discuss a subject
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  Speaker 1: so likely to be distasteful to the house I agree.
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  Speaker 1: I own with Paley in thinking that property is the
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  Speaker 1: creature of the law, and that the law which creates
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  Speaker 1: property can be defended only on this ground that it
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  Speaker 1: is a law beneficial to mankind. But it is unnecessary
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  Speaker 1: to debate that point, for even if I believed in
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  Speaker 1: a natural right of property, independent of utility and anterior
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  Speaker 1: to legislation, I should still deny that this right could
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  Speaker 1: survive the original proprietor. Few I apprehend, even of those
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  Speaker 1: who have studied in the most mystical and sentimental schools
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  Speaker 1: of moral philosophy, will be disposed to maintain that there
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  Speaker 1: is a natural law of succession, older and of higher
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  Speaker 1: authority than any human code. If there be, it is
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  Speaker 1: quite certain that we have abuses to reform much more
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  Speaker 1: serious than any connected with the question of copyright. For
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  Speaker 1: this natural law can be only one, and the modes
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  Speaker 1: of succession in the queen's dominions are twenty to go
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  Speaker 1: no farther than England. Land generally descends to the eldest son.
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  Speaker 1: In Kent, the sons share and share alike. In many districts,
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  Speaker 1: the youngest takes the whole. Formerly, a portion of a
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  Speaker 1: man's personal property was secured to his family, and it
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  Speaker 1: was only of the residue that he could dispose by will.
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  Speaker 1: Now he can dispose of the whole by will. But
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  Speaker 1: you limited his power a few years ago by enacting
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  Speaker 1: that the will should not be valid unless there were
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  Speaker 1: two witnesses. If a man dies intestate, his personal property
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  Speaker 1: generally goes according to the Statute of distributions. But there
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  Speaker 1: are local customs which modify that statute. Now, which of
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  Speaker 1: all these systems is conformed to the eternal standard of right?
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  Speaker 1: Is it primogeniture or gavel kind or borough? English? Are wills? Jura? Divino?
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  Speaker 1: Are the two witnesses? Jurare divino? Might not the pas
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  Speaker 1: Russian arbilis of our old law have a fair claim
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  Speaker 1: to be regarded as of celestial institution. Was the Statute
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  Speaker 1: of Distributions enacted in Heaven long before it was adopted
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  Speaker 1: by Parliament? Or is it to custom of York or
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  Speaker 1: to custom of London that this pre eminence belongs. Surely, sir,
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  Speaker 1: even those who hold that there is a natural right
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  Speaker 1: of property must admit that rules prescribing the manner in
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  Speaker 1: which the effects of deceased persons shall be distributed are
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  Speaker 1: purely arbitrary and originate altogether in the will of the legislature.
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  Speaker 1: If so, sir, then there is no controversy between my
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  Speaker 1: honorable and learned friend and myself as to the principles
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  Speaker 1: on which this question is to be argued. For the
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  Speaker 1: existing law gives an author copyright during his natural life,
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  Speaker 1: nor do I propose to invade that privilege, which I should,
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  Speaker 1: on the contrary, be prepared to defend strenuously against any assailant.
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  Speaker 1: The only point in issue between us is how long
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  Speaker 1: after an author's death the state shall recognize a copyright
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  Speaker 1: in his representatives and assigns. And it can, I think,
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  Speaker 1: hardly be disputed by any rational man that this is
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  Speaker 1: a point which the legislature is free to determine in
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  Speaker 1: the way which may appear to be most conducive to
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  Speaker 1: the general good. We may, now, therefore, I think, descend
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  Speaker 1: from these high regions where we are in danger of
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  Speaker 1: being lost in the clouds, to firm ground and clear life.
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  Speaker 1: Let us look at this question like legislators, and, after
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  Speaker 1: fairly balancing conveniences and inconveniences, pronounce between the existing law
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  Speaker 1: of copyright and the law now proposed to us. The
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  Speaker 1: question of copyright, Sir, like most questions of civil prudence,
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  Speaker 1: is neither black nor white, but gray. The system of
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  Speaker 1: copyright has great advantages and great disadvantages, and it is
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  Speaker 1: our business to ascertain what these are, and then to
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  Speaker 1: make an arrangement under which the advantages may be as
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  Speaker 1: far as possible secured, and the disadvantages as far as
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  Speaker 1: possible excluded. The charge which I bring against my honorable
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  Speaker 1: and learned friend's bill is this that it leaves the
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  Speaker 1: advantages nearly what they are at present, and increases the
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  Speaker 1: disadvantages at least fourfold. The advantages arising from a system
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  Speaker 1: of copyright are obvious. It is desirable that we should
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  Speaker 1: have a supply of good books. We cannot have such
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  Speaker 1: a supply. Unless men of letters are liberally remunerated, and
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  Speaker 1: the least objectionable way of remunerating them is by means
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  Speaker 1: of copyright, you cannot depend for literary instruction and amusement
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  Speaker 1: on the leisure of men occupied in the pursuits of
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  Speaker 1: active life. Such men may occasionally produce compositions of great merit,
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  Speaker 1: but you must not look to such men for works
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  Speaker 1: which require deep meditation and long research. Works of that
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  Speaker 1: kind you can expect only from persons who make literature
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  Speaker 1: the business of their lives. Of these persons few will
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  Speaker 1: be found among the rich and the noble. The rich
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  Speaker 1: and the noble are not impelled to intellectual exertion by necessity.
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  Speaker 1: They may be impelled to intellectual exertion by the desire
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  Speaker 1: of distinguishing themselves, or by the desire of benefiting the community.
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  Speaker 1: But it is generally within these walls that they seek
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  Speaker 1: to signalize themselves and to serve their fellow creatures. Both
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  Speaker 1: their ambition and their public spirit in a country like
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  Speaker 1: this naturally take a political turn. It is then, on
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  Speaker 1: men whose profession is literature, and whose private means are
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  Speaker 1: not ample, that you must rely for a supply of
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  Speaker 1: valuable books. Such men must be remunerated for their literary labor,
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  Speaker 1: and there are only two ways in which they can
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  Speaker 1: be remunerated. One of these ways is patronage, the other
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  Speaker 1: is copyright. There have been times in which men of
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  Speaker 1: letters looked not to the public, but to the government,
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  Speaker 1: or to a few great men, for the reward of
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  Speaker 1: their exertionence. It was thus in the time of Myceenus
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  Speaker 1: and Polio at Rome, of the medici at Florence, of
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  Speaker 1: Louis the fourteenth in France, of Lord Halifax and Lord Oxford.
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  Speaker 1: In this country, now, Sir, I well know that there
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  Speaker 1: are cases in which it is fit and graceful, nay,
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  Speaker 1: in which it is a sacred duty, to reward the
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  Speaker 1: merits or to relieve the distresses of men of genius,
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  Speaker 1: by the exercise of this species of liberality. But these
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  Speaker 1: cases are exceptions. I can conceive no system more more
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  Speaker 1: fatal to the integrity and independence of literary men than
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  Speaker 1: one under which they should be taught to look for
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  Speaker 1: their daily bread to the favor of ministers and nobles.
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  Speaker 1: I can conceive no system more certain to turn those
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  Speaker 1: minds which are formed by nature to be the blessings
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  Speaker 1: and ornaments of our species into public scandals and pests.
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  Speaker 1: We have then only one resource left. We must betake
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  Speaker 1: ourselves to copyright. Be the inconveniences of copyright what they may,
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  Speaker 1: those inconveniences, in truth, are neither few nor small. Copyright
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  Speaker 1: is monopoly and produces all the effects which the general
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  Speaker 1: voice of mankind attributes to monopoly. My honorable and learned
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  Speaker 1: friend talks very contemptuously of those who are led away
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  Speaker 1: by the theory that monopoly makes things dear. That monopoly
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  Speaker 1: makes things dear is certainly a theory, as all the
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  Speaker 1: great truths which have been established by the experience of
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  Speaker 1: all ages and nations, and which are taken for granted
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  Speaker 1: in all reasonings, may be said to be theories. It
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  Speaker 1: is a theory in the same sense in which it
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  Speaker 1: is a theory that day and night follow each other,
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  Speaker 1: that lead is heavier than water, that bread nourishes, that
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  Speaker 1: arsenic poisons, that alcohol intoxicates. If, as my honorable and
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  Speaker 1: learned friends seems to think, the whole world is in
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  Speaker 1: the wrong on this point, if the real effect of
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  Speaker 1: monopoly is to make articles good and cheap, why does
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  Speaker 1: he stop short in his career of change. Why does
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  Speaker 1: he limit the operation of so salutary a principle to
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  Speaker 1: sixty years? Why does he consent to anything short of
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  Speaker 1: a perpetuity. He told us that in consenting to anything
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  Speaker 1: short of a perpetuity, he was making a compromise between
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  Speaker 1: extreme right and expediency. But if his opinion about monopoly
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  Speaker 1: be correct, extreme right and expediency would coincide. Or rather,
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  Speaker 1: why should we not restore the monopoly of the East
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  Speaker 1: India trade to the East India Company? Why should we
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  Speaker 1: not revive all those old monopolies which, in Elizabeth's rein
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  Speaker 1: galled our fathers so severely that, maddened by intolerable wrong,
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  Speaker 1: they opposed to their sovereign a resistance before which her
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  Speaker 1: haughty spirit quailed for the first and for the last time.
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  Speaker 1: Was it the cheapness and excellence of commodities that then
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  Speaker 1: so violently stirred the indignation of the English people? I believe, sir,
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  Speaker 1: that I may, with safety, take it for granted that
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  Speaker 1: the effect of monopoly generally is to make articles scarce,
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  Speaker 1: to make them dear, and to make them bad. And
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  Speaker 1: I may, with equal safety, challenge my honorable friend to
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  Speaker 1: find out any distinction between copyright and other privileges of
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  Speaker 1: the same kind, any reason why a monopoly of books
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  Speaker 1: should produce an effect directly the reverse of that which
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  Speaker 1: was produced by the East India Company's monopoly of tea
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  Speaker 1: or by Lord Essex's monopoly of sweet wines. Thus then
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  Speaker 1: stands the case. It is good that authors should be remunerated,
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  Speaker 1: and the least exceptionable way of remunerating them is by
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  Speaker 1: a monopoly. Yet monopoly as an evil. For the sake
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  Speaker 1: of the good, we must submit to the evil. But
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  Speaker 1: the evil ought not to last a day longer than
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  Speaker 1: is necessary for the purpose of securing the good. Now,
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  Speaker 1: I will not affirm that the existing law is perfect,
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  Speaker 1: that it exactly hits the point at which the monopoly
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  Speaker 1: ought to cease. But this I confidently say that the
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  Speaker 1: existing law is very much nearer that point than the
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  Speaker 1: law proposed by my honorable and learned friend. For consider this,
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  Speaker 1: the evil effects of the monopoly are proportioned to the
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  Speaker 1: length of its duration, But the good effects, for the
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  Speaker 1: sake of which we bear with the evil effects, are
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  Speaker 1: by no means proportioned to the length of its duration.
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  Speaker 1: A monopoly of sixty years produces twice as much evil
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  Speaker 1: as a monopoly of thirty years, and thrice as much
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  Speaker 1: evil as a monopoly of twenty years. But it is
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  Speaker 1: by no means the fact that a posthumous monopoly of
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  Speaker 1: sixty years gives to an author thrice as much pleasure
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  Speaker 1: and thrice as strong a motive as a posthumous monopoly
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  Speaker 1: of twenty years. On the contrary, the difference is so
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  Speaker 1: small as to be hardly perceptible. We all know how
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  Speaker 1: faintly we are affected by the prospect of very distant advantages,
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  Speaker 1: even when they are advantages which we may reasonably hope
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  Speaker 1: that we shall ourselves enjoy. But an advantage that is
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  Speaker 1: to be enjoyed more than half a century after we
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  Speaker 1: are dead by somebody we know not by whom, perhaps
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  Speaker 1: by somebody unborn, by somebody utterly unconnected with us, is
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  Speaker 1: really no motive at all to action. It is very
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  Speaker 1: probable that, in the course of some generations, land in
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  Speaker 1: the unexplored and unmapped heart of the Australasian continent will
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  Speaker 1: be very valuable. But there is none of us who
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  Speaker 1: would lay down five pounds for a whole province in
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  Speaker 1: the heart of the Australasian continent. We know that neither
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  Speaker 1: we nor anybody for whom we care, will ever receive
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  Speaker 1: a farthing of rent from such a province. And a
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  Speaker 1: man is very little moved by the thought that in
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  Speaker 1: the year twenty hundred or twenty one hundred, somebody who
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  Speaker 1: claims through him will employ more shepherds than Princess de Harzie,
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  Speaker 1: and will have the finest house and gallery of pictures
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  Speaker 1: at Victoria or Sydney. Now, this is the sort of
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  Speaker 1: boon which my honorable and learned friend holds out to authors.
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  Speaker 1: Considered as a boon to them, it is a mere nullity,
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  Speaker 1: but considered as an impost on the public. It is
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  Speaker 1: no nullity, but a very serious and pernicious reality. I
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  Speaker 1: will take an example. Doctor Johnson died fifty six years ago.
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  Speaker 1: If the law were what my honorable and learned friend
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  Speaker 1: wishes to make it, somebody would now have the monopoly
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  Speaker 1: on doctor Johnson's works. Who that somebody would be It
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  Speaker 1: is impossible to say, but we may venture to guess.
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  Speaker 1: I guess then that it would have been some bookseller
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  Speaker 1: who was the a sign of another bookseller who was
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  Speaker 1: the grandson of a third bookseller. Who had bought the
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  Speaker 1: copyright from Black Frank, the doctor's servant and residuary legatee,
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  Speaker 1: in seventeen eighty five or seventeen eighty six. Now would
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  Speaker 1: the knowledge that this copyright would exist in eighteen forty
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  Speaker 1: one have been a source of gratification to Johnson? Would
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  Speaker 1: it have stimulated his exertions? Would it have once drawn
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  Speaker 1: him out of his bed before noon? Would it have
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  Speaker 1: once cheered him under a fit of the spleen? Would
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  Speaker 1: it have induced him to give us one more allegory,
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  Speaker 1: one more life of a poet, one more imitation of juvenile?
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  Speaker 1: I firmly believe not. I firmly believe that a hundred
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  Speaker 1: years ago, when he was writing our debates for the
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  Speaker 1: Gentleman's Magazine, he would very much rather have had tuppence
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  Speaker 1: to buy a plate of shin of beef at a
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  Speaker 1: cook shop underground. Considered as a reward to him, The
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  Speaker 1: difference between a twenty years and sixty years term of
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  Speaker 1: posthumous copyright would have been nothing or next to nothing.
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  Speaker 1: But is the difference nothing to us? I can buy
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  Speaker 1: rasselas for sixpence I might have had to give five
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  Speaker 1: shillings for it. I can buy the Dictionary, the entire
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  Speaker 1: genuine dictionary, for two guineas, perhaps for less I might
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  Speaker 1: have had to give five or six guineas for it.
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  Speaker 1: Do I grudge this to a man like doctor Johnson?
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  Speaker 1: Not at all? Show me that the prospect of this
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  Speaker 1: boon roused him to any vigorous effort, or sustained his
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  Speaker 1: spirits under distressing circumstances. And I am quite willing to
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  Speaker 1: pay the price of such an object, heavy as that
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  Speaker 1: price is. But what I do complain of is that
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  Speaker 1: my circumstances are to be worse, and Johnson's none the
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  Speaker 1: better that I am to give five pounds for what
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  Speaker 1: to him was not worth a farthing. The principle of
• 16:51
  Speaker 1: copyrights this It is a tax on readers for the
• 16:54
  Speaker 1: purpose of giving a bounty to writers. The tax is
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  Speaker 1: an exceedingly bad one. It is a tax on one
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  Speaker 1: of the most innocent and most salutary of human pleasures.
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  Speaker 1: And never let us forget that a tax on innocent
• 17:06
  Speaker 1: pleasures is a premium on vicious pleasures. I admit, however,
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  Speaker 1: the necessity of giving a bounty to genius and learning.
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  Speaker 1: In order to give such a bounty, I willingly submit
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  Speaker 1: even to this severe and burdensome tax. Nay, I am
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  Speaker 1: ready to increase the tax if it can be shown
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  Speaker 1: that by so doing I should proportionally increase the bounty.
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  Speaker 1: My complaint is that my honorable and learned friend doubles, triples,
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  Speaker 1: quadruples the tax, and makes scarcely any perceptible addition to
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  Speaker 1: the bounty. Why, sir, what is the additional amount of
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  Speaker 1: taxation which would have been levied on the public for
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  Speaker 1: doctor Johnson's works alone, if my honorable and learned Friend's
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: bill had been the law of the land. I have
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  Speaker 1: not dated sufficient to form an opinion, but I am
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  Speaker 1: confident that the taxation on his dictionary alone would have
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  Speaker 1: amounted to many thousands of pounds in reckoning the whole
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  Speaker 1: additional sum which the holders of his copyrights would have
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  Speaker 1: taken out of the pockets of the public during the
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  Speaker 1: last half century. At twenty thousand pounds, I feel satisfied
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  Speaker 1: that I very greatly underrate it. Now I again say
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  Speaker 1: that I think it but fair that we should pay
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  Speaker 1: twenty thousand pounds in consideration of twenty thousand pounds worth
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  Speaker 1: of pleasure and encouragement received by doctor Johnson. But I
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  Speaker 1: think it very hard that we should pay twenty thousand
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  Speaker 1: pounds for what he would not have valued at five
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  Speaker 1: shillings milnorable and learned friend dwells on the claims of
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  Speaker 1: the posterity of great writers. Undoubtedly, sir, it would be
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  Speaker 1: very pleasing to see a descendant of Shakespeare living in
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  Speaker 1: opulence on the fruits of his great ancestors genius. A
• 18:45
  Speaker 1: house maintained in splendor by such a patrimony would be
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  Speaker 1: a more interesting and striking object than Blenheim is to us,
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  Speaker 1: or than Strathfield, say, will be to our children. But unhappily,
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  Speaker 1: it is scarcely possible that under any such a thing
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  Speaker 1: can come to pass. My honorable and learned friend does
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  Speaker 1: not propose that copyright shall descend to the eldest son,
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  Speaker 1: or shall be bound up by irrecoverable entail. It is
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  Speaker 1: to be merely personal property. It is therefore highly improbable
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  Speaker 1: that it will descend, during sixty years or half that term,
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  Speaker 1: from parent to child. The chance is that more people
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  Speaker 1: than one will have an interest in it. They will,
• 19:24
  Speaker 1: in all probabilities sell it and divide the proceeds. The
• 19:27
  Speaker 1: price which a bookseller will give for it will bear
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: no proportion to the sum which he will afterwards draw
• 19:33
  Speaker 1: from the public. If his speculation proves successful, he will
• 19:37
  Speaker 1: give little, if anything, more for a term of sixty
• 19:39
  Speaker 1: years than for a term of thirty or five and twenty.
• 19:43
  Speaker 1: The present value of a distant advantage is always small,
• 19:47
  Speaker 1: But when there is great room to doubt whether a
• 19:49
  Speaker 1: distant advantage will be any advantage at all, the present
• 19:53
  Speaker 1: value sinks to almost nothing. Such is the inconstancy of
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: the public taste that no sensible man will venture to
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: pronounce with confidence what the sale of any book published
• 20:03
  Speaker 1: in oura days will be in the years between eighteen
• 20:05
  Speaker 1: ninety and nineteen hundred. The whole fashion of thinking and
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: writing has often undergone a change in a much shorter
• 20:12
  Speaker 1: period than that to which my honorable and learned friend
• 20:15
  Speaker 1: would extend posthumous copyright. What would have been considered the
• 20:19
  Speaker 1: best literary property in the earlier part of Charles the
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: Second's reign. I imagine Cowley's poems overleap sixty years, and
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: you are in the generation of which Pope asked, who
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: now reads Cowley? What works were ever expected with more
• 20:35
  Speaker 1: impatience by the public than those of Lord Bollingbrook, which
• 20:38
  Speaker 1: appeared I think in seventeen fifty four, in eighteen fourteen,
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: no bookseller would have thanked you for the copyright of
• 20:45
  Speaker 1: them all if you had offered it to him for nothing.
• 20:48
  Speaker 1: What would passer noster rowe give now for the copyright
• 20:51
  Speaker 1: of Hayley's Triumphs of Temper, so much admired within the
• 20:55
  Speaker 1: memory of many people still living. I say therefore, that
• 20:59
  Speaker 1: from the very nature of literary property, it will almost
• 21:02
  Speaker 1: always pass away from an author's family. And I say
• 21:06
  Speaker 1: that the price given for it to the family will
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: bear a very small proportion to the tax which the purchaser,
• 21:12
  Speaker 1: if his speculation turns out well, will in the course
• 21:15
  Speaker 1: of a long series of years, levy on the public.
• 21:19
  Speaker 1: If Sir, I wished to find a strong and perfect
• 21:22
  Speaker 1: illustration of the effects which I anticipate from long copyright,
• 21:27
  Speaker 1: I should select. My honorable and learned friend will be surprised.
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: I should select the case of Milton's granddaughter. As often
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: as this bill has been under discussion, the fate of
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: Milton's granddaughter has been brought forward by the advocates of monopoly.
• 21:43
  Speaker 1: My honorable and learned friend has repeatedly told the story
• 21:46
  Speaker 1: with great eloquence and effect. He has dilated on the sufferings,
• 21:50
  Speaker 1: on the abject poverty of this ill fated woman, the
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: last of an illustrious race. He tells us that in
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: the extremity of her distress, Garrick gave her a benefit,
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: that Johnson wrote a prologue, and that the public contributed
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: some hundreds of pounds. Was it fit, he asks, that
• 22:08
  Speaker 1: she should receive, in this laamasonary form, a small portion
• 22:12
  Speaker 1: of what was, in truth a debt. Why, he asks,
• 22:16
  Speaker 1: instead of obtaining a pittance from charity? Did she not
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: live in comfort and luxury on the proceeds of the
• 22:22
  Speaker 1: sale of her ancestors works. But sir, will, my honorable
• 22:27
  Speaker 1: and learned friend, tell me that this event, which he
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: has so often and so pathetically described, was caused by
• 22:33
  Speaker 1: the shortness of the term of copyright. Why at that
• 22:37
  Speaker 1: time the duration of copyright was longer than even he
• 22:40
  Speaker 1: at present proposes to make it. The monopoly lasted not
• 22:44
  Speaker 1: sixty years but forever. At the time at which Milton's
• 22:49
  Speaker 1: granddaughter asked charity, Milton's works were the exclusive property of
• 22:54
  Speaker 1: a bookseller. Within a few months of the day on
• 22:57
  Speaker 1: which the benefit was given. At Garrick's theater the whole
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: of the copyright of Paradise Lost. I think it was
• 23:02
  Speaker 1: Thomson applied to the Court of Chancery for an injunction
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: against a bookseller who had published a cheap edition of
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: the great epic poem, and obtain the injunction. The representation
• 23:13
  Speaker 1: of Comus was, if I remember rightly, in seventeen fifty
• 23:17
  Speaker 1: the injunction in seventeen fifty two. Here, then, is a
• 23:20
  Speaker 1: perfect illustration of the effect of long copyright. Milton's works
• 23:24
  Speaker 1: are the property of a single publisher. Everybody who wants
• 23:28
  Speaker 1: them must buy them at Thomson's shop, and at Thomson's price.
• 23:31
  Speaker 1: Whoever attempts to undersell Thomson is harassed with legal proceedings.
• 23:36
  Speaker 1: Thousands who would gladly possess a copy of Paradise Lost
• 23:39
  Speaker 1: must forego that great enjoyment. And what, in the meantime
• 23:43
  Speaker 1: is the situation of the only person for whom we
• 23:45
  Speaker 1: can suppose that the author, protected at such a cost
• 23:48
  Speaker 1: to the public, was at all interested. She is reduced
• 23:52
  Speaker 1: to utter destitution. Milton's works are under a monopoly. Milton's
• 23:58
  Speaker 1: granddaughter is starving, the reader is pillaged, but the writer's
• 24:02
  Speaker 1: family is not enriched. Society is taxed doubly. It has
• 24:07
  Speaker 1: to give an exorbitant prize for the poems, and it
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: has at the same time to give alms to the
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: only surviving descendant of the poet. But this is not
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: all I think. It writes, Sir, to call the attention
• 24:20
  Speaker 1: of the house to an evil which is perhaps more
• 24:22
  Speaker 1: to be apprehended when an author's copyright remains in the
• 24:25
  Speaker 1: hands of his family than when it is transferred to booksellers.
• 24:29
  Speaker 1: I seriously fear that if such a measure as this
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: should be adopted, many valuable works will be either totally
• 24:36
  Speaker 1: suppressed or grievously mutilated. I can prove that this danger
• 24:40
  Speaker 1: is not chimerical, and I am quite certain that if
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: the danger be real, the safeguards which my honorable and
• 24:47
  Speaker 1: learned friend has advised are altogether newgutery. That the danger
• 24:52
  Speaker 1: is not chimerical may easily be shown. Most of us,
• 24:56
  Speaker 1: I am sure, have known persons who, very erroneously, as
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: I think, but from the best motives, would not choose
• 25:03
  Speaker 1: to reprint Fielding's novels or Gibbon's History of the Decline
• 25:07
  Speaker 1: and Fall of the Roman Empire. Some gentlemen may perhaps
• 25:10
  Speaker 1: be of the opinion that it would be as well
• 25:12
  Speaker 1: if Tom Jones or Gibbon's history were never reprinted. I
• 25:16
  Speaker 1: will not then dwell on these or similar cases. I
• 25:19
  Speaker 1: will take cases respecting which it is not likely that
• 25:22
  Speaker 1: there will be any difference of opinion. Here, cases too,
• 25:25
  Speaker 1: in which the danger of which I now speak is
• 25:28
  Speaker 1: not matter of supposition, but matter of fact. Take Richardson's novels.
• 25:35
  Speaker 1: Whatever I may, on the present occasion think of my
• 25:38
  Speaker 1: honorable and learned friend's judgment as a legislator, I must
• 25:42
  Speaker 1: always respect his judgment as a critic. He will, I
• 25:46
  Speaker 1: am sure, say that Richardson's novels are among the most valuable,
• 25:49
  Speaker 1: among the most original works in our language. No writings
• 25:53
  Speaker 1: have done more to raise the fame of English genius
• 25:56
  Speaker 1: in foreign countries. No writings are more deeply pathetic. No
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: writings those of Shakespeare accepted, show more profound knowledge of
• 26:05
  Speaker 1: the human heart. As to their moral tendency, I can
• 26:09
  Speaker 1: cite the most respectable testimony Doctor Johnson describes Richardson as
• 26:14
  Speaker 1: one who had taught the passions to move at the
• 26:16
  Speaker 1: command of virtue. My dear and honor treend mister Wilberforce,
• 26:21
  Speaker 1: in his celebrated religious Treaties, when speaking of the unchristian
• 26:25
  Speaker 1: tendency of the fashionable novels of the eighteenth century, distinctly
• 26:29
  Speaker 1: accepts Richardson from the censure. Another excellent person whom I
• 26:34
  Speaker 1: can never mention without respect and kindness, Missus Hannah Moore
• 26:38
  Speaker 1: often declared in conversation, and has declared in one of
• 26:41
  Speaker 1: her published poems, that she first learned from the writings
• 26:45
  Speaker 1: of Richardson those principles of piety by which her life
• 26:48
  Speaker 1: was guided. I may safely say that books celebrated as
• 26:53
  Speaker 1: works of art through the whole civilized world, and praised
• 26:56
  Speaker 1: for their moral tendency by doctor Johnson, by mister Willie,
• 27:00
  Speaker 1: by Missus Hannah Moore, ought not to be suppressed. Sir.
• 27:06
  Speaker 1: It is my firm belief that if the law had
• 27:08
  Speaker 1: been what my honorable and learned friend proposes to make it,
• 27:12
  Speaker 1: they would have been suppressed. I remember Richardson's grandson well.
• 27:17
  Speaker 1: He was a clergyman in the city of London. He
• 27:20
  Speaker 1: was a most upright and excellent man, but he had
• 27:23
  Speaker 1: conceived a strong prejudice against works of fiction. He thought
• 27:27
  Speaker 1: all novel reading, not only frivolous but sinful. He said this,
• 27:32
  Speaker 1: I state, on the authority of one of his clerical brethren,
• 27:35
  Speaker 1: who is now a bishop. He said that he had
• 27:37
  Speaker 1: never thought it right to read one of his grandfather's books. Suppose, sir,
• 27:42
  Speaker 1: that the law had been what my honorable and learned
• 27:44
  Speaker 1: friend would make it. Suppose that the copyright of Richardson's
• 27:48
  Speaker 1: novels had descended as well might have been the case
• 27:52
  Speaker 1: to this gentleman, I firmly believe that he would have
• 27:56
  Speaker 1: thought it sinful to give them a wide circulation. I
• 27:59
  Speaker 1: firmly believe that he would not, for a hundred thousand
• 28:02
  Speaker 1: pounds have deliberately done what he thought sinful. He would
• 28:06
  Speaker 1: not have reprinted them. And what protection does my honorable
• 28:10
  Speaker 1: and learned friend give to the public in such a case? Why, sir?
• 28:14
  Speaker 1: What he proposes is this, If a book is not
• 28:17
  Speaker 1: reprinted during five years, any person who wishes to reprint
• 28:21
  Speaker 1: it may give notice in the London Gazette. The advertisement
• 28:25
  Speaker 1: must be repeated three times a year must elapse, and
• 28:29
  Speaker 1: then if the proprietor of the copyright does not put
• 28:31
  Speaker 1: forth a new edition, he loses his exclusive privilege. Now,
• 28:37
  Speaker 1: what protection is this to the public. What is a
• 28:41
  Speaker 1: new edition? Does the law define the number of copies
• 28:44
  Speaker 1: that make an edition? Does it limit the price of
• 28:47
  Speaker 1: a copy? Are twelve copies on large paper charged at
• 28:51
  Speaker 1: thirty guineas each an edition? It has been usual, when
• 28:55
  Speaker 1: monopolies have been granted, to prescribe numbers and to limit prices.
• 29:00
  Speaker 1: But I did not find that my honorable and learned
• 29:02
  Speaker 1: friend proposes to do so in the present case. And
• 29:05
  Speaker 1: without some such provision, the security which he offers is
• 29:09
  Speaker 1: manifestly illusory. It is my conviction that under such a
• 29:14
  Speaker 1: system as that which he recommends to us, a copy
• 29:17
  Speaker 1: of Clarissa would have been as rare as an oldest
• 29:19
  Speaker 1: or a caxton. I will give another instance. One of
• 29:24
  Speaker 1: the most instructive, interesting and delightful books in our language
• 29:28
  Speaker 1: is Boswell's Life of Johnson. Now it is well known
• 29:32
  Speaker 1: that Boswell's eldest son considered this book, considered the whole
• 29:36
  Speaker 1: relation of Boswell to Johnson as a blot in the
• 29:39
  Speaker 1: escutcheon of the family. He thought, not, perhaps altogether without reason,
• 29:44
  Speaker 1: that his father had exhibited himself in a ludicrous and
• 29:47
  Speaker 1: degrading light, and thus he became so sore and irritable
• 29:52
  Speaker 1: that at last he could not bear to hear the
• 29:54
  Speaker 1: Life of Johnson mentioned. Suppose that the law had been
• 29:57
  Speaker 1: what my honorable and learned friend wishes to make it.
• 30:00
  Speaker 1: Suppose that the copyright of Boswell's Life of Johnson had belonged,
• 30:04
  Speaker 1: as it well might during sixty years to Boswellt's eldest son.
• 30:09
  Speaker 1: What would have been the consequence An unadulterated copy of
• 30:13
  Speaker 1: the finest biographical work in the world would have been
• 30:16
  Speaker 1: of scarce as the first edition of Camden's pretense. These
• 30:21
  Speaker 1: are strong cases. I have shown you that if the
• 30:24
  Speaker 1: law had been what you are now going to make it,
• 30:26
  Speaker 1: the finest prose work of fiction in the language, the
• 30:29
  Speaker 1: finest biographical work in the language, would very probably have
• 30:33
  Speaker 1: been suppressed. But I have stated my case weakly. The
• 30:39
  Speaker 1: books which I have mentioned are singularly in offensive books,
• 30:43
  Speaker 1: books not touching on any of those questions which drive
• 30:46
  Speaker 1: even wise men beyond the bounds of wisdom. There are
• 30:50
  Speaker 1: books of a very different kind, books which are the
• 30:52
  Speaker 1: rallying points of great political and religious parties. What is
• 30:57
  Speaker 1: likely to happen if the copyright of one of these
• 30:59
  Speaker 1: books should, by descent or transfer, come into the possession
• 31:02
  Speaker 1: of some hostile zealot. I will take a single instance.
• 31:07
  Speaker 1: It is only fifty years since John Wesley died, and
• 31:11
  Speaker 1: all his works, if the law had been what my
• 31:13
  Speaker 1: honorable and learned friend wishes to make, it would now
• 31:16
  Speaker 1: have been the property of some person or other. The
• 31:20
  Speaker 1: sect founded by Wesley is the most numerous, the wealthiest,
• 31:23
  Speaker 1: the most powerful, the most zealous of sects. In every
• 31:28
  Speaker 1: parliamentary election, it is a matter of the greatest importance
• 31:31
  Speaker 1: to obtain the support of the Wesleyan Methodists. Their numerical
• 31:35
  Speaker 1: strength is reckoned by hundreds of thousands. They hold the
• 31:39
  Speaker 1: memory of their founder in the greatest reverence, and not
• 31:42
  Speaker 1: without reason, for he was unquestionably a great and a
• 31:45
  Speaker 1: good man. To his authority they constantly appeal. His works are,
• 31:51
  Speaker 1: in their eyes, of the highest value. His doctrinal writings
• 31:54
  Speaker 1: they regard as containing the best system of theology ever
• 31:57
  Speaker 1: deduced from scripture. His de journals, interesting even to the
• 32:01
  Speaker 1: common reader, are peculiarly interesting to the Methodist, for they
• 32:05
  Speaker 1: contain the whole history of that singular polity, which weak
• 32:09
  Speaker 1: and despised in its beginning, is now, after the lapse
• 32:13
  Speaker 1: of a century, so strong, so flourishing, and so formidable.
• 32:18
  Speaker 1: The hymns to which he gave his imprimata are a
• 32:21
  Speaker 1: most important part of the public worship of his followers.
• 32:25
  Speaker 1: Now suppose that the copyright of these works should belong
• 32:29
  Speaker 1: to some person who holds the memory of Wesley and
• 32:32
  Speaker 1: the doctrines and discipline of the Methodists in abhorrence. There
• 32:36
  Speaker 1: are many such persons. The ecclesiastical courts are at this
• 32:40
  Speaker 1: very time sitting on the case of a clergyman of
• 32:43
  Speaker 1: the established Church who refused Christian burial to a child
• 32:47
  Speaker 1: baptized by a Methodist preacher. I took up the other
• 32:51
  Speaker 1: day a work which is considered as among the most
• 32:53
  Speaker 1: respectable organs of a large and growing party in the
• 32:57
  Speaker 1: Church of England, and there I saw John Wesley designated
• 33:00
  Speaker 1: as a forsworn priest. Suppose that the works of Wesley
• 33:05
  Speaker 1: were suppressed, Why, Sir, such a grievance would be enough
• 33:09
  Speaker 1: to shake the foundations of government. Let gentlemen who are
• 33:13
  Speaker 1: attached to the church reflect for a moment what their
• 33:15
  Speaker 1: feelings would be if the Book of Common Prayer were
• 33:18
  Speaker 1: not to be reprinted for thirty or forty years. If
• 33:20
  Speaker 1: the price of a book of Common Prayer were run
• 33:23
  Speaker 1: up to five or ten guineas, and then let them
• 33:26
  Speaker 1: determine whether they will pass a law under which it
• 33:29
  Speaker 1: is possible, under which it is probable that so intolerable
• 33:33
  Speaker 1: a wrong may be done to some sect consisting perhaps
• 33:37
  Speaker 1: of half a million of persons. I am so sensible, sir,
• 33:41
  Speaker 1: of the kindness with which the house has listened to me,
• 33:44
  Speaker 1: that I will not detain you longer. I will only
• 33:47
  Speaker 1: say this that if the measure before us should pass,
• 33:50
  Speaker 1: and should produce one tenth part of the evil which
• 33:53
  Speaker 1: it is calculated to produce, and which I fully expect
• 33:56
  Speaker 1: it to produce, there will soon be a remedy, though
• 34:00
  Speaker 1: of a very objectionable kind. Just as the absurd acts
• 34:04
  Speaker 1: which prohibited the sale of game were virtually repealed by
• 34:07
  Speaker 1: the poacher, just as many absurd revenue acts have been
• 34:11
  Speaker 1: virtually repealed by the smuggler, so will this law be
• 34:15
  Speaker 1: virtually repealed by piratical booksellers. At present, the holder of
• 34:20
  Speaker 1: copyright has the public feeling on his side. Those who
• 34:24
  Speaker 1: invade copyright are regarded as knaves who take the bread
• 34:28
  Speaker 1: out of the mouths of deserving men. Everybody is well
• 34:31
  Speaker 1: pleased to see them restrained by the law and compelled
• 34:34
  Speaker 1: to refund their ill gotten gains. No tradesmen of good
• 34:37
  Speaker 1: repute will have anything to do with such disgraceful transactions.
• 34:42
  Speaker 1: Pass this law, and that feeling is at an end.
• 34:45
  Speaker 1: Men very different from the present race of piratical booksellers
• 34:49
  Speaker 1: will soon infringe this intolerable monopoly. Great masses of capital
• 34:54
  Speaker 1: will be constantly employed in the violation of the law,
• 34:57
  Speaker 1: Every art will be employed to evade legal pursuit, and
• 35:01
  Speaker 1: the whole nation will be in the plot on which side, indeed,
• 35:05
  Speaker 1: should the public sympathy be when the question is whether
• 35:09
  Speaker 1: some book as popular as Robinson Crusoe or The Pilgrim's
• 35:12
  Speaker 1: Progress shall be in every cottage, or whether it shall
• 35:15
  Speaker 1: be confined to the libraries of the rich for the
• 35:18
  Speaker 1: advantage of the great grandson of a bookseller who one
• 35:21
  Speaker 1: hundred years before drove a hard bargain for the copyright
• 35:23
  Speaker 1: with the author when in great distress. Remember too, that
• 35:28
  Speaker 1: when once it ceases to be considered as wrong and
• 35:31
  Speaker 1: discreditable to invade literary property, no person can say where
• 35:35
  Speaker 1: the invasion will stop. The public seldom makes nice distinctions.
• 35:41
  Speaker 1: The wholesome copyright which now exists will share in the
• 35:44
  Speaker 1: disgrace and danger of the new copyright which you are
• 35:47
  Speaker 1: about to create. And you will find that, in attempting
• 35:51
  Speaker 1: to impose unreasonable restraints on the reprinting of the works
• 35:54
  Speaker 1: of the dead, you have, to a great extent annulled
• 35:57
  Speaker 1: those restraints which now prevent men from pillaging and defrauding
• 36:01
  Speaker 1: the living. If I saw, Sir, any probability that this
• 36:05
  Speaker 1: bill could be so amended in the Committee that my
• 36:07
  Speaker 1: objections might be removed, I would not divide the House
• 36:11
  Speaker 1: in this stage. But I am so fully convinced that
• 36:15
  Speaker 1: no alteration which would not seem insupportable to my honorable
• 36:18
  Speaker 1: and learned friend could render his measure supportable to me,
• 36:22
  Speaker 1: that I must move though with regret, that this bill
• 36:26
  Speaker 1: be read a second time this day, six months End
• 36:32
  Speaker 1: of speech.