s the result of no bargaining; it was a straight
concession to British authors, to secure which the Imperial authorities
conceded nothing. The United States by the Chace Bill conceded to British
subjects privileges substantially equal to those conceded to its own
citizens. The provisions of the Chace Bill are also in force with
Germany, France, Switzerland, Belgium, Italy, Denmark, Portugal, Spain,
Mexico, Netherlands (Holland), Chile, and Costa Rica.

The Chace Bill was the result of a struggle extending over fifty-three
years to secure the recognition in the United States of International
Copyright,--a struggle of authors supported by the most eminent American
publishers and journalists, having in view the relief of the publishing
and all kindred trades from the blight of piracy, and the removal of the
stigma which had rested on the American literary and publishing world.
Prominent in the agitation which terminated in the Chace Bill was the
American Copyright League, which included among its members the authors of
the United States, and was presided over by such men as James Russell
Lowell, Stedman, and Eggleston. The League in a noble letter published in
1887 appealed to all good citizens for justice to foreign authors, upon
the ground that they were entitled to receive from those who read and
benefitted by their books, the same fair payment one would expect to make
on any other article, such as clothes or pictures bought from foreign
producers. The League appealed for the widening of the circulation of the
best new literature, home and international, on the ground of the
lessening of the price which would ensue, in the case of original American
books, from distributing the first cost among the greater number of copies
for which sale would be secured among American readers, if the market were
not flooded by pirated reprints of poor English novels; and in the case of
books of international importance, whether from American, English, or
Continental writers, from giving a basis of law to business arrangements
for sharing the expense of production among the several nations
interested.

A recent report to the United States Senate on the effect of the passage
of the Chace Bill sets forth that the great preponderance of opinion
amongst publishers, book manufacturers, and large printing establishments,
supports the change. The condition of the book trade in the United States
prior to the passage of the Chace Bill in 1891 was