than offset by their
unsatisfactoriness: they would, in the majority of cases, be
untrustworthy as to accuracy or completeness, and be hastily and
flimsily manufactured. A great many enterprises, also, desirable in
themselves, and that would be of service to the public, no publisher
could, under such an arrangement, afford to undertake at all, as, if
they proved successful, unscrupulous neighbors would, through rival
editions, reap the benefit of his judgment and his advertising. In
fact, the business of reprinting would fall largely into the hands of
irresponsible parties, from whom no copyright could be collected.

The arguments against a measure of this kind are, in short, the
arguments in favor of international copyright. A very conclusive
statement of the case against the equity or desirability from any
point of view of such an arrangement in regard to home copyright was
made before the British Commission, in 1877, by Herbert Spencer. His
testimony is given in full in the _Popular Science Monthly_ for
November, 1878, and February, 1879.

The recommendation had been made that, for the sake of securing cheap
books for the people, the law should give to all dealers the privilege
of printing an author's books, and should fix a copyright to be paid
to the author that should secure him a "fair profit for his work." Mr.
Spencer objected that--

First. This would be a direct interference with the laws of trade,
under which the author had the right to make his own bargains. Second.
No legislature was competent to determine what was "a fair rate of
profit" for an author. Third. No average royalty could be determined
which could give a fair recompense for the different amounts and kinds
of labor given to the production of different classes of books.
Fourth. If the legislature has the right to fix the profits of the
author, it has an equal right to determine that of his associate in
the publication, the publisher; and if of the publisher, then also of
the printer, binder, and paper-maker, who all have an interest in the
undertaking. Such a right of control would apply with equal force to
manufacturers of other articles of importance to the community, and
would not be in accordance with the present theories of the proper
functions of government. Fifth. If books are to be cheapened by such a
measure, it must be at the expense of some portion of the profits now
going to the authors and publishers; the assumption is that book