ould suppose that it could probably be handled to best advantage
by the Senate in the shape of a treaty.

It is due to American publishers to explain that, in the absence of an
international copyright, there has grown up among them a custom of
making payments to foreign authors which has become, especially during
the last twenty-five years, a matter of very considerable importance.
Some of the English authors who testified before the British
Commission stated that the payments from the United States for their
books exceeded their receipts in Great Britain. These payments secure
of course to the American publisher no title of any kind to the books.
In some cases they obtain for him the use of advance sheets by means
of which he is able to get his edition printed a week or two in
advance of any unauthorized edition that might be prepared. In many
cases however, payments have been made some time after the publication
of the works, and when there was no longer even the slight advantage
of "advance sheets" to be gained from them.

While the authorization of the English author can convey no title or
means of defence against the interference of rival editions, the
leading publishing houses have, with very inconsiderable exceptions,
respected each others' arrangements with foreign authors, and the
editions announced as published "by arrangement with the author," and
on which payments in lieu of copyright have been duly made, have been
as a rule not interfered with. This understanding among the publishers
goes by the name of "the courtesy of the trade." I think it is safe to
say that it is to-day the exception for an English work of any value
to be published by any reputable house without a fair and often a very
liberal recognition being made of the rights (in equity) of the
author.

In view of the considerable amount of harsh language that has been
expended in England upon our American publishing houses, and the
opinion prevailing in England that the wrong in reprinting is entirely
one-sided, it is in order here to make the claim, which can, I
believe, be fully substantiated, that in respect to the recognition of
the rights of authors unprotected by law, their record has during the
past twenty-five years been in fact better than that of their English
brethren. They have become fully aroused in England to the fact that
American literary material has value and availability, and each year a
larger amount of this material has ha