30 MAY 1874, Page 3

We are glad to see that the new Canadian Government

has intimated its intention of pressing the Imperial Government for a solution of the question of Colonial Copyright, and it will be an excellent exercise for the dialectic and diplomatic faculties of Mr. Jenkins, who again announces his appointment as Canadian Agent-General this week, if he will condescend to master the series of admirable arguments, in which Sir John Rose pressed the case of the Colonies on the late Government, and if possible, which we rather doubt, better them, or at all events, press them home. The Canadian offer is, it seems to us, considering all the difficulties of the case, an eminently fair one. It proposes, as we understand, to give what amounts to a royalty on the sale of the book secured by a stamp affixed by the State, and to forbid, under penalties, the sale of any book not bearing the stamp, except of course the original British edition. By this means, American pirated editions, which now flood the Canadian market, would be excluded from public sale, which is a practical impossibility at present, considering the ordinary difference of cost between the London and New York or Boston editions, and the fact that our colonists will read English books, but will not pay English prices for them. A colonial edition, published at about the rate of an ordinary cheap edition here (say a dollar, instead of a guinea and a half), would secure the colonial market to the author, and would probably occupy the American market as well.