31 MARCH 1838, Page 14

SALE OF ENGLISH WORKS ABROAD.

AUTHORITY is to be given to Mr. POULETT THOMSON IO negoti- ate with Foreign Governments for the establishment of inter- national copyright. Such, we understand, is the scope of the bill on this subject introduced into the House of Commons by the President of' the Board of Trade, but not printed. Why the sanc- tion of Parliament should be required for the negotiation, is not -very intelligible. Without such sanction the most important tree- ties may be concluded. The bill, therefore, as described 17, author, was unnecessary ; and the simple announcement, cold it have been truly made, that negotiations were in progress, whom success depended upon England's taking the lead, would have been more satisfactory than the introduction of a bill, which egg very probably be a dead letter. Motives to reciprocity in the trade are wanting. European and American authors would gladly be protected float the inundation of English works; but how is that object Io be gained by an arrangement which is intended to open a pretty.

able market for English authors abroad ? The American pih. lisher would have to pay for his copyright; but the guarantee thereby afforded him against piracy would be a set-off against the

payment, and a strong encouragement to push the sale of Etiglish publications. Besides, what would prevent the original English

publisher, protected by his copyright, from inundating the mark

with cheap editions of his books? He would not have to pay for copy. right in America, any more than the pirate does at present. Nay, if it be true, as has been said, that some eminent English authors mean to try the experiment of reducing the charge of copyright, the price of English works in America will be lower than ever, For these reasons, we doubt whether any strenuous exertions will be made by American authors to secure to their brethren ia England the copyright of works published in the United States, That would not be the way to protect themselves front the foreign competitor. At present, the American bookseller pays but a very small sum for the priority of publication, secured to him by the early trans- mission of proof-sheets. Why does he not pay more? Because, it is alleged, lie has no security against the " pirates." It is pos. sible, however, that another cause operates with more force in diminishing the sum he can afford to give for the privilege. The extensive sale of the work is based on its cheapness. At half-a. guinea a volume, very few copies would be sold of Mr. BuLwint's most popular novel. At half-a-dollar, or 75 cents, the sale is con- siderable, but the profit miserably small. Perhaps, therefore, after all the outcry, the English author does not lose much by the want of copyright for his works in America. And we are the more inclined to believe that this is the case, from the fact that theme is no great difficulty in securing the first and almost the entire sale of a foreign work by arrangement with the autkor or publisher in Europe. Let it be understood that a house in New Yolk has the priority of publishing all Mr. BULWER'S novels, and the booksellers will send their orders to that house. Mere regu- larity in publishing secured to one establishment in New York the monopoly of the sale of Blackwood's Magazine; and it is not very long since eight thousand dollars were paid by a Boston firm to one in New York for the "good-will," it may be called, of the trade in the Edinburgh and the Quarterly Reviews. It is not the piracy, so much as the necessity of selling cheap, which deprives the author of profit in Ameriea. In a greater or less degree, these remarks apply to the Conti- nent of Europe. The sum of the case, us we conceive it, may be thus stated—that it is not the interest of foreign authors to pro- tect the sale of English works in their country by international copyright ; that the reading public abroad has not much interest in the question one way or the other, seeing that their demand will be supplied either by cheap editions of the owner of the copy- right or by the " pirate ;" that the cheapness of English pirated publications is the basis of their circulation; that this cheapness

precludes the idea of more than a minute profit to the author; and that therefore, if even foreign governments and people are

disposed to reciprocity, and will agree to international copyright, the gain to authors from Mr. THOMSON'S exertions will not be material to them, however serviceable to himself in the puffing line.