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personal property than "rabble." The sentiments of the owners of material wealth towards authors is somewhat tinged with the same feeling. They meet with little sympathy from society in general.

Lord Macaulay, whose views on the proper duration of Copyright, were embodied in the present Act, argued vehemently against Copyright as an odious monopoly, as bad as those which Elizabeth was compelled to abolish by her Parliament1-"Why should we not revive all those old monopolies which, in Elizabeth's reign, galled our fathers so severely that, maddened by intolerable wrong, they opposed to their sovereign a resistance before which her haughty spirit quailed for the first and the last time? Was it the cheapness and excellence of commodities that then so violently stirred the indignation of the English people? I believe, sir, that I may safely take it for granted that the effect of monopoly generally is to make articles scarce, to make them dear, and to make them bad. And I may with equal safety challenge my honorable friend to find out any distinction between copyright and other privileges of the same kind; any reason why a monopoly of books should produce an effect directly the reverse of that which was produced by the East India Company's monopoly of tea, or Lord Essex's monopolies of sweet wine." It is needlees to point out the transparent fallacy of this argument. To make the cases parallel, it would be necessary to give a person a general monopoly of writing a History of England, for example-to give him a general monopoly of a particular subject. Then, no doubt, the consequences described by Macaulay would follow. We should have very bad histories of England, and so on of every other case. But no one proposes such an absurdity: only if a man bestows great labour and time in composing a particular History of England, or poem, that he should have a property in the fruits of his own labour. Nothing would prevent any other man from writing a better history if he could, and winning the preference of the public. Because Thirlwall has copyright in his History of Greece, how could that prevent Grote also writing his History of Greece, and each having copyright in his own work? Macaulay has, it is true, brought forward other arguments of a more practical nature, which we need not set forth at length, because all the inconveniences he enumerates could very easily be provided for. 1 Speeches, p. 219.

What we object to is his fundamental fallacy in comparing a copyright in a particular work, the fruit of a man's labour, to the odious monopolies of Elizabeth, or to that of the East India Company. And so far from deteriorating the character of literature, we believe that nothing would be a more powerful incentive to an author to produce a work of lasting value than to feel that he could leave it as a permanent property to his family. Besides, as we have already observed, the Universities have perpetual copyright in all works bequeathed to them and if the Universities have it, why should not the authors?

The progress of public opinion evidently tends in this direction; something was done by the last Act, but the advancing voice of refinement, and the increasing perception of moral right, will probably demand more. Why should a man who devotes his life to carve out an estate in fame, be denied equal rights with one who seeks to agglomerate material wealth? Let us hope that the day is coming when the owners of the ideal ships that sail down the seas of time, freighted with the hoarded treasures of the wisdom, and learning, and worth of successive generations, to illumine the understanding and gladden the hearts of the latest posterity, may enjoy, and transmit to their descendants, the same rights as the owners of the wooden and iron ships, which bring corn and cotton, and whatever else ministers to the material requirements of mankind.

28. Another form of property in ideas is a PATENT, which is a Right granted by Letters Patent from the Crown for the exclusive making, using, and selling, some commodity: restricted in modern times by statute to a new invention.

Formerly, indeed, patents were granted for much more extensive monopolies. Some of our earlier kings, to eke out the scanty revenues granted them by Parliament, in the plenitude of their prerogative, sold to private persons the exclusive right of importing or dealing in certain commodities. Edward III. granted a monopoly to John Peach of selling sweet wines. For this Peach was arraigned in Parliament, and after a great debate the patent was adjudged void, and cancelled before his face, because he had exacted 3s. 6d. a tun for wine. He was committed to prison until he had made restitution of all he had taken, and further ordered to pay a fine of £500 to the King.

The revenues granted to Elizabeth were very sparing. From

her temporal and spiritual Parliaments together, she only received about £65,000 a year. Accordingly, to increase this income, about the 17th year of her reign she began to revive the old system of granting patents for trade monopolies. These became so obnoxious and oppressive that strong remonstrances were made in the Parliament of 1597. These, however, produced very little effect; and became more numerous and oppressive than ever. At last, in the Parliament of 1601, a stern and fierce onslaught on these monopolies was organized. A list of them, avowedly imperfect, was read in the House, and they included salt, currants, iron, powder, cards, calfskins, felts, poledavies (a kind of canvas), ox shinbones, hair-oil, lists of cloth, potash, aniseed, vinegar, sea coal, steel, aqua vitæ, brushes, pots, bottles, saltpetre, lead, Latin grammars, oil, calamine stone, oil of blubber, glasses, dice, paper, starch, tin, sulphur, new drapery, dried pilchards, the exportation of iron, horn, beer, and leather, the importation of Spanish wool and Irish linen. A member asked if bread was not among the number. Some members boldly called the monopolists "bloodsuckers of the Commonwealth." The price of salt had been raised from 16d. to 14s. the bushel. One member said that the monopolies of salt cost the towns of Lyme, Boston, and Hull, £3,000 a year. Bacon, Fleming, and Cecil, vapoured about the prerogative of the Crown, which was something so divine, that it was neither to be examined, canvassed, nor disputed. But the House was not to be terrified with these threats. Cecil acknowledged that in all his parliamentary experience he had never seen such a commotion in the House. The Queen, however, seeing that matters were becoming serious, with that true discernment and tact which were fatally deficient in the next race of sovereigns, thanked the House for its care of the public weal, and expressed the warmest indignation at the abuses of her grants which had been brought to her knowledge, and promised that some should be immediately repealed, some suspended, and none should take effect until they had been examined in a Court of Law. Cecil very soon changed his tone, and said he would have all men know that it is no jesting with a Court of Parliament. The House was delighted; a member said that the Queen's message was a gospel, for if ever the glad tidings came to the heart of a nation, they came now. And the matter ended in mutual congratulations between the Queen and the House.

But the snake was scotched, not killed. No sooner was the great Queen laid in her grave, and the sceptre of the Plantagenets and the Tudors passed away to a drivelling buffoon, than the abuse of monopolies flourished again in more rank luxuriance than ever. At length, after several remonstrances of Parliament had proved ineffectual, the Statute of Monopolies was passed, 21 James I., c. 3, that all monopolies of trade are contrary to the fundamental laws of the realm: and they were forbidden in future, except only that the Crown was empowered to grant letters patent for a period not exceeding twenty-one years to the first and true inventors of any new manufactures within the realm, which were not used by any one else at the time of granting the letters patent. And this principle still remains good, with some modifications.

This kind of Right, though usually classed along with Copyright, is surrounded with far greater difficulties; and its expediency is a more disputable point than that of Copyright.

It might be said that as each is the fruit of a man's own labour, he should be entitled to equal property in them. This argument, though somewhat specious, does not hold. No two persons working on the same literary work independently ever produce the same ideas. It would be a very remarkable circumstance that two independent persons should ever hit on exactly the same line of poetry, or construct a single sentence of moderate length exactly the same, word for word. It would be absolutely incredible that two persons writing independently should ever compose ten consecutive lines of poetry, or write half a page of prose, word for word the same. Even, therefore, if they chose the same subject for a poem, a drama, a history, the work of each would be absolutely independent. But when many persons' minds are bent on Science, or Invention, the case is different: different persons thinking independently constantly hit upon the same ideas. It has often been remarked that if the greatest names in Science had never lived, some one else would have hit upon their discoveries.

No man, as we have before observed, can have a patent for a principle, or a copyright in a great scientific discovery. No one else may reprint such a work verbatim. But as soon as a great scientific discovery is made, every one may express it in his own way in a different form.

A literary work is more a man's individual property than a work

of science. If Shakespeare had not lived, there is no reason to suppose that we should ever have had Macbeth, Hamlet, or Othello. But if Newton had not lived, there is every reason to suppose that by this time we should have had the Theory of Gravity. In science one man's discoveries are based upon the labours of his predecessors; and in turn are the basis of the labours of his successors. He therefore adopts and uses the common property of mankind, and in return his discoveries become common property: and then there is constant progress. But it is not so in literature: there is no such constant progress.

It is with inventions as with science. In this inventive age, when so many men's minds are turned towards the same subjects, they constantly hit upon the same invention. Inventions grow out of one another; and in the construction of some complicated machine, an inventor walks among traps and pitfalls at every step, and must carefully beware lest some one else has not already hit upon the same idea, and got a patent for it. The practical evils of this are so great, that many able persons, including many distinguished inventors, have strenuously argued in favour of the total abolition of patents. This, however, opens a very wide ques tion, which this is not the place to discuss. We have here only to explain the nature of Patents as Incorporeal Property, not to argue about their expediency.

29. Another species of Incorporeal Property is the GOODWILL of a business. When a person has established a reputation in any commercial way the expectation of future profits is a valuable property which he may sell when he retires from business. This is a species of property quite separate from the house or shop, or the goods actually in the shop and is a matter of sale to his successor. This property is fully recognised by Courts of Law as part of the fruits of accumulated industry, just as much as any material product. But as it is always fixed to a particular place it may be called Incorporeal Real Property.

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The Goodwill of a business is usually reckoned, we believe, at about two years' profits: it is evident that this is a species of property of immense magnitude; and yet no Economist in this country seems aware of its existence.

30. But not only may a dealer in material products create a business by his industry and labour, which may be sold, but

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