Anthony Trollope - Autobiography of Anthony Trollope

leviathans, and from those politicians whom the leviathans are able

to attach to their interests. The ordinary American purchaser is

not much affected by slight variations in price. He is at any rate

too high-hearted to be affected by the prospect of such variation.

It is the man who wants to make money, not he who fears that he may

be called upon to spend it, who controls such matters as this in

the United States. It is the large speculator who becomes powerful

in the lobbies of the House, and understands how wise it may

be to incur a great expenditure either in the creation of a great

business, or in protecting that which he has created from competition.

Nothing was done in 1868,--and nothing has been done since (up to

1876). A Royal Commission on the law of copyright is now about to

sit in this country, of which I have consented to be a member; and

the question must then be handled, though nothing done by a Royal

Commission here can effect American legislators. But I do believe

that if the measure be consistently and judiciously urged, the

enemies to it in the States will gradually be overcome. Some years

since we had some quasi private meetings, under the presidency of

Lord Stanhope, in Mr. John Murray's dining-room, on the subject of

international copyright. At one of these I discussed this matter of

American international copyright with Charles Dickens, who strongly

declared his conviction that nothing would induce an American to

give up the power he possesses of pirating British literature. But

he was a man who, seeing clearly what was before him, would not

realise the possibility of shifting views. Because in this matter

the American decision had been, according to his thinking, dishonest,

therefore no other than dishonest decision was to be expected from

Americans. Against that idea I protested, and now protest. American

dishonesty is rampant; but it is rampant only among a few. It

is the great misfortune of the community that those few have been

able to dominate so large a portion of the population among which

all men can vote, but so few can understand for what they are

voting.

Since this was written the Commission on the law of copyright has

sat and made its report. With the great body of it I agree, and

could serve no reader by alluding here at length to matters which

are discussed there. But in regard to this question of international

copyright with the United States, I think that we were incorrect

in the expression of an opinion that fair justice,--or justice

approaching to fairness,--is now done by American publishers to

English authors by payments made by them for early sheets. I have

just found that (pounds)20 was paid to my publisher in England for the

use of the early sheets of a novel for which I received (pounds)1600 in

England. When asked why he accepted so little, he assured me that

the firm with whom he dealt would not give more. "Why not go to

another firm?" I asked. No other firm would give a dollar, because

no other firm would care to run counter to that great firm which

had assumed to itself the right of publishing my books. I soon after

received a copy of my own novel in the American form, and found

that it was published for 7 1/2d. That a great sale was expected

can be argued from the fact that without a great sale the paper and

printing necessary for the republication of a three-volume novel

could not be supplied. Many thousand copies must have been sold.

But from these the author received not one shilling. I need hardly

point out that the sum of (pounds)20 would not do more than compensate

the publisher for his trouble in making the bargain. The publisher

here no doubt might have refused to supply the early sheets, but

he had no means of exacting a higher price than that offered. I

mention the circumstance here because it has been boasted, on behalf

of the American publishers, that though there is no international

copyright, they deal so liberally with English authors as to make

it unnecessary that the English author should be so protected.

With the fact of the (pounds)20 just brought to my knowledge, and with the

copy of my book published at 7 1/2d. now in my hands, I feel that

an international copyright is very necessary for my protection.

They among Englishmen who best love and most admire the United

States, have felt themselves tempted to use the strongest language

in denouncing the sins of Americans. Who can but love their personal

generosity, their active and far-seeking philanthropy, their love

of education, their hatred of ignorance, the general convictions

in the minds of all of them that a man should be enabled to walk

upright, fearing no one and conscious that he is responsible for

his own actions? In what country have grander efforts been made by

private munificence to relieve the sufferings of humanity? Where

can the English traveller find any more anxious to assist him than

the normal American, when once the American shall have found the

Englishman to be neither sullen nor fastidious? Who, lastly, is

so much an object of heart-felt admiration of the American man and

the American woman as the well-mannered and well-educated Englishwoman

or Englishman? These are the ideas which I say spring uppermost

in the minds of the unprejudiced English traveller as he makes

acquaintance with these near relatives. Then he becomes cognisant

of their official doings, of their politics, of their municipal

scandals, of their great ring-robberies, of their lobbyings and

briberies, and the infinite baseness of their public life. There

at the top of everything he finds the very men who are the least

fit to occupy high places. American public dishonesty is so glaring

that the very friends he has made in the country are not slow

to acknowledge it,--speaking of public life as a thing apart from

their own existence, as a state of dirt in which it would be an

insult to suppose that they are concerned! In the midst of it all

the stranger, who sees so much that he hates and so much that he

loves, hardly knows how to express himself.

"It is not enough that you are personally clean," he says, with

what energy and courage he can command,--"not enough though the

clean outnumber the foul as greatly as those gifted with eyesight

outnumber the blind, if you that can see allow the blind to lead

you. It is not by the private lives of the millions that the outside

world will judge you, but by the public career of those units whose

venality is allowed to debase the name of your country. There never

was plainer proof given than is given here, that it is the duty of

every honest citizen to look after the honour of his State."

Personally, I have to own that I have met Americans,--men, but more

frequently women,--who have in all respects come up to my ideas of

what men and women should be: energetic, having opinions of their

own, quick in speech, with some dash of sarcasm at their command,

always intelligent, sweet to look at (I speak of the women), fond

of pleasure, and each with a personality of his or her own which

makes no effort necessary on my own part in remembering the difference

between Mrs. Walker and Mrs. Green, or between Mr. Smith and Mr.

Johnson. They have faults. They are self-conscious, and are too

prone to prove by ill-concealed struggles that they are as good as

you,--whereas you perhaps have been long acknowledging to yourself