is still the custom. Mr. Thomas knows better than this, for, whilst this
was undoubtedly the custom some years ago when Canada and her trade were
little known or regarded in England, it is not the custom now. Rudyard
Kipling, Hall Caine, Benjamin Kidd, Crockett, Doyle, Hope, Parker, Miss
Fowler, Miss Cholmondeley, Miss Montresor, Marie Corelli, all now deal
with Canada as a separate market, and contract directly with Canadian
publishers. This custom is growing rapidly and more books are now directly
offered to Canadian publishers than can be safely taken, having regard to
the present state of the market.

Those who at present comprise a majority of the Booksellers' Section of
the Board of Trade desire to have a Canadian copyright law of their own,
to secure authority which will enable the Canadian Parliament to pass an
Act which would separate Canadians from the rule of British copyright
legislation, and necessarily, too, from its benefits. It goes without
saying that if this is effectuated Canada will be excluded from the
Copyright Union and also from protection in the vast market of the United
States; and as a further consequence the works of Canadian authors would
again become public property outside of Canada, and the British publisher
would surely retaliate.

And what end will be gained by all this? Nothing but the right for
Canadian publishers to print in Canada the majority of British or foreign
books in any cheap form they please, and to compile such works as School
Readers made up of extracts culled from copyright works, subject only to
such safeguards as will secure to the owners of the copyrights infringed
upon a _reasonable_ royalty, in the imposition of which they can have no
effective voice.

Were the proposals of the Board of Trade carried into effect, it would
reduce our country below the standard of national morality and of
international fair play maintained by all other civilized nations now
united in the Copyright Union. Canadian authors would then encounter the
same difficulty in securing recognition at the hands of Canadian
publishers that American authors experienced with their publishers prior
to 1891, when British books could be published in the United States
without payment of royalty.

I agree in the view that the rights of an author are just as much entitled
to protection as any other rights in property. I am absolutely opposed to
any retrograde movement on the copyright question. I believe