that the
rights of publishers are inseparably bound up with those of authors, and I
regard any attempt to deprive authors of any rights in the property which
is the product of their intellectual exertions as "nothing short of a
crime equal to that of a highwayman," nor can I submit to remain a member
of the Board of Trade without recording my warm dissent from the action of
the Council and the Executive. I object emphatically to our taking the law
into our own hands, and fixing what we may be pleased to think is _a
reasonable price_ to be paid authors for their property, merely because it
is the product of their intellectual labours. I am satisfied to accept
the Canadian law as it is, and to abide by its provisions if they are
fairly construed.

I maintain that the subject of copyright is abstruse, and is not to be
mastered in a few days or in a few months. Long as this letter is, I have
stated only a single phase of the question. I could better have dealt with
the matter in a short address, and I very much regret that the Executive
of the Council did not afford me the opportunity of appearing before them
when I asked it. Had this been done, I feel satisfied that the Board would
not have been committed to the proposals the Council are now engaged in
advancing, nor would the Board have been subjected in England, as it
already has been, to the criticisms of those who understand the copyright
question, and with some indignation resent the course of the Board in
advancing reasons for its action which are not in accordance with the real
facts.

I am, Sir,
Yours truly,
GEORGE N. MORANG

End of Project Gutenberg's The Copyright Question, by George N. Morang

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