producers and distributors do not understand their business, but
require to be instructed by the state how to carry it on, and that the
publishing business alone needs to have its returns regulated by law.
Sixth. The prices of the best books would in many cases, instead of
being lessened, be higher than at present, because the publishers
would require some insurance against the risk of rival editions, and
because they would make their first editions smaller, and the first
cost would have to be divided among a less number of copies. Such
reductions of prices as would be made would be on the flimsier and
more popular literature, and even on this could not be lasting.
Seventh. For the enterprises of the most lasting importance to the
public, requiring considerable investment of time and capital, the
publishers require to be assured of returns from the largest market
possible, and without such security enterprises of this character
could not be undertaken at all. Eighth. Open competition of this kind
would, in the end, result in crushing out the smaller publishers, and
in concentrating the business in the hands of a few houses whose
purses had been long enough to carry them through the long and
unprofitable contests that would certainly be the first effect of such
legislation.

All the considerations adduced by Mr. Spencer have, of course, equal
force with reference to open international publishing, while they may
also be included among the arguments in behalf of international
copyright.

With these views of a veteran writer of books may very properly be
associated the opinions of the experienced publisher, Mr. Wm. H.
Appleton, who, in a letter to the New York _Times_ in 1872, says:

"The first demand of property is for security.... To publish a book in
any real sense--that is, not merely to print it, but to make it well
and widely known--requires much effort and large expenditure, and
these will not be invested in a property which is liable to be
destroyed at any moment. Legal protection would thus put an end to
evil practices, make property secure, business more legitimate, and
give a new vigor to enterprise. Nor can a policy which is unjust to
the author, and works viciously in the trade, be the best for the
public. The publisher can neither afford to make the book so
thoroughly known, nor can he put it at so low a price, as if he could
count upon permanent and undisturbed possession of it. Many valuable
books are no