The experience of our American houses, however, who have had business with English authors and publishers is that it takes some little time for them to obtain a clear perception of the requirements of the American market and of American readers, and of the very material differences existing between the status here and in Great Britain. And it would be my fear that, if the copyright were granted at once without restriction, there would be an interregnum of some years, during which these authors and publishers were obtaining their American education, before the American readers could obtain freely the books they wanted in the editions they were willing to purchase. Our friends on the other side could not resist the temptation of experimenting, before providing what was really wanted, as to how long our market would stand their expensive $7, $5, and $3 editions of books that we have been accustomed to buy here for $2.50, $2, and $1; and as a consequence, they would sell books by dozens or hundreds that ought to be sold by thousands; their authors would receive an inconsiderable copyright, and the American public would be badly served and would become indignant. But if the channels of communication between the English authors and their American readers were once fairly established, as they would be, I think, under the arrangements suggested, it would not, I believe, be possible at a later date to interfere with them, even if all restrictions were removed. When American readers were buying by thousands a suitable edition, at a moderate price, of a work by a standard English author who was himself receiving a good return from his enlarged sales, this author would be as little likely, at the expiration of the ten years, to restrict those sales by insisting that his work should be sold here in the costly and unsuitable English edition, as to stipulate that it should be sold here in a Russian translation. It is probable, also, that the including in the measure of these restrictions, even if but for a limited term of years, would gain for it some support that would be important for its success. It seems probable that, if the present conditions of trade are maintained, American book-makers need not be especially troubled ten years hence by the competition of books manufactured in England, and that, if the various duties affecting the manufacture could be abolished, we could well spare the duty on books themselves. I can, however, imagine no state of affairs in which it would be economical or desirable to insist upon two settings of type for a book designed for different groups of English-speaking readers; and the more generally this first and most important part of the cost of a book can be economized by being divided between the two markets, the greater the advantage in the end to author, public, and publisher.