“I have one practical example to offer on the other side. For instance, Mr. Douglas, of Edinburgh, reprints a great many American books and pays a copyright for them. He prints them beautifully in little volumes of most convenient size, and sells them for a shilling. That is not very dear. He pays his copyright, remember. I myself am perfectly satisfied that the reading public in America, being much larger than in England, and demanding cheap books, the result of a copyright law, if we ever get one, will be to transfer the great bulk of the book trade from England to this country, and with it the publishing of books. That is my firm belief. But that is purely hypothetical, like Mr. Hubbard’s argument. Yet it seems to me there would be certain reasons for thinking so in what we know of the instincts and tendencies of trade. If the larger market be here, and if books have to be printed in a cheaper form in order to suit that market, I think they will be so printed and so far as the American public is concerned, it appears to me that if they get their books cheaply it does not so much matter where they are printed. “I, myself, take the moral view of the question. I believe that this is a simple question of morality and justice; that many of the arguments which Mr. Hubbard used are arguments which might be used for picking a man’s pocket. One could live a great deal cheaper, undoubtedly, if he could supply himself from other people without any labor or cost. But at the same time,--well, it was not called honest when I was young, and that is all I can say. I cannot help thinking that a book which was, I believe, more read when I was young than it is now, is quite right when it says that ‘righteousness exalteth a nation.’ I believe this is a question of righteousness. I do not wish to urge that too far, because that is considered a little too ideal, I believe. But that is my view of it, and if I were asked what book is better than a cheap book, I should answer that there is one book better than a cheap book, and that is a book honestly come by. That would be my feeling.”