“It is obvious that, looking to the geographical position of the United States and the North American Confederation, any arrangement with respect to Copyright which does not apply to both must be always imperfect and unsatisfactory, and it is therefore extremely desirable, if possible, that the Canadian question should be considered in connexion with any negotiations conducted with the United States Government. “Another serious objection to the sanction by Her Majesty’s Government of such a proposal appears to my Lords to be, that, while the public policy of the mother-country enforces an absolute monopoly in works of literature for a term of years, it is very undesirable to admit in British Colonial possessions an arrangement which, whatever advantages it may possess (and my Lords fully admit that much may be said in its favour), rests upon a wholly different principle. “It would be difficult, if such a principle were admitted in the British Colonies, to refuse to recognise it in the case of foreign countries, and thus it might come to pass that the British public might be called upon to pay a high price for their books, in order to afford what is held to be the necessary encouragement to British authors, while the subjects of other countries and the Colonial subjects of Her Majesty would enjoy the advantages of cheap British literature provided for them at the expense of the inhabitants of the United Kingdom.” (_Extract from a Paper by the Minister of Finance on the Copyright-Law in Canada._) “The consequence of this anomalous state of the Law is that Canada receives large supplies of American reprints of English Copyright books, which are sold at a much higher rate than if printed in Canada; while, at the same time, so generally is the payment of the 12½ per cent. Customs duty evaded, and so trifling is the whole amount realised from that source (the total received last year for the whole Dominion of Canada being only $799.43, or 164_l._ 5s. 3d. sterling, the average of the preceding four years being only 115_l._ 1s. 3d., sterling), that so far as regards the pecuniary or other interests of English authors, for whose protection the duty was imposed and in whose behalf it is collected, the effect is practically the same as if the reprints were avowedly admitted duty free.... “It is believed that if this privilege were extended to Canadian publishers, they would avail themselves of it to a very large extent, and as the Excise duty of 12½ per cent. could, under proper regulations, be very easily levied, a substantial revenue would accrue therefrom for the benefit of English authors; and further, that a great impetus would be given to the interests of printers, publishers, paper manufacturers, type founders, and other important kindred branches of material industry, and indirectly to the interests of literature and literary men....