discoveries, because to do so would be to deprive them of much of their
small reward. The state of the matter is, as I conceive, as follows: On
one side of you stand the contributors to the vast treasure of knowledge
that mankind has accumulated, and is accumulating--men who have, in
general, labored without fee or reward; on the other side of you stand the
owners of this vast treasure, desirous to have it fashioned in a manner to
suit their various tastes and powers, that all may be enabled to profit by
its possession. Between them stand yourselves, middlemen between the
producers and the consumers. It is your province to combine the facts and
ideas, as does the manufacturer when he takes the raw materials of cloth,
and, by the aid of the skill of numerous working men, past and present,
elaborates them into the beautiful forms that so much gratify our eyes in
passing through the Crystal Palace. For this service you are to be paid;
but to enable you to receive payment you need the aid of the legislator,
as the common law grants no more copyright for the form in which ideas are
expressed than for the ideas themselves. In granting this aid he is
required to see that, while he secures that you have justice, he does no
injustice to the men who produce the raw material of your books, nor to
the community whose common property it is. In granting it, he is bound to
use his efforts to attain the knowledge needed for enabling him to do
justice to all parties, and not to you alone. The laws which elsewhere
govern the distribution of the proceeds of labor, must apply in your case
with equal force. Looking at them, we see that, with the growth of
population and of wealth, there is everywhere a tendency to diminution in
the proportion of the product that is allowed to the men who stand between
the producer and the consumer. In new settlements, trade is small and the
shopkeeper requires large profits to enable him to live; and, while the
consumer pays a high price, the producer is compelled to be content with a
low one. In new settlements, the miller takes a large toll for the
conversion of corn into flour, and the spinner and weaver take a large