part of the common stock.  To find a parallel case, let it be supposed that liberal men should, out of their earnings, place at the disposal of the people of your town stone, bricks, and lumber, in quantity sufficient to find accommodation for hundreds of people that were unable to provide for themselves; next suppose that in this state of things your authorities should say to any man or men, “Take these materials, and procure lime in quantity sufficient to build a house; employ carpenters, bricklayers, and architects, and then, in consideration of having found the lime and the workmanship, you shall have a right to charge your own price to every person who may, for all times, desire to occupy a room in it “; would this be doing justice to the men who had given the raw materials for public use?  Would it be doing justice to the community by which they had been given?  Would it not, on the contrary, be the height of injustice?  Unquestionably it would, and it would raise a storm that would speedily displace the men who had thus abused their trust.  Their successors would then say:  “Messrs.——­ our predecessors, did what they had no right to do.  These materials are common property.  They were given without fee or reward, with a view to benefit the whole people of our town, many of whom are badly accommodated, while others are heavily taxed for helping those who are unable to help themselves.  To carry out the views of the benevolent men to whom we are indebted for all these stone, bricks, and lumber, they must remain common property.  You may, if you will, convert them into a house, and, in consideration of the labor and skill required for so doing, we will grant you, during a certain time, the privilege of letting the rooms, at your own price, to those who desire to occupy them; but at the close of that time the building must become common property, to be disposed of as we please.”  This is exactly what the community says to the gentlemen who employ themselves in converting its common property into books, and to say more would be doing great injustice.

The length of time for which the building should be thus granted would depend upon the number of persons that would be likely to use the rooms, and the prices they would be willing to pay.  If lodgers were likely to be few and poor, a long time would be required to be given; but if, on the contrary, the community were so great and prosperous as to render it certain that all the rooms would be occupied every day in the year, and at such prices as would speedily repay the labor and skill that had been required, the time allowed would be short.  Here, as we see, the course of things would be entirely different from that which is observed in regard to books, the monopoly of which has increased in length with the growth, in wealth and number, of the consumers, and is now attempted, by the aid of international copyright, to be extended over millions of men who are yet exempt from its operation.