It may be said that if he appropriate to his use any of the common property of which books are made up, and so misuse his privilege as to impose upon his readers the payment of too heavy a tax, other persons may use the same facts and ideas, and enter into competition with him. In no other case, however, than in those of the owners of patents and copyrights, where the public recognizes the existence of exclusive claim to any portion of the common property, does it permit the party to fix the price at which it may be sold. The right of eminent domain is common property. In virtue of it, the community takes possession of private property for public purposes, and frequently for the making of roads. Not unfrequently it delegates to private companies this power, but it always fixes the rate of charge to be made to persons who use the road. This is done even when general laws are passed authorizing all who please, on compliance with certain forms, to make roads to suit themselves. In such cases, limitation would seem to be unnecessary, as new roads could be made if the tolls on old ones were too high; and yet it is so well understood that the making of roads does carry with it monopoly power, that the rates of charge are always limited, and so limited as not to permit the road-makers to obtain a profit disproportioned to the amount of their investments. In the case of authors there can be no such limitation. They must have monopoly powers, and the law therefore very wisely limits the time within which they may be exercised, as in the other case it limits the price that may be charged. In France, the prices to be paid to dramatic authors are fixed by law, and all who pay may play; and if this could be done in regard to all literary productions, permitting all who paid to print, much of the difficulty relative to copyright would be removed; but this course of operation would be in direct opposition to the views of publishers who advocate this treaty on the ground that it would add to "the security and respectability of the trade." They would _prefer_ to pay for the copyright of every foreign book, because it would bring with it monopoly prices and monopoly profits, both of which would need to be paid by the consumers of books. To the paper-maker, printer, and bookbinder, called upon to supply one thousand of a book for _the few_, where before they had supplied ten thousand for _the many_, it would be small consolation to know that they were thereby building up the fortunes of two or three large publishing houses that had obtained a monopoly of the business of republication, and were thus adding to the "security and respectability of the trade." As little would probably be derived from this source by the father of a family who found that he had now to pay five dollars for what before had cost but one, and must therefore endeavor to borrow, where before he had been accustomed to buy, the books required for the amusement and instruction of his children.