Autobiography of Anthony Trollope by Anthony Trollope

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The truth of all this I had long since taken home to myself. I had
now been thinking of it for thirty years, and had never doubted.
But I had always been aware of a certain visionary weakness about
myself in regard to politics. A man, to be useful in Parliament,
must be able to confine himself and conform himself, to be satisfied
with doing a little bit of a little thing at a time. He must
patiently get up everything connected with the duty on mushrooms,
and then be satisfied with himself when at last he has induced
a Chancellor of the Exchequer to say that he will consider the
impost at the first opportunity. He must be content to be beaten
six times in order that, on a seventh, his work may be found to
be of assistance to some one else. He must remember that he is one
out of 650, and be content with 1-650th part of the attention of
the nation. If he have grand ideas, he must keep them to himself,
unless by chance, he can work his way up to the top of the tree.
In short, he must be a practical man. Now I knew that in politics
I could never become a practical man. I should never be satisfied
with a soft word from the Chancellor of the Exchequer, but would
always be flinging my overtaxed ketchup in his face.

Nor did it seem to me to be possible that I should ever become a
good speaker. I had no special gifts that way, and had not studied
the art early enough in life to overcome natural difficulties. I
had found that, with infinite labour, I could learn a few sentences
by heart, and deliver them, monotonously indeed, but clearly. Or,
again, if there were something special to be said, I could say it
in a commonplace fashion--but always as though I were in a hurry,
and with the fear before me of being thought to be prolix. But I
had no power of combining, as a public speaker should always do,
that which I had studied with that which occurred to me at the
moment. It must be all lesson,--which I found to be best; or else
all impromptu,--which was very bad, indeed, unless I had something
special on my mind. I was thus aware that I could do no good by
going into Parliament--that the time for it, if there could have
been a time, had gone by. But still I had an almost insane desire
to sit there, and be able to assure myself that my uncle's scorn
had not been deserved.

In 1867 it had been suggested to me that, in the event of a dissolution,
I should stand for one division of the County of Essex; and I had
promised that I would do so, though the promise at that time was
as rash a one as a man could make. I was instigated to this by the
late Charles Buxton, a man whom I greatly loved, and who was very
anxious that the county for which his brother had sat, and with
which the family were connected, should be relieved from what he
regarded as the thraldom of Toryism. But there was no dissolution
then. Mr. Disraeli passed his Reform Bill, by the help of the
Liberal member for Newark, and the summoning of a new Parliament
was postponed till the next year. By this new Reform Bill Essex
was portioned out into three instead of two electoral divisions,
one of which,--that adjacent to London,--would, it was thought,
be altogether Liberal. After the promise which I had given,
the performance of which would have cost me a large sum of money
absolutely in vain, it was felt by some that I should be selected
as one of the candidates for the new division--and as such I was
proposed by Mr. Charles Buxton. But another gentleman, who would
have been bound by previous pledges to support me, was put forward
by what I believe to have been the defeating interest, and I had
to give way. At the election this gentleman, with another Liberal,
who had often stood for the county, was returned without a contest.
Alas! alas! They were both unseated at the next election, when the
great Conservative reaction took place.

In the spring of 1868 I was sent to the United States on a postal
mission, of which I will speak presently. While I was absent the
dissolution took place. On my return I was somewhat too late to
look out for a seat, but I had friends who knew the weakness of my
ambition; and it was not likely, therefore, that I should escape
the peril of being put forward for some impossible borough as to
which the Liberal party would not choose that it should go to the
Conservatives without a struggle. At last, after one or two others,
Beverley was proposed to me, and to Beverley I went.

I must, however, exculpate the gentleman who acted as my agent, from
undue persuasion exercised towards me. He was a man who thoroughly
understood Parliament, having sat there himself--and he sits there
now at this moment. He understood Yorkshire,--or, at least, the
East Riding of Yorkshire, in which Beverley is situated,--certainly
better than any one alive. He understood all the mysteries of
canvassing, and he knew well the traditions, the condition, and the
prospect of the Liberal party. I will not give his name, but they
who knew Yorkshire in 1868 will not be at a loss to find it. "So,"
said he, "you are going to stand for Beverley?" I replied gravely
that I was thinking of doing so. "You don't expect to get in?" he
said. Again I was grave. I would not, I said, be sanguine, but,
nevertheless, I was disposed to hope for the best. "Oh, no!"
continued he, with good-humoured raillery, "you won't get in. I
don't suppose you really expect it. But there is a fine career open
to you. You will spend œ1000, and lose the election. Then you will
petition, and spend another œ1000. You will throw out the elected
members. There will be a commission, and the borough will be
disfranchised. For a beginner such as you are, that will be a great
success." And yet, in the teeth of this, from a man who knew all
about it, I persisted in going to Beverley!

The borough, which returned two members, had long been represented
by Sir Henry Edwards, of whom, I think, I am justified in saying
that he had contracted a close intimacy with it for the sake of
the seat. There had been many contests, many petitions, many void
elections, many members, but, through it all, Sir Henry had kept
his seat, if not with permanence, yet with a fixity of tenure next
door to permanence. I fancy that with a little management between
the parties the borough might at this time have returned a member
of each colour quietly; but there were spirits there who did not
love political quietude, and it was at last decided that there
should be two Liberal and two Conservative candidates. Sir Henry
was joined by a young man of fortune in quest of a seat, and I was
grouped with Mr. Maxwell, the eldest son of Lord Herries, a Scotch
Roman Catholic peer, who lives in the neighbourhood.

When the time came I went down to canvass, and spent, I think, the
most wretched fortnight of my manhood. In the first place, I was
subject to a bitter tyranny from grinding vulgar tyrants. They were
doing what they could, or said that they were doing so, to secure
me a seat in Parliament, and I was to be in their hands, at any
rate, the period of my candidature. On one day both of us, Mr.
Maxwell and I, wanted to go out hunting. We proposed to ourselves
but the one holiday during this period of intense labour; but I
was assured, as was he also, by a publican who was working for us,
that if we committed such a crime he and all Beverley would desert
us. From morning to evening every day I was taken round the lanes
and by-ways of that uninteresting town, canvassing every voter,
exposed to the rain, up to my knees in slush, and utterly unable
to assume that air of triumphant joy with which a jolly, successful
candidate should he invested. At night, every night I had to
speak somewhere,--which was bad; and to listen to the speaking of
others,--which was much worse. When, on one Sunday, I proposed to
go to the Minster Church, I was told that was quite useless, as
the Church party were all certain to support Sir Henry! "Indeed,"
said the publican, my tyrant, "he goes there in a kind of official
profession, and you had better not allow yourself to be seen in the
same place." So I stayed away and omitted my prayers. No Church of
England church in Beverley would on such an occasion have welcomed
a Liberal candidate. I felt myself to be a kind of pariah in the
borough, to whom was opposed all that was pretty, and all that was
nice, and all that was--ostensibly--good.

But perhaps my strongest sense of discomfort arose from the conviction
that my political ideas were all leather and prunella to the men
whose votes I was soliciting. They cared nothing for my doctrines,
and could not be made to understand that I should have any. I had
been brought to Beverley either to beat Sir Henry Edwards,--which,
however, no one probably thought to be feasible,--or to cause him
the greatest possible amount of trouble, inconvenience, and expense.
There were, indeed, two points on which a portion of my wished-for
supporters seemed to have opinions, and on both these two points
I was driven by my opinions to oppose them. Some were anxious for
the Ballot,--which had not then become law,--and some desired the
Permissive Bill. I hated, and do hate, both these measures, thinking
it to be unworthy of a great people to free itself from the evil
results of vicious conduct by unmanly restraints. Undue influence
on voters is a great evil from which this country had already done
much to emancipate itself by extending electoral divisions and by
an increase of independent feeling. These, I thought, and not secret
voting, were the weapons by which electoral intimidation should be
overcome. And as for drink, I believe in no Parlimentary restraint;
but I do believe in the gradual effect of moral teaching and
education. But a Liberal, to do any good at Beverley, should have
been able to swallow such gnats as those. I would swallow nothing,
and was altogether the wrong man.

I knew, from the commencement of my candidature, how it would be.
Of course that well-trained gentleman who condescended to act as
my agent, had understood the case, and I ought to have taken his
thoroughly kind advice. He had seen it all, and had told himself
that it was wrong that one so innocent in such ways as I, so
utterly unable to fight such a battle, should be carried down into
Yorkshire merely to spend money and to be annoyed. He could not
have said more than he did say, and I suffered for my obstinacy. Of
course I was not elected. Sir Henry Edwards and his comrade became
members for Beverley, and I was at the bottom of the poll. I paid
œ400 for my expenses, and then returned to London.

My friendly agent in his raillery had of course exaggerated the
cost. He had, when I arrived at Beverley, asked me for a cheque
for œ400, and told me that that sum would suffice. It did suffice.
How it came to pass that exactly that sum should be required I never
knew, but such was the case. Then there came a petition,--not from
me, but from the town. The inquiry was made, the two gentlemen
were unseated, the borough was disfranchised, Sir Henry Edwards
was put on his trial for some kind of Parliamentary offence and
was acquitted. In this way Beverley's privilege as a borough and
my Parliamentary ambition were brought to an end at the same time.

When I knew the result I did not altogether regret it. It may be
that Beverley might have been brought to political confusion and
Sir Henry Edwards relegated to private life without the expenditure
of my hard-earned money, and without that fortnight of misery; but
connecting the things together, as it was natural that I should
do, I did flatter myself that I had done some good. It had seemed
to me that nothing could be worse, nothing more unpatriotic, nothing
more absolutely opposed to the system of representative government,
than the time-honoured practices of the borough of Beverley. It had
come to pass that political cleanliness was odious to the citizens.
There was something grand in the scorn with which a leading Liberal
there turned up his nose at me when I told him that there should
be no bribery, no treating, not even a pot of beer on one side.
It was a matter for study to see how at Beverley politics were
appreciated because they might subserve electoral purposes, and
how little it was understood that electoral purposes, which are in
themselves a nuisance, should be endured in order that they may
subserve politics. And then the time, the money, the mental energy,
which had been expended in making the borough a secure seat for
a gentleman who had realised the idea that it would become him to
be a member of Parliament! This use of the borough seemed to be
realised and approved in the borough generally. The inhabitants
had taught themselves to think that it was for such purposes that
boroughs were intended! To have assisted in putting an end to this,
even in one town, was to a certain extent a satisfaction.

CHAPTER XVII

THE AMERICAN POSTAL TREATY--THE QUESTION 0F COPYRIGHT WITH
AMERICA--FOUR MORE NOVELS

In the spring of 1868,--before the affair of Beverley, which,
as being the first direct result of my resignation of office, has
been brought in a little out of its turn,--I was requested to go
over to the United States and make a postal treaty at Washington.
This, as I had left the service, I regarded as a compliment, and
of course I went. It was my third visit to America, and I have made
two since. As far as the Post Office work was concerned, it was
very far from being agreeable. I found myself located at Washington,
a place I do not love, and was harassed by delays, annoyed by
incompetence, and opposed by what I felt to be personal and not
national views. I had to deal with two men,--with one who was a
working officer of the American Post Office, than whom I have never
met a more zealous, or, as far as I could judge, a more honest
public servant. He had his views and I had mine, each of us having
at heart the welfare of the service in regard to his own country,--each
of us also having certain orders which we were bound to obey. But
the other gentleman, who was in rank the superior,--whose executive
position was dependent on his official status, as is the case with
our own Ministers,--did not recommend himself to me equally. He
would make appointments with me and then not keep them, which at
last offended me so grievously, that I declared at the Washington
Post Office that if this treatment were continued, I would write
home to say that any further action on my part was impossible. I
think I should have done so had it not occurred to me that I might
in this way serve his purpose rather than my own, or the purposes
of those who had sent me. The treaty, however, was at last made,--the
purport of which was, that everything possible should be done, at
a heavy expenditure on the part of England, to expedite the mails
from England to America, and that nothing should be done by America
to expedite the mails from thence to us. The expedition I believe
to be now equal both ways; but it could not be maintained as it is
without the payment of a heavy subsidy from Great Britain, whereas
no subsidy is paid by the States. [Footnote: This was a state of
things which may probably have appeared to American politicians
to be exactly that which they should try to obtain. The whole
arrangement has again been altered since the time of which I have
spoken.]

I had also a commission from the Foreign Office, for which I had
asked, to make an effort on behalf of an international copyright
between the United States and Great Britain,--the want of which is
the one great impediment to pecuniary success which still stands
in the way of successful English authors. I cannot say that I have
never had a shilling of American money on behalf of reprints of my
work; but I have been conscious of no such payment. Having found
many years ago--in 1861, when I made a struggle on the subject,
being then in the States, the details of which are sufficiently
amusing [Footnote: In answer to a question from myself, a certain
American publisher--he who usually reprinted my works--promised me
that IF ANY OTHER AMERICAN PUBLISHER REPUBLISHED MY WORK ON AMERICA
BEFORE HE HAD DONE SO, he would not bring out a competing edition,
though there would be no law to hinder him. I then entered into an
agreement with another American publisher, stipulating to supply
him with early sheets; and he stipulating to supply me a certain
royalty on his sales, and to supply me with accounts half-yearly.
I sent the sheets with energetic punctuality, and the work was
brought out with equal energy and precision--by my old American
publishers. The gentleman who made the promise had not broken his
word. No other American edition had come out before his. I never
got any account, and, of course, never received a dollar.]--that
I could not myself succeed in dealing with American booksellers, I
have sold all foreign right to the English publishers; and though
I do not know that I have raised my price against them on that
score, I may in this way have had some indirect advantage from
the American market. But I do know that what the publishers have
received here is very trifling. I doubt whether Messrs. Chapman &
Hall, my present publishers, get for early sheets sent to the States
as much as 5 per cent. on the price they pay me for my manuscript.
But the American readers are more numerous than the English, and
taking them all through, are probably more wealthy. If I can get
œ1000 for a book here (exclusive of their market), I ought to be
able to get as much there. If a man supply 600 customers with shoes
in place of 300, there is no question as to such result. Why not,
then, if I can supply 60,000 readers instead of 30,000?

I fancied that I knew that the opposition to an international
copyright was by no means an American feeling, but was confined to
the bosoms of a few interested Americans. All that I did and heard
in reference to the subject on this further visit,--and having
a certain authority from the British Secretary of State with me I
could hear and do something,--altogether confirmed me in this view.
I have no doubt that if I could poll American readers, or American
senators,--or even American representatives, if the polling could
be unbiassed,--or American booksellers, [Footnote: I might also say
American publishers, if I might count them by the number of heads,
and not by the amount of work done by the firms.] that an assent
to an international copyright would be the result. The state of
things as it is is crushing to American authors, as the publishers
will not pay them a liberal scale, knowing that they can supply
their customers with modern English literature without paying for
it. The English amount of production so much exceeds the American,
that the rate at which the former can be published rules the
market. it is equally injurious to American booksellers,--except
to two or three of the greatest houses. No small man can now acquire
the exclusive right of printing and selling an English book. If
such a one attempt it, the work is printed instantly by one of the
leviathans,--who alone are the gainers. The argument of course is,
that the American readers are the gainers,--that as they can get
for nothing the use of certain property, they would be cutting their
own throats were they to pass a law debarring themselves from the
power of such appropriation. In this argument all idea of honesty
is thrown to the winds. It is not that they do not approve of
a system of copyright,--as many great men have disapproved,--for
their own law of copyright is as stringent as is ours. A bold
assertion is made that they like to appropriate the goods of other
people; and that, as in this case, they can do so with impunity,
they will continue to do so. But the argument, as far as I have been
able to judge, comes not from the people, but from the bookselling
leviathans, and from those politicians whom the leviathans are able
to attach to their interests. The ordinary American purchaser is
not much affected by slight variations in price. He is at any rate
too high-hearted to be affected by the prospect of such variation.
It is the man who wants to make money, not he who fears that he may
be called upon to spend it, who controls such matters as this in
the United States. It is the large speculator who becomes powerful
in the lobbies of the House, and understands how wise it may
be to incur a great expenditure either in the creation of a great
business, or in protecting that which he has created from competition.
Nothing was done in 1868,--and nothing has been done since (up to
1876). A Royal Commission on the law of copyright is now about to
sit in this country, of which I have consented to be a member; and
the question must then be handled, though nothing done by a Royal
Commission here can effect American legislators. But I do believe
that if the measure be consistently and judiciously urged, the
enemies to it in the States will gradually be overcome. Some years
since we had some quasi private meetings, under the presidency of
Lord Stanhope, in Mr. John Murray's dining-room, on the subject of
international copyright. At one of these I discussed this matter of
American international copyright with Charles Dickens, who strongly
declared his conviction that nothing would induce an American to
give up the power he possesses of pirating British literature. But
he was a man who, seeing clearly what was before him, would not
realise the possibility of shifting views. Because in this matter
the American decision had been, according to his thinking, dishonest,
therefore no other than dishonest decision was to be expected from
Americans. Against that idea I protested, and now protest. American
dishonesty is rampant; but it is rampant only among a few. It
is the great misfortune of the community that those few have been
able to dominate so large a portion of the population among which
all men can vote, but so few can understand for what they are
voting.

Since this was written the Commission on the law of copyright has
sat and made its report. With the great body of it I agree, and
could serve no reader by alluding here at length to matters which
are discussed there. But in regard to this question of international
copyright with the United States, I think that we were incorrect
in the expression of an opinion that fair justice,--or justice
approaching to fairness,--is now done by American publishers to
English authors by payments made by them for early sheets. I have
just found that œ20 was paid to my publisher in England for the
use of the early sheets of a novel for which I received œ1600 in
England. When asked why he accepted so little, he assured me that
the firm with whom he dealt would not give more. "Why not go to
another firm?" I asked. No other firm would give a dollar, because
no other firm would care to run counter to that great firm which
had assumed to itself the right of publishing my books. I soon after
received a copy of my own novel in the American form, and found
that it was published for 7 1/2d. That a great sale was expected
can be argued from the fact that without a great sale the paper and
printing necessary for the republication of a three-volume novel
could not be supplied. Many thousand copies must have been sold.
But from these the author received not one shilling. I need hardly
point out that the sum of œ20 would not do more than compensate
the publisher for his trouble in making the bargain. The publisher
here no doubt might have refused to supply the early sheets, but
he had no means of exacting a higher price than that offered. I
mention the circumstance here because it has been boasted, on behalf
of the American publishers, that though there is no international
copyright, they deal so liberally with English authors as to make
it unnecessary that the English author should be so protected.
With the fact of the œ20 just brought to my knowledge, and with the
copy of my book published at 7 1/2d. now in my hands, I feel that
an international copyright is very necessary for my protection.

They among Englishmen who best love and most admire the United
States, have felt themselves tempted to use the strongest language
in denouncing the sins of Americans. Who can but love their personal
generosity, their active and far-seeking philanthropy, their love
of education, their hatred of ignorance, the general convictions
in the minds of all of them that a man should be enabled to walk
upright, fearing no one and conscious that he is responsible for
his own actions? In what country have grander efforts been made by
private munificence to relieve the sufferings of humanity? Where
can the English traveller find any more anxious to assist him than
the normal American, when once the American shall have found the
Englishman to be neither sullen nor fastidious? Who, lastly, is
so much an object of heart-felt admiration of the American man and
the American woman as the well-mannered and well-educated Englishwoman
or Englishman? These are the ideas which I say spring uppermost
in the minds of the unprejudiced English traveller as he makes
acquaintance with these near relatives. Then he becomes cognisant
of their official doings, of their politics, of their municipal
scandals, of their great ring-robberies, of their lobbyings and
briberies, and the infinite baseness of their public life. There
at the top of everything he finds the very men who are the least
fit to occupy high places. American public dishonesty is so glaring
that the very friends he has made in the country are not slow
to acknowledge it,--speaking of public life as a thing apart from
their own existence, as a state of dirt in which it would be an
insult to suppose that they are concerned! In the midst of it all
the stranger, who sees so much that he hates and so much that he
loves, hardly knows how to express himself.

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