A SPEECH DELIVERED IN THE HOUSE OF COMMONS ON THE 5TH OF FEBRUARY
1841.

On the twenty-ninth of January 1841, Mr Serjeant Talfourd
obtained leave to bring in a bill to amend the law of copyright.
The object of this bill was to extend the term of copyright in a
book to sixty years, reckoned from the death of the writer.

On the fifth of February Mr Serjeant Talfourd moved that the bill
should be read a second time. In reply to him the following
Speech was made. The bill was rejected by 45 votes to 38.

Though, Sir, it is in some sense agreeable to approach a subject
with which political animosities have nothing to do, I offer
myself to your notice with some reluctance. It is painful to me
to take a course which may possibly be misunderstood or
misrepresented as unfriendly to the interests of literature and
literary men. It is painful to me, I will add, to oppose my
honourable and learned friend on a question which he has taken up
from the purest motives, and which he regards with a parental
interest. These feelings have hitherto kept me silent when the
law of copyright has been under discussion. But as I am, on full
consideration, satisfied that the measure before us will, if
adopted, inflict grievous injury on the public, without
conferring any compensating advantage on men of letters, I think
it my duty to avow that opinion and to defend it.

The first thing to be done, Sir, is to settle on what principles
the question is to be argued. Are we free to legislate for the