British copyright's major failing during the nineteenth century was the fragmented and complicated state of the law. For British authors and publishers, international copyright became an increasingly desirable goal. Serjeant Thomas Noon Talfourd, elected MP for Reading in 1835, was the first to propose uniting the existing collage of copyright acts. Copyright could be seen as part of the portfolio of oppressive measures, particularly if a lengthy extension to its term was being proposed. For almost the whole of the nineteenth century America offered only informal protection to foreign copyright works. British copyright law remained in a state of disarray. A new domestic interest group, the Association to Protect the Rights of Authors, had been established. A delegation from the Association pressed the Prime Minister, Disraeli, for the appointment of a Select Committee or Royal Commission. A convention for an international copyright union was drafted, discussed at the Berne conference in 1883, held under the auspices of the Swiss government.