II.
The Hon. M. le Hardy de Beaulieu asks, “Why the effort which consists in rendering productive some natural agent in which this quality was not formerly recognised, should not entitle to a recompense of property in the value given to the natural agent in rendering it productive, in the same way that labour bestowed on barren land to render it productive, to the profit of all, makes him proprietor of that portion of land who performed this labour?”
Here is our answer: He who renders productive some natural agent has an incontestable property in that agent which he has rendered productive, but not in all similar or identical agents in nature; he who converts a certain quantity of water into steam, to obtain a motive force, is incontestably proprietor of the water he employs and of the steam, as well as of the force which he obtains, but the remainder of the water, and of the steam which may be produced from it, and the force which may be derived from it, remain the common property of mankind; that is to say, each should have it in his power to employ an unlimited quantity of water to obtain the same results. The man who first broke up and sowed a field never could have claimed as property all the ground in the world; he only retained for himself, and that reasonably and justly, the portion which he had reclaimed and rendered fertile by his labour.
We may add that he who renders productive some natural agent avails himself in this work of all the acquired knowledge and all the work previously done, and he would unduly monopolise it if the community recognised his exclusive right to it.
It is said that Pascal invented the wheelbarrow; did he not borrow from the social capital both the wheel and the axle, and the two arms, not to speak of the species of box which forms with the other parts the whole wheelbarrow?
Our learned opponent maintains “the perfect identity between the labour of discovery, and of the putting the soil in culture, and of this same labour applied to other natural agents which did not exist in indefinite quantity; and he makes the deduction, having the same result, that inventors placing at the disposal of mankind new quantities of gratuitous utility, not hitherto available, deserve the same reward—property in the natural agent, or portion of this agent, whose gratuitous services have been acquired by mankind.”
We must allow that we do not know of any natural agent of which the quantity is not indefinite, excepting only the earth; but steam, wind, light, electricity, magnetism, the force of attraction, that of weight, the affinity of particles, their divisibility, their different properties, may be employed in whatsoever quantities, and still there would be no perceptible diminution or restraint in the use of them to any one. The only possible restraint is that which comes from the unreflecting action of the law, from artificial hindrances and obstacles which may be made law.
We believe, with Bastiat, that the greatest service that could be conferred on mankind would be to remove the obstacles which stand between his efforts and the supply of his wants.
How does M. le Hardy de Beaulieu not see that no one has the right to make burdensome that which is naturally gratuitous, and that it is just to exact that no one should appropriate any part of what constitutes common property?
That learned Professor of the Brussels Museum tells us the inventor has a right to say to the manufacturer, “Find out my process for yourself if you can, search for it as I have done; but if you wish to spare yourself this labour, and avoid the risk of spending it in vain, consent to yield me a part of the expenses which I save you in simplifying your appliances.” And he asks us if we find this demand unjust or unreasonable.
Not only do we find this demand just and reasonable, but we maintain that it is the only one we can recognise. But M. le Hardy de Beaulieu forgets that, according to the Patent-Laws, things are not thus arranged. The inventor, with the law in his hand, and the law courts to support him, says to the manufacturer, “It is forbidden to you to search and to find; or if you search and find, you are forbidden to use the power or the agent when you have found it: the process which I have invented is my property, and no one has the right to use it, even if his researches, his labour, enable him to discover it; even if he had commenced the search before me, all his labour is lost. I alone am proprietor of this agent, power, or process.” If this system be right, he who first rendered productive the most indispensable natural agent could have confiscated the whole world to his profit.