I appeal to Mr. Mill as a statesman, and ask, Is it consistent with enlightened policy to place manufacturers in such a position, that they are constantly tempted to conceal improvements they are using, from fear to discover that they are infringing? Does he know so little of mankind, that he expects them, the poorest as well as the richest, to employ (and this would be requisite) suitable agents to search whether any improvement they mean to adopt is already the subject of a Patent that renders its adoption illegal, and also to institute inquiries as to who, and where, in the wide world, is the holder of the Patent or Patents, whom in that case he must first negotiate with and sue for a licence? Does Mr. Mill think a manufacturer’s time is so free from absorbing occupations that he can attend to the daily transactions of the Patent-office, so as to inquire whether such and such a mysterious application is an unintended, it may be, but in result an effectual, ousting him from use of a process that he is about to introduce or has already in operation? Yet these are the superhuman efforts and gifts which compliance with, and subjection to, any Patent system presupposes and requires.
Is it nothing in the eyes of this legislator, whose absence from this House is so generally regretted, that by means of the Patent-Laws there are thrown loose on men in trade thousands of individuals whose interests run counter to those of society, men trusted with letters of marque to prey, not on foreign commerce, but on British? Is it a small matter, that, having surrendered the principle of discriminating duties leviable by the State for national purposes, we continue to expose those from whom this protection is withdrawn to an ever-increasing burden of taxes, in favour of individuals, levied without State control or any regard to equality? Does Mr. Mill conceive it is short of recklessness to continue to stimulate invention by rewards which often turn out ruinous to those whom they are meant to favour, and which bear not the smallest proportion to the cleverness, the beneficial results, the cost of elaborating, the merits or the wants of the inventor, and scarcely to the originality and legitimacy of the claim of whoever is the applicant? Is he aware that the advantage reaped by inventors, sometimes very large, is obtained at so frightful a cost that, as some persons believe, for every pound which actually reaches him the country loses to the extent of one hundred pounds? Surely we are asked to obtain our stimulus by a folly (only his was voluntary, and not habitual) like that of the fabulous sailor who, for the sake of a tumbler of rum, swallowed the bucketful of salt water amid which the dangerous stimulant had by accident fallen. I honour the candour of Mr. Mill, and I hope yet to have his concurrence in my views. He cannot have reflected on and realised actual facts. One illustration more, and this of another difficulty which I commend to his attention and that of any honourable gentlemen who have been carried away along with him, I give by narrating an incident in my late canvass.
A deputation of the trades of Scotland did the candidates the honour of submitting to us a very judicious list of questions. One of these concerned the Patent-Law. They asked, would I support a motion for reducing the cost of Patents? I answered I would, because I think the cost too high for the working man; but I added that I would rather see Patents swept away. One of the deputation properly animadverted on the hardship this might inflict, and he instanced the case of his brother, who had invented an improved apparatus for use on board ship. I rejoined that I accepted the case as sufficient to confirm the conviction that Patents are on the whole not good, but bad, for working men or any men. My reasoning was substantially this: In order to reap his reward, the inventor is required or expected to visit every ship or shipowner at the port, and endeavour to get the apparatus understood, believed in, and adopted; and not at Leith only—at every Scotch port, every English port, and every Irish port. But not to let British shipowners suffer by the inequality of paying, while rivals use without paying, and at the same time to promote his own interests, the inventor must take out Patents in France, Belgium, Holland, and all maritime countries and their colonies. After he obtains these many Patents he has to sell his apparatus at all the ports of those countries. The first thing obvious is, that to do a tithe of that work the inventor must relinquish his own business, which is the solid beef in the mouth of the dog in the fable, for the delusive shadow in the water. But never mind that in the meantime: after the business is relinquished, there remains the insuperable difficulty of conducting a business so much beyond the power of man as that I have sketched. He might of course attempt to overcome that by appointing agents to manufacture abroad or act abroad for him; but where is the capital to hazard on so great an enterprise? If he were as rich as a Rothschild, has he the gift of tongues to enable him to correspond in all languages? And if he had, how can all this work, requiring simultaneity, be done at once? The end, of course, must be, at the very best—the Patents, if, indeed, actually taken, are sold for a trifle, and the persons who secure them, which they only do if valuable, in their turn sell, for a trifle too; so that the lucky inventor gets but little out of the tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of pounds which the public are made to bear the burden of. Ex uno disce omnes.
I am unwilling to leave this part of my theme without adverting to a point which deserves some attention—I mean the tendency the Patent system has to lower the tone of men of science. In a quotation from Lord Granville it is seen to be more than insinuated that the sacred claims of truth are in danger of being compromised by the evidence men of science are asked and tempted to give in courts of law. But the evil of Patents begins in the laboratory and the closet; for there is felt the impulse to conceal anything new and likely to be useful, in order to patent; so that a conflict is generated between, on the one hand, the theory of the academic chair which supposes in the very name “university” universalism, community of knowledge, and on the other, law-created personal interests, whose nature it is to stifle the man of science’s inherent desire to spread knowledge and exchange thoughts in order to benefit mankind.
But Mr. Mill presents an alternative. I, for one, have no objection to see it considered. I have long advocated State rewards; they cannot be condemned on principle; they are sanctioned by another philosopher. When I say that I had the honour long ago to receive the following from M. Chevalier, I am sure of this House’s attention.
Extract of a Letter from M. Michel Chevalier to Mr. Macfie.
“The Patent system, as constituted in all countries where it is established, is a monopoly that outrages liberty and industry. It has consequences that are disastrous, seeing there are cases where it may stop trade for exportation and even for home consumption, because it places manufacturers who work in a country where Patents are established at a great disadvantage in competing with others who live in States, such as Switzerland, where Patents are interdicted by law. Practice, experience, which is the supreme authority in the world, shows daily, in France particularly, that the system is a scourge to industry. What might be substituted is a system of recompenses, either national or European, as you have proposed, to be awarded when practical use has pronounced on the merit of each invention, and when the originality shall admit of being established. All the friends of industrial and social progress ought to unite their efforts to liberate industry from the shackles that have been bequeathed from the past. That of Patents is one of those which there will be most urgency to get rid of.”
The Continental Association for Promoting the Progress of Social Sciences favours such rewards. Allow me to quote from a Report of M. Tilliere, Avocât of Brussels, which was adopted by that body:—
“It is proper to introduce, in respect to industrial inventions, the principle of expropriation [or acquisition for behoof of the public], with a view to general benefit, in order to reconcile the interests of industry and the requirements of free trade (libre échange) with the interests of the inventor.