We belong to no learned corporation—a simple volunteer in the army of economist disputants—and have no other banner than that of the truth; but we cannot refrain from saying one word in defence of those whom the learned Belgian speaks of among many others in these terms: “The judgment of the Academy of Sciences on the steamboat invented by Fulton may help to form an estimate of the contradiction which experience sometimes inflicts on the best-intentioned verdict of a committee of savants.”
We assert as a fact that if the steamboat presented to the Academy of Sciences by Fulton were now submitted to the judgment of a committee of machine builders, they would declare unanimously that the boat could not navigate. We wish in no way to seek to depreciate the acknowledgments which mankind owes to Fulton; but his invention, as all are at starting, was only a sketch, which required half a century of labour to perfect and to make as practical as it now is.
Here there is room for an observation which must be noted.
The advocates for the principle of property in inventions fall into ecstacies before a transatlantic steamer, and exclaim, “Behold, what a crying injustice! what deplorable ingratitude! Society has denied the rights of the inventor to this wonder of the sea! He died in poverty, or nearly so.”
Others go further back, and attribute to Solomon de Caux, or to Papin, all the honour; they forget that between Papin, or Solomon de Caux and Fulton, a crowd of men of genius brought their contributions of knowledge, experiment, and work of every kind; and that between Fulton and the makers of our day there are so many inventors, so many explorers, fortunate or unfortunate, ridiculous or serious, whose attempts or applications have helped to perfect the steam-engine, that it may truly be said that every one has had a hand in it.
It is the same with the railway, the electric telegraph, and the different machines for spinning, carding, weaving, &c.
IX.
To pretend, as does the defender of the principle of property in inventions, in the ninth paragraph of his work, that the sudden and inconsiderate introduction of a new invention may cause a sensible injury to existing manufacturers, and that it is consequently advisable to maintain the system of Patents, which during a certain time limits their use and hinders production, to prevent the lowering of prices immediately at least; so to pretend is to renew the plea of the protected manufacturers, who demanded that the greatest precautions should be taken to facilitate the transition from Protection to Free-trade. But we do not see clearly what benefit there can be to the community at large in delaying the advantages to be derived from an invention. The misunderstood interests of certain manufacturers may appear to require this delay, but common sense tells us that manufacturers and consumers have every interest in immediately adopting every invention which saves labour, capital, and time.
If we look back, we will see that a delay of this kind would have retarded for an indefinite period the discoveries of Columbus in order to avoid a sensible injury to the monopoly which Venice had acquired in Eastern commerce. We maintain, as indeed experience proves, that however innovating inventions may be, displacement of labour occurs gradually. We will only cite, in support of this assertion, the well-known instance of the substitution of printing for manuscript copying. It may be answered that the substitution of mechanical spinning and weaving for hand-work caused great suffering. We answer, that you should blame the system of Patents, which, raising inordinately the cost of the machines, must have restricted labour, although they lowered the price of the product. If there had been no royalty to pay to the inventor, the number of the machines would have rapidly increased, and a greater number of workmen would at once have found employment similar to that to which they had been accustomed.
How many enterprising and intelligent speculators would most eagerly have availed themselves of these new outlets for their activity, if the course had been cleared of all these obstructions which the law has arbitrarily established.