Social Economy.

ARE OUR EXISTING PATENT LAWS PRODUCTIVE OF PUBLIC BENEFIT?

AFFIRMATIVE ARTICLE.-III.

SHALL a man have or shall he not have fruit of his brain? That is the question in this debate. It is reasonably presumed that a public benefit can never arise from a private wrong; that is, from the spoliation of the individual with the intention of the " 'public good." This principle, if any so maintain it, carried to its legiti mate extent, would involve the seizing of the goods and possessions of the more fortunate members of the community, and during seasons of distress, appropriating them to the public service. None will maintain, surely, that when a man has been months, years, and, it may be, the greater portion of his life, inventing a machine, that so soon as perfected the public should have the benefit, and the inventor share only with those who have neither risen early nor lain awake to scheme and plan its construction. "Delta" says, "It must not for one moment be supposed that we would object to all protection of the inventor and the use of his invention. We think this is possible with the least degree of infringement of the principles of free trade." We say that it is not a question of objection but a question of right, that the inventor should have his invention protected, just as much as the law protects his house, and makes it a castle sacred to him and his family. It is not a question of free trade or restricted trade in any sense, and does not enter into the laws of political economy. It has to do with a man's private property, just as it has to do with a field of potatoes, which is private property; and which any one removing without the consent of the owner, renders himself liable to be prosecuted for felony. The right which constitutes ownership in the potatoes is not greater, is not so great, as that which constitutes ownership in an invention; and he that steals from the inventor his invention commits a crime not less than the man who deliberately puts his hand into another man's pocket and purloins his gold. What has the question of free trade, then, in any sense, to do with inventions which proceed from the private and not the public brain? He who demands free trade in inventions can quote precisely the defence which serves the Free Brothers of Spain, the freebooters of France, and the bush. rangers of America.

But we are not left without an instance of how free trade in inventions would work,-would work for others, and leave the inventor himself with little or no profit in his invention. The

inventor of the "mule," whose monument the inhabitants of Bolton have recently "set up," as if that "stone" could atone for positive cruelty to the man who had enriched not only the cotton district but England and the world with his invention. When Samuel Crompton was in his twenty-first year he commenced the construction of his "mule," which took him the next five years to perfect. He says, "The next five years had this addition to my labour as a weaver, occasioned by the imperfect state of cotton-spinning, viz., a continual endeavour to realize a more perfect principle of spinning; and though often baffled, I as often renewed the attempt, at the expense of every shilling I had in the world.' Crompton could only work on his machine at over-hours, often far into the night, which caused reports of the house, in which he and his mother dwelt, to be haunted. No doubt it was, but it was with Samuel's untiring, restless spirit. His only tools were a few, sacredly preserved by his mother, once the property of his father, and now interesting from the fact that with them he had constructed a church organ. In order to obtain some other needed tools, Samuel frequently hired himself to the manager of the Bolton Theatre, taking his place in the orchestra, in company with his violin, which had been made by himself, for which service he received one shilling and sixpence per night. When Crompton was on the eve of completing his machine, the Blackburn spinners were excited to riot against machinery, which they were told would destroy their means of living. During this outbreak the "mule" had to be taken to pieces and concealed. In the course of the year, however, the machine was complete; yarn was spun upon it, which was manufactured into muslins of a very fine description. The manufacturers were astonished at the fineness and firmness of the yarn Crompton produced. He was then only twenty-seven years of age; but his invention, from the hour of its completion, had altered the entire system of cotton manufacture. It was now seen that the muchcoveted India muslins could be made at home. The cotton manufacturers were only too anxious, therefore, to penetrate Samuel's secret. He, on the other hand, was equally solicitous to keep his invention to himself. All sorts of stratagems were resorted to, to obtain admission to the house. Samuel had to erect a screen before his window, which frequently had three or four faces "peeping in." One man, more determined than the rest, secreted himself for some days in the cock-loft, watching Samuel through a gimlet-hole pierced through the ceiling. Under these circumstances, it was impossible long to retain the secret of the machine. Speaking of this period, Samuel said, "During this time I married, and commenced spinner. But a few months reduced me to the cruel necessity either of destroying my machine altogether, or giving it up to the public. To destroy it I could not think of; to give up that for which I had laboured so long was cruel. I had no patent, nor the means of purchasing one. In preference to destroying, I gave it to the public." He trusted to the manufacturers to remunerate him.

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They did, indeed, draw up an agreement which ran thus:whose names are hereunto subscribed, have agreed to give, and do hereby promise to pay, unto Samuel Crompton, at the Hall-in-theWood, near Bolton, the several sums opposite to our names, as a reward for his improvements in spinning. Several of the principal tradesmen in Manchester, Bolton, &c., having seen his new machine, approve of it, and are of opinion that it would be of the greatest public utility to make it generally known; to which end a contribution is desired from every well-wisher of trade.' One authority says that Samuel received £50; another says £106. Crompton said himself, "I received as much by way of subscription as built me a new machine with only four spindles more than the one I had given up, the old one having forty-eight, the new one fifty-two spindles. But, most wretched to relate, even the miserable sums appended to the list were withheld in many instances when Crompton applied for them. He wrote:-"At last I consented, in hope of a generous and liberal subscription. The consequence was, that from many subscribers, who would not pay the sum they had set opposite their names when I applied to them for it, I got nothing but abusive language, given to me to drive me from them, which was easily done, for I never till then could think it possible that any men (in such situations of life and circumstances) could pretend one thing and act directly opposite. I then found it was possible, having had proof positive." Having thus experienced the generous treatment of the men who were making fortunes out of his invention, Samuel turned his attention to manufacturing, trusting to obtain the success of his neighbours. But in this hope he was doomed to be disappointed. No sooner did he teach any new hands the use of the machine than they were bribed by the manufacturers in the neighbourhood to leave him. Crompton thus records this additional injustice: I pushed on, intending to have a good share in the spinning line, yet I found there was an evil which I had not foreseen, and of much greater magnitude than giving up the machine, viz., that I must always be teaching green hands, employ none, or quit the country, it being believed, that if I taught them they knew their business well. So that for years I had no choice left but to give up spinning or quit my native land. I cut up my spinning machine for other purposes." He, on another occasion, feeling acutely the injustice which had been done him, seized his axe and broke his carding machine in pieces, saying, "They shall not have this too."

In 1811 Crompton commenced collecting information relative to the results of his invention. He found that in England, Scotland, and Ireland, there were between four and five millions of mule spindles in use; two-thirds of the steam power then employed in cotton spinning was employed to turn the "mules." The value of the buildings and machinery employed in Samuel's invention was computed at between three and four millions sterling; and, as a proof that the invention had not thrown hands out of employ, it 1864.

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was found that 70,000 persons were directly engaged upon the "mules," and 150,000 more in weaving the yarn thus spun. It was ascertained that the aggregate number of persons depending upon Crompton's invention was 660,000! This was in 1811. What must the number be in 1864! The result of these statistics was embodied in a petition to Parliament: a committee was empowered to examine the allegations of the petition, which reported favourably, after examining various witnesses and documents. The report concluded," Your Committee beg leave to observe, that the petitioner appears to them to be highly deserving of a national reward." On the House taking the subject into consideration, it awarded Crompton £5,000! Mr. M'Culloch designated the grant as "a pittance hardly adequate to defray the expenses of the application." Crompton had proved before the committee of the House of Commons that he had contributed £300,000 per annum to the revenue, solely from duty on cotton wool imported into the country to be spun on his machine!

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That is the unvarnished history of the hardships of one inventor without the protection of patent laws! It may be said, that because Crompton was not able to avail himself of the protection of those laws, the public have reaped the benefit. No doubt: just as the thief reaps the benefit of the accumulation of property in the house into which he breaks. But by the protection of the patent laws to Crompton's invention, the public would not have paid one penny more for the yarn produced, and Crompton, by being paid a royalty by every manufacturer who used his mule," would have realized a fortune, would have been speedily placed in independent circumstances, so that he could have entirely devoted his attention to the construction of other machines, which might, for anything we now know to the contrary, have been as valuable and as productive of the "public good" as his "mule." Whereas Crompton, being soured with the treatment that he received, instead of being encouraged to continue the construction of his machines, took up his axe and broke to pieces one then at work! There cannot, therefore, be a doubt, with Crompton's experience in illustration, that the patent laws are a benefit to the public, as well as a protection to the inventor. But why, then, did not Crompton avail himself of their aid? Simply for the reason which he states,-he was too poor. To obtain letters patent then was a very different thing from obtaining letters patent now. Then, to a man of Crompton's limited means, the expenditure would have been a small fortune; now, however limited his means, if he had any at all, he would be enabled to register his invention, to patent it for a period which could be increased as the invention became developed and its use appreciated; or, on the other hand, if he found his invention, on a preliminary trial, to be comparatively useless, then he could discard it without any serious loss.

"Delta," whose vision on this subject of patent laws seems strangely perverted, says, "The patent laws, by creating an unre

stricted monopoly of the thing protected, increase the cost to the public beyond what is desirable, and therefore they are not bene.. ficial to the nation, although the thing may be new and useful, the extra or unreasonable cost being so far injurious to the nation.” The very contrary is the fact. The inventor knows that his inven. tion, if of universal application, will bring him the most profit by being produced at prices which will command universal sale. It is his interest to supply his production at the lowest possible remunerative price, knowing well that a large sale will give him large profits. And even in those things or machines which are of limited use, it is the inventor's interest to produce them at a low price, in order that they may be used at all; and, further, knowing that his interest in his invention extends only for a period, it will be the inventor's interest to supply the invention during his ownership at such prices as will command sales, and which cannot be very much reduced when the invention is thrown into the market to unrestricted competition. In illustration," Wilson's Cutting Machine" may be cited. It is used by paper-makers and bookbinders, and is, for the purpose intended, one of the best machines ever invented. The patent expired some years ago. It is now manufactured by many small and large machinists. And yet, quality and workmanship taken into consideration, the machine is not cheaper than when it was the exclusive property of the inventor. That is rather a conclusive answer to "Delta's" objection.

I see, on glancing at page 338, that "Publicola" has unintentionally fallen into an error. He says, "Crompton and Cort are acknowledged by the advocate of the affirmative to have been unrewarded. We cannot avoid concluding that our modern patent laws, however beneficial they may be intended to be, are not productive of benefit to the public, inasmuch as they fail to protect the inventor." As we have shown, Crompton's loss of remuneration arose entirely from the absence of the protection of the patent laws; and that our modern patent laws" are not the laws which were in existence when Crompton completed his "mule." It is very needful not to confound two things,-the patent laws of the past and the patent laws of the present. Should any "British Controversialist," by inspiration or otherwise, hit upon any scheme by which he can make two blades of grass grow where but one grew before, he ought to have, not only the universal thanks of the nation, but the protection of law to preserve to him an interest in his invention. It was a law of old time that the ox should not be muzzled as he trod out the corn; so in our time, the producer, the inventor, should live by his production, and have the profit of his invention. Unfortunately, we do not live in the millennial period yet; we cannot yet trust to public gratitude to reward and recompense the public benefactor; until that period does arrive, when public gratitude will equal public service, the inventor must claim and be protected by patent laws.

J. J.