Mr. President,—I rise to call your attention to the late debate on the Patent-Law. This Chamber has frequently expressed its dissatisfaction with the working of the present law, and after the issue of the Report of the Royal Commission on the subject, endeavoured to bring about an inquiry into the policy of granting Patents for inventions. I cannot but think the time has now arrived for further action in this matter. The late debate upon the motion of Mr. Macfie has re-awakened public interest in the subject, and it is gratifying to note, both in the debate itself and the subsequent discussion in the newspapers, that the formerly very prevalent idea of a natural property in inventions has been tacitly abandoned. In some of the arguments used the old fallacy seems to lurk, for the _Pall Mall Gazette_, in a very able article, says: “It is plausible to say that if there were no property in invention every one would get the benefit of all inventions; but this appears to us to have some analogy to the notion that if there were no property in land every one would get the benefit of the crops.” There is, however, a very great difference, because an invention cannot possibly yield all the benefits which society can derive from it until it becomes public property; whereas all experience proves that land, in order to yield the greatest results, must become and remain individual property. Let us discard, therefore, all comparison of property in invention with other property, and discuss the subject as one of expediency. Is it the interest of the community at large that Patents should be granted for inventions? I am not prepared to say whether or not inventors should be remunerated by the State; but, after mature consideration, I have come to the conclusion that, in the interests of the nation and of all engaged in industry, Patents for invention should be abolished. A Patent is a monopoly, a patentee a monopolist. When the Protectionist system was in vogue, Patents which were in full harmony with that system could be justified; but in these days of Free-trade all monopolies which act in restraint of trade should be abolished. Some of the arguments used in support of the system of Protection to inventors by granting to them a monopoly of manufacture are, to my mind, very similar to those used in former days in support of other monopolies. Before the repeal of the Navigation Laws, it was said that without them our marine would be destroyed, and no more ships would be built, because there would be no inducement to build them. Without Patents, say the defenders of the system, there will be no inventions, because there will be no special inducement to make them. We maintain, however, that under a freer system invention would be stimulated, and not restrained. As was well pointed out by Sir R. Palmer in his able speech, “Bounties and premiums might be adapted to a rude state of the arts and an early stage in the progress