But this is not all. The complaint of manufacturers at the obstruction of the present law would not be enough by itself, but it is a very serious matter when invention is part of the business of manufacturing. The law of Patents, in short, interferes with what has become the normal process of invention. Mr. Platt states: “I think that there is scarcely a week, certainly not a month, that passes but what we have a notice of some kind or other of things that we have never heard of in any way, and do not know of in the least that we are infringing upon them.” Sir William Armstrong complains of a personal grievance: “The necessity which I am under of taking out Patents, not for the purpose of obtaining for myself a monopoly, but simply for the purpose of preventing other persons from excluding me from my own inventions.” And much similar evidence was given before the Royal Commission, of which Lord Stanley was chairman. Thus the present law is not wanted to promote invention, and it is injurious to a kind of invention which would go on luxuriantly without it. The gradual nature of most inventions is a sufficient security that it will proceed under the law of competition. Perhaps the practice of Government is the best indication of the necessity for the abolition of Patents. A few years ago the manufacturing departments of Government found themselves so hampered by Patents that they resolved to try whether they were bound or not, the result being a legal opinion that they were not bound. But Government is only a great manufacturer, its work in some departments being less than in many private businesses. Is there any reason why Government should be released, and individuals bound to patentees? As to the supposition that invention will cease, the mere interest of the Government in paying for anything worth having is found a sufficient stimulus to invention in the things which it requires; and so it is assumed will be the interest of competing manufacturers. There is a universal agreement, moreover, that no Patent-Law should cover all the inventions which are now covered. It happens that the strongest condemnation of things as they are before the Royal Commission came from witnesses who wished a change, though none suggested anything which commended itself to the Commission. The idea seemed to be that a separation could be made between substantial inventions and the improvements or amendments which are now so important, but are admitted to be unsuitable for Patents. It was thought that Patents, instead of being granted indiscriminately, should only be granted in cases of proved novelty and utility. But no working plan of a court to do this could be devised, or one which would not probably discourage inventors as much as the abolition of Patents altogether.