“Take the Electric Telegraph Company. I believe we should have had that telegraph much improved, and that it would be working much cheaper, and that we should have had it all over the country, but for the misfortune they laboured under, of having Patents which they were obliged to protect; and they were obliged to buy up everybody’s inventions, good or bad, that interfered technically with theirs. I firmly believe that they have been obliged to refrain from adopting many good improvements which they might have introduced themselves, but did not, because they were afraid that it might shake their Patent; and I believe that the stoppage put to inventions by this state of things is far greater than would result from secrecy.” The same is certified by Sir W. Armstrong:— “I am quite satisfied that a very great number of inventions which have remained inoperative for years and years, many of which I could easily name, would have been brought to perfection very much sooner if it had been open to all the intellects of the country to grapple with the difficulties of them. “May we take it that under the present system, if a man has obtained a Patent with little or no inquiry, although that Patent would not stand investigation if opposed, yet if the patentee is content to impose a moderate tax upon those who want to use his invention, they will pay that sum without its being worth anybody’s while to contest it?—Yes. “Do you believe that the cases of that kind are very numerous?—Very numerous, and the cases are still more numerous in which the existence of a monopoly simply has the effect of deterring other persons from following up that particular line of improvement.” Another effect is the restraining of publication. Hear Mr. Richard Roberts’ thrilling representations:— “I have a list of something like 100 inventions that I should have patented thirty or forty years ago, but for the cost. “I could mention one by which many lives would have been saved if I had had a Patent for it. “I very rarely make models, but I had one made for this. It was made many years ago. I invented it in 1830, and I mean to say that, if it had been put into practice, things would not have happened which have happened, and which have caused the loss of many lives, as connected with railways.”