I adduce this evidence to prove that inventions actually made are kept back just now. I don’t require to go far for a party who has two or three small inventions (not connected with his own line of business); but—such is our “system”—no ready means to publish, and so has for years kept them back. But a more remarkable instance is present to my mind. Since about twenty years the same party, having been then consulted by an _employé_ of a house near Birmingham, is the reticent possessor of an inventor’s secret. That inventor’s name he does not know. His invention is ingenious, and may be practicable. It affects an article of universal consumption, and, so far as I know, has never been patented or thought of by anybody else than he who confided the secret, nor introduced to use by him, although, in my opinion, sufficiently promising to be worthy of attention. One of the ways in which Patents hurt trade is shown by Mr. Platt:— “Are there not some large manufacturers who like to keep the monopoly of a Patent in their own hands, who obtain money and go on manufacturing without granting licences to others?—Yes.” Sir W. Armstrong testifies to this power to refuse licences:— “Is it not the case that such possessor could refuse you a licence, and so prevent you from making the improvements altogether?—Certainly he could.” Lord Chelmsford confirms the legality of this procedure:— “If he chooses to work the Patent himself exclusively, it is only doing what the law permits him to do.” Where there is not downright refusal, Sir W. Armstrong shows that patentees ask too much:— “I have known patentees very exorbitant in their demands for licences—far beyond the merits of their inventions. “In that case the power of fixing an exorbitant price, really preventing the use of the article altogether, operates very disadvantageous to the public?—No doubt of it.” So Mr. Newton:— “The claims of patentees are very frequently, and I may say generally, excessive, and beyond the real value of their inventions; but there may be cases in which new conditions of things arise, and the invention, if invention it may be called, becomes a matter almost of necessity, and the public must have it. The case which has been put, I think, is a very strong one, in which a public company or a large capitalist buys up all the existing Patents, and thereby acquires a power which may be exceedingly oppressive. “... I have seen much folly in the refusal of licences. I introduced the sewing machine into this country. I sold it for a small sum, and I offered some years afterwards to the owner of the Patent as much licence-money as 10_l._ per machine, and that was refused.