“That, so far as regards home manufacturers and producers, such a change of the immemorial usages of the kingdom is virtually a bestowal on parties carrying on the same businesses in the colonies of a right to use patented inventions fourteen years sooner than they. “That if, at any time, the British Parliament might have put home manufacturers on such an unfavourable footing, surely this cannot be supposed under free-trade and equalised duties, when they must task their utmost energies, and adopt every improvement in mechanism and processes, in order to maintain their ground. “That the use of future Patents, at the rates that have been freely paid by sugar refiners for Patents granted before now would subject each sugar house, of average size, to a payment of about £3,000 a year. “That to exempt their competitors in the colonies from such a tax (for tax it is, payable by order of, though not to, the State) is really to give them a bounty of that very large amount. “That, in so far as patent fees may be considered a premium for stimulating improvements, an equal share of the benefit is enjoyed by the colonists, who, therefore, should bear a due share of the burden.” Soon after that time, protection having ceased, the unfairness of burdening British manufacturers came more vividly into sight. How can they compete with Prussia and Switzerland? Here is evidence regarding those countries. From a Prussian witness:— “I am a member of the Board of Trade and Commerce, and at the same time a member of the Patent Commission. “Will you be good enough to state what is the system adopted in Prussia with regard to protection to inventions?—We have the principle in our country to give as much liberty as possible to every branch of industry and art, and, considering every sort of Patent as an hindrance to their free development, we are not very liberal in granting them. We merely grant a Patent for a discovery of a completely novel invention, or real improvement in existing inventions.” From an important Swiss witness:— “There is no want of persons to import them into Switzerland, although those persons thus importing them obtain no monopoly?—When a Patent is taken out in France or England, the process is published; therefore it becomes the property of the public in Switzerland; the Swiss have access to the French or English Patents. “In that way the Swiss have the benefit of the invention without the charge of the licence?—Yes. “And so far they have an advantage?—Certainly. “When inventions in the watchmaking trade are made in France, are they immediately introduced into Switzerland?—I should think so, if they are useful.”