“Is it the fact that Patents are taken out in this country for processes which are in operation abroad, but which have not been previously introduced into this country?—Certainly. A process in actual operation abroad, which has not been published in this country, can be made the subject of a Patent. “Is it practically the case that processes which are carried on abroad are brought into this country by parties who patent them here?—Yes. “A great number every week?—Yes, constantly.” Any one who has followed me in the statements I have presented will see that, while we have been retrograding and making our system of monopoly wider and worse, the Continent, to which a Patent system was first introduced just three-quarters of a century ago, is ahead of us in respect of the prudence with which exclusive privileges are granted and administered. There, as a rule tolerably general, Patents of importation are treated less liberally than those granted to inventors. The early and almost continuous working of the Patent within the kingdom is required; it lapses when expiry abroad exposes to foreign competition; expropriation is provided for; there is more scrutiny; medical appliances and food are excluded, &c. But this is merely one, and a comparatively unimportant, fault of the system. There are many faults, as we have seen, much more serious, and which the Commission deem irremovable. I must, therefore, protest against injury done by the Patent system to our manufacturers and artisans, and through them to the nation. These interests, the interests of us all, cannot with impunity be subjected longer to the hardships that I have endeavoured to expose. Times are changed. British and Irish manufacturing pre-eminence is passing away, not indeed by its actual retrogression, but by a simultaneous and relatively more rapid progression of rivals on the Continent, who, in not a few cases, are competing successfully, even in our home markets, in those articles of commerce and manufacture in which but lately we, perhaps conceitedly, supposed we had outstripped, without a chance of being overtaken, all conceivable rivals. The motion, of which notice has been given, is:— “That, in the opinion of this House, the time has arrived when the interests of trade and commerce, and the progress of the arts and sciences, in this country would be promoted by the abolition of Patents for inventions.”