think that any abstract considerations of the kind mentioned by the honourable member (Mr. Macfie) would induce anybody to grudge to such a man any reward to which he might fairly be entitled, provided that that reward could be given in a manner free from objection on other grounds. The objections which he felt to the principle of Patents were threefold. In the first place, you could hardly ever secure the reward going to the right man. In the next place, you could not establish any proportion between the public service rendered and the value of the reward received, nominally, for that service. And, thirdly, you could not by any arrangement that he had been able to discover, prevent very great inconvenience and injury being inflicted upon third parties. With regard to the first point—the difficulty of securing that the reward should go to the right man—it must be remembered that a Patent did not, as some people supposed, bring to the holder of it an immediate pecuniary recompense. All that it did was to give him a right to prevent any one else from using his invention without paying for it, and if that Patent were infringed he was entitled to take legal proceedings. But everybody knew that law was costly, and that Patent suits were the most costly of all. It was notorious that Patents were continually infringed by persons who well knew they were infringing them, but relied upon the inability of the inventor to incur the expense of defending his property. If a poor inventor took out a Patent, and the Patent promised to be productive, in nine cases out of ten he was obliged to sell it to some one who could command capital enough to defend it in a court of law. If the Patent remained in his own hands, it was quite sure to be infringed, and then he would probably be crushed by the law expenses. He did not know whether it would be possible to obtain accurate information upon this point, but he really did not think he should be exaggerating if he said that in nine cases out of ten—probably in 99 out of 100—the reward was obtained, not by inventors or their representatives, but by persons who had bought the Patent on speculation and at a very low rate. He said at a low rate, because there was a great deal of uncertainty about such property, and until a Patent was tested by actual working you could hardly say whether it was valuable or not. What was the practical effect of this? Why, that a few great firms in any branch of business, buying up at a low rate any new Patent applicable to their business, and prepared to fight for it, could so hamper other competitors as to secure a practical monopoly. The reward, therefore, did not, as a rule, go to the men who, on the ground of the public service rendered by them, were intended to receive it. As to the second point—that the reward might be great and the public service very small—that had been dwelt upon by the honourable and learned gentleman opposite, and little need be added to what had been said by him.