465 
of Edinburgh^ Session 1865 - 66 . 
nine years and a-half, from October 1852 to December 1861, was 
L. 772, 778, which, at the same rate, will be L. 1,001, 764 at the end 
of the present year ? 
Of the sum of L. 772,778 received in 1861, L.502,000 has been 
expended, viz., L. 96, 000 in fees to law officers and their clerks, 
who do nothing for the inventor, and L.406,000 for the expenses 
of the Patent Office. 
After all this expenditure, the enormous sum of nearly a quarter 
of a million of money, wrenched from the inventive genius of 
England, slumbers, unapplied, in the Exchequer, while our schools 
and universities are left to starve, and the interests of science and 
art consigned to the munificence of our scientific institutions. 
In discussing the policy of untaxing, extending, and securing 
patent rights, we may view them in relation to the doctrine of free 
trade, now developing itself in the legislation of every civilised 
community. In the present state of the law, patent rights may 
be said to be imported and exported as freely as the instruments 
and machines in which they are embodied ; but in so far as they 
are more taxed in one country than another, the trade in their pro- 
ducts and in their privileges cannot be considered free. A dis- 
covery in science, and a process or invention in art, are gifts ofi*ered 
to the families of mankind wherever they are made, and whatever 
be their character. To fetter their development in one country 
while they are fostered in another, is an act of international 
injustice, which free trade disclaims. To tax them anywhere, 
under any circumstances, and under any pretence, is a blot upon 
political wisdom, an act of cruelty to genius, and a wrong infiicted 
upon society at large. 
In tracing the rise and progress of those great inventions and 
discoveries which have added to our physical enjoyments and con- 
solidated our power over the material world, we cannot fail to 
recognise the grand object which, in the arrangements of Provi- 
dence, they are meant to accomplish. Whatever man is fitted to 
understand he is destined to know. Whatever has been created 
for his use he is destined to enjoy. We have yet much to learn of 
the sidereal universe of which we form a part ; of the system of 
planets to which our own belongs ; of the physical history and 
construction of our terrestrial home ; of the organic and inorganic 
3 p 
VOL. V. 
