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October 17, 1904.]
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CHINA OVERLAND TRADE REPORT. there is a good deal of misunderstanding. eventful 19th January. Since then, with A popular estimate is that it costs £50 to the almost solitary exception of Mr.. get a patent. We have seen it stated in n
CHAPLIN, no Conservative who has attained book of reference that the total fess amount distinction in his party has ventured to to about £150. WHITAKER states that £1 hold the heretical doctrines of Protection. is to be paid on application for provisional Mr. BALFOUR thus, like ST. PAUL, has been protection, and £3 on filiur complete speci-brought up as it were at the feet of GAMA- fication. After four years' protection, a
LIEL, and in the strictest tenets of the Law certificate of renewal is necessary, and the as expounded by the Cobdenites. Such a fees ruu £5 for the fifth year, £6 for the bringing up is naturally not conducive to sixth, and so on up to £14. After fourteen originality or independence of thought, years, if the patentee shows that his inven- and so, equally naturally, it has come tion, though of great public usefulness, has about that the portion of Mr. BALFOUR'S been unprofitable to himself, he may get body political which his sponsors forgot extende l protection. It seems anomalous to dip, and so render invulnerable, was tendon Achilles-in a Prime that patents should, by the International the very Convention of 1884, be effective in all Minister of England the most essential for foreign countries (except Germany) and yet sate leadership. Mr. BALFOUR has, in fact, always been halting when he essayed to Another anomaly becomes evident when tread the paths of the Higher Finance. In our correspondent's position is considered. 1895 he made so foolish a speech on the He has (he says) discovered some novel financial questions then agitating India that article that would be generally used through for a time he became almost a laughing out the East, but for which there is no. use s ock; in 1897 we find him entrapped into at Home. In order to obtain protection, a scheme for introducing the will-p'-the- he must prove its usefulness, novelty, and wisp of bimetallism from which he was only legality to the satisfaction of the Comp-rescued by Lord SALISBURY. It is therefore troller-General, the Chief Examiner, the quite in the course of events that Mr. Bal- Supervising Examiners, the Examiners, the FOUR should misinterpret the issue before Deputy Examiners, the Assistant Exami- the country with regard to the trade of the ners, and all the other officials who do duty nation. It is the fundamental principle of Free Trade that burdens ou commerce are at the Patent Office, and who do not neces- sarily know what is novel or likely to be per se an evil. No responsible member of the Cobden Club has as yet publicly urged that railway fares should be removed as-
A Governmeut pro- deletérions to trade.
not cover our owu Colonies.
motive which prompted the relevant Ordin- ance in this colony; but we have some_con- ception of the intentions of our Home legislators, and of the apparent evils that inspired the recent Betting Commission The only real result of that Commission's deliberations was the prominence given to the truth outlined by our correspondent, that it is impossible to put into practice the ideal with which our paternal, or grand- maternal, Government set about to attack the gambling habit. The coolies who are fine occasionally for gambling suffer no hardship that Englishmen in humbler cir- ↑ cumstances at Home do not suffer. Such anomalies as we have noted, anomalies which may, as we have now seen, tend to mislead some of the King's subjects. into thinking that they are the victims of in- justice, are the inevitable consequence of all attempts to make general rules of conduct, which is what all law essentially amounts to. It sounds just as badly in England to talk of one law for the rich and another for the poor, as it does in Hongkong to suggest one for the Europe in and another for the Chinese, yet while there are surface indica- tions of the existence of both, there is no great injustice. Some people think it was a mistake ever to interfere at all with the gambling instinct, and certainly it has been one of those Acts of Parliament which make nobody god. Yet since the poor Britisher and the poor Chinese cannot gam- ble without risking the happiness and well It is impossible not to feel sorry for the being of others, the legal discouragements originator of any object of utility confronted and disablements must have alleviated at by so many difficulties, and hindrances to least som distress. Rich Chinese, ap. the reaping of bis just reward. It has not, parently, may gimble as much as thy like
so far as we kuɔw, ever been published yet in Hongkong, in their own houses, so our how the real originator of the enam I letters correspondent's point of view is all wrong. for shop window advertisements failed to Certainly, so far as the sneer at British secure the remuneration due for his justice goes, his re uarks are quite out of originality. He relied too much upon the place. There is a large empire quite close so-called pitent "agents," an frightened to the colony with whose laws, and the just by the cost, went about trying to enlist a administration thereof, ours bears couipari-partner. The business man from whom we son very favourably.
had the story was one thus approached. He pooh-poohed the idea, failing to foresee that
useful out here.
PATENT LAW AT HOME AND AT these window signs would leap into such
HONGKONG.
(Daily Press, 11th October.)
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instant popularity. At any rate, within little more than a year after the inventor had exposed his idea, somebody with more money and foresight had annexed it, and has since made a fortune. May a curious, and many a sad story, must be buried in the history of the Patent Office.
fessing the highest ideals of Fre: Trade puts restrictions on the circulation of such innocent articles as saccharine and mɩr- garine, and the Club stands by and makes no remark. Necessity or opportunism com- pels us sometimes to weigh the alvantages or disadvantages of any line of conduct; we are quite right to give their due weight to the considerations of Fres Trade; we are wrong. or ins ine, to look up on those cousideratious as those alone requiring to be satisfied. Conscientious free-traders object to en- couraging in others what in themselves they unrelentantly condemn; this is the point the bearing of which Mr. BALFOUR baš fail- ed to grasp. Under the pretence of follow- ing the principles of Free Trade we have been directly encouraging the breach in others of one of the most objectionable of economic sins-the principle of bounties; and our own trade has suffere in conse. quence.
This and not Free Trade as
One of our recent correspondents has raised what would appear to be rather an impor- tant point for the consideration of our local legislators. He has an idea for an article which, he says, is largely used in Hongkong and the East, but for which there is no demand at Home. Wishing to obtain local MR. BALFOUR AND THE FISCAL against Protection is really the question at
protection, he now discovers that to get patent rights here he must first take out letters patent at Home. Besides the delay and the expeuse involved, he appears to think that a Home patent would be of no use to him. In yesterday's paper we pub- lished a letter from a lawyer confirming our impression that an exclusively local patent is unobtainable. Is not this an omission that ought to be rectified? True, it is not a provision likely to be in request with any great frequency; but it is quite conceivable that more than one local enterprise might be nipped in the bud for want of facilities for protection on the spot. The most pro- ductive patents are often simple little ideas that might occur to anyone, things that can be so cheaply made and sold that their value to the originator ceases altogether with the advent of competition.
That there is a need for some changes in he patent law at Home is plain. At pre- sent it is far too expensive, and far too intricate. Evasions are too easy and safe, even after the inventor has managed to secure legal recognition of his rights. Even the experts at Home make mistakes over and over again. On the subject of cost,
SITUATION.
issue.
Speaking at the great Conservative ban. quet at Edinburgh the other day, his consciousness of his weakness came pain- fully to light; he could not conceal his inability to lead a Conservative party which setting at one side the dictates of the most recent development of so-called Free Trade would go back to the original basis of the arguinent, and abandon further dalliance with that modern Protection which under the lion's skin of non-interference would hide the ass's body of little-Englandiam. Proud as Achilles, and bravest of the brave, he is as helpless before the slings of Mr.
(Daily Press, 12th October.) Personally no finer man ever served the office of Prime Minister than Mr. A. J. BALFOUR; a thorough Englishman, all the more so from a good part of his blood having been derived from the north of the Tweed; a gentleman of unstained honour; a genial friend who never permitted political differences to sour the amenities of social life; a mau of culture and wide-seated knowledge; of tact sufficient to enable him to shine in the most difficult post which can he assigned to a Parliamentarian-th: of Leader of the House of Commons-lo yet
CHAMBERLAIN as was Achilles when Paris has the heel of Achilles. Although Mr. aimed his darts at his one weak spot. The Balfour was still unborn when in 1846 Sir swan sings mournfully before he dies, and ROBERT PEEL forcibly converted the great the words of a man before he departs should Tory party to Free Trade, he was in his be words of wisdom. Mr. BALFour's words early years brought up in the doctrines of have been words of wisdom; and it is well Whether, he is the new faith. As those who had accepted to take note of them. Mohammedanism at the point of the sword represented as saying, Mr. CHAMBERLAIN'S usually turned out its most fanatic suppor. estimate of the offer of the Colonies be right ters, 80 there were no stricter observers of | or wrong, we have reached a point at which the letter of Free Trade than the Conserva. the only way out of the impasse is to have tives who unwillingly enough followed Sira perfectly free and untramelled conference ROBERT into the Division Lobby on the with the Colonies and India, in which each
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