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written by a friend, "This is a small matter, "in considering so extensive a system. In place of patents in the Social Society, would "it not be better to give the public the "benefit of any improvement, and to reward "the improver by money?" The difficulty is to give the real value of the invention. Ninety-nine hundredths of inventions are failures; but every now and then there is a hit, and the difficulty is to distinguish the prize from the blanks. The experience of the inventors does this at present. There are, no doubt, very serious obstacles in the way of granting patents in such a manner as to do justice to all parties, and it is for those who have fully considered the subject to determine the best means of reconciling contending interests; the object of mentioning the subject here being merely to shew in what manner the law of patents, as it at present stands, is reconcileable with the principles of the Social System.

The making of every kind of machinery which is established as useful, and which is not patent, may be carried on, under the Social System, upon precisely the same plan as every other kind of productive industry; and patentees may either employ the associated engineers, being themselves, most

likely, of the number, to make their machines in the usual way, merely engaging to take them out of the public stock as fast as they are made to order, at the usual price of material, wages, and per centage, and then sell them at whatever price they can get; or else they may set up manufactories of their own, upon the demi-professional plan already described. But, excepting in cases where profound secrecy should be required, the latter plan could almost never be followed with advantage; because, from the immensely extensive scale on which the associated manufactories would be conducted, labour would be so very extensively divided and combined in them, that it would require a factory, consisting rather of a town than of a comparatively few persons, to compete with them. It is, therefore, probable, that no additional advantage could ever be gained by manufacturing any article out of the usual routine of the commercial association.

CHAPTER IX.

Review of Society-Probable consequences of the Social SystemMap of Society-General review of the employments of mankind, and of the manner in which the wealth of the country is now distributed.

It is here desirable to keep in mind the distinction between cause and effect. No objection is, in this book, offered to the commercial institutions of society, merely because they are institutions; but they are objected to solely on the ground of their total unfitness for the purpose for which they are intended; the evidence of which is, that, although it is their express object to do so, they do not supply mankind in general with the necessaries and comforts of life, leaving them, at the same time, leisure for the employment and gratification of their physical, moral, and intellectual powers. The public adoption, however, of the principle of exchange that is advocated throughout this

volume, like the introduction of a new process in manufactures, would supersede much that at present exists, and give a new aspect to the appearance of things altogether. The alterations in society, therefore, to be presently mentioned, are not essential to, but they would not improbably be the consequence of, adopting an improved method of buying and selling.

This distinction should be constantly kept in mind, because if it were necessary to persuade some men to give up certain trades and occupations, that others might be established in their stead, all improvement would soon be at a stand still. In practice, however, this is not the case, for, whenever a new principle is introduced, by which certain occupations are rendered nugatory, as, for instance, in the case of tax gathering, when a tax is taken off, they must be given up, whether their followers like it or no: the demand for them ceases, and they then die the natural death of inutility.

In the statistical work of Mr Colquhoun, on the Wealth and Resources of the British Empire, there is an attempt to shew in what proportions the produce of the country is distributed amongst the various classes of society: the table here alluded to is dated so

far back as 1812, but as the principles of society are essentially the same now as they were then, the general plan of distribution cannot be very different. From one of Mr Colquhoun's tables, therefore, I have constructed another, with the view of bringing under notice, with reference to the principle of domestic free trade, the various existing classes of society. The table, of which the following is in part a copy, is most appropriately designated by Mr Colquhoun, "A Map of Civil Society: ".

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