The Sun.
London, England, 1864-05-11 00:00:00

SPIRIT OP THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

TimEs.--It would probably be difficult for the
statesmen of Austria and Prussia, absorbed in am-
bitious intrigues, and watching with intense and
restless jealousy the actions of each other and the
feelings of that Germany which both werts offend-
ing,,while both were seeking to conciliate, to imagine
the amount of pain and disgust they have been
inflicting on the rest of Europe for the last
three months and a half. It is not that we have

read every day of useless and Wanton slaughter,
of the desolation of harmless villages, and the bom-

bardment of peaceful towns; we are, unhappily,
too well used to these dreary narratives to recoil
from them with the horror they ought to inspire.
It is rather because we have seen the assertion to
its utmost limits of the superiority of brute force to
the strongest claims of morality and the most clearly
defined provisions of treaties—because in this age of
philosophy and refinement we seem all at once to have
fallen back to the theory and practice of barbarism.
We congratulate ourselves and our fellow-subjects
on the suspension of hostilities, if for no other rea-
son, because for a month at least we shall be relieved
from the descriptions of events which cannot be read
by any man of honour or feeling without indignae
tion. We rejoice also because in this month of sus-
pended hostilities Austria and Prussia and the small
States of Germany will have time respectively to re-
view their position, their conduct, and their prose
pacts, and to make themselves acquainted, more per-
fectly than the hurry of conflict and the elation of
a shabby triumph have hitherto permitted, with the
feeling which their recent conduct in Denmark has
called forth. The German nation at this moment
seems able to see nothing but itself and its adversary.
Absorbed in this small conflict, it has lost sight of all
the rest of the world. But the rest of the world has
by no means lost sight of the German nation,
and Germany will do well to consider whether she
can afford to set herself up in defiance to the
opinion of Europe. Is she really so self-supporting,
so independent of the rest of the world, as she would
have us to believe ? What would have become of
the monarchy of Prussia in the Seven Years' War,
what would have become of the empire of Austria in
her repeated struggles with Napoleon, but for the
assistance of England ? Why was that assistance
rendered ? Because it was felt that Germany was
interposed between the unscrupulous ambition of
two great military empires on the East and West,
that she was the natural guardian of public law, of
the faith of treaties, of respect for existing rights,
and that in supporting her we were supporting the
cause of justice against aggression and innovation.
Has Germany the same claim on the supporters
of order and justice now? Can she with the
least consistency come forward to request the
support of her neighbours in case she her-
self should be made the object of the same violence
and spoliation as she has just been practising upon
Denmark ? If she has purchased by She loss of the
sympathy of the world the addition to the monarchy
of Prussia of the Duchies of Schleswig and Hol-
stein, has she not bought them too deer ? The past
is irrevocable, but the use that is made of the pre-
sent month may go far to mitigate its effects. if
negotiations are carried on in the same spirit as war
has been waged, there is no escape from that
Nemesis which never yet left the scale of human ill
unbalanced. We appeal to Prussia. A hundred
and twenty years ago Frederick the Great, by a
mixture of force and fraud which has excited the ad-
miration of strong-minded historians, appropriated
to himself the Austrian province of Silesia. It was
considered a miracle of dexterity and good luck ; but
during the ensuing twenty years, Silesia cost Prus
siathree bloody and desperate wars, in which she saw '
her capital twice taken by the enemy, and in the
last of which she would infallibly have perished had
not a Palace revolution in Russia snatched her from
the very jaws of destruction. Can the present King
of Prussia—who is not Frederick the Great, and
who lives in an age when events move quick and
men live fast—hope to escape with greater impunity
than the consummate warrior and politician who
was so nearly buried under the weight of his own
greedy ambition ? To Austria the suspension of
hostilities has come as a doubtful good. On the one
hand it delivers her—or will deliver her if she so
pleases—from a vast expense which she can ill
afford, and from a position singularly false and
embarrassing. On the other hand, Austria has
failed in conciliating the smaller States of Ger-
many, has enacted a second-rate part in a quarrel
with which she has no concern, and is further off
from the leadership of Germany than she was when
the war began, has been eclipsed in such fame as
has been to be got by the taking of Dybbol, and has
seen this first act of the war terminate in a defeat
by no means honourable to the embryo navy of Ger-
many. If she is wise, she will employ the interval
that is now afforded her to disentangle herself
finally and completely from all connection with this
ill-starred enterprise. She must be now aware how
mistaken was the calculation which induced he to
take part in this remote, unprofitable, and inglorious
expedition, and she ought sincerely to rejoice that
the Conference affords her such an opportunity of re-
treat. To Danmark we cannot doubt that the Confe-
rence is welcome, though we fear that it comes Soo
late. The folly of believing that the policy of procras-
tination could possibly be on the side of the weaker
Power, and the dogged obstinacy which wantonly
sacrificed the lives of so many brave men at Dybbol,
have borne their fruits, and Denmark finds herself
entering on the duties of a Conference just when
the fortune or rather the certainty of war has left
very little to negotiate about. It is quite evident
that the Danish Ministry have been thinking
much more and with much more terror of the
population of Copenhagen than of the foreign
enemies whom they have confronted. Denmark
has been trying an experiment which is seldom
found to answer—that of ruling one nationality by
means of the dominant democracy of another.
Absolute monarchs may rule with some impartiality
over men of different races and languages. Their
elevated position has sometimes been known to
lift them above the narrow prejudices of race and
origin. But a democratic Government, if nothing
else, is quite sure, at any rate, to be intenseq
national, and national in the very worst sense—
in its bitter contempt for foreigners and aliens.
Supposing that matters in the Conference can be
arranged favourably for Denmark, she can hardly
expect a permanent relief from her difficulties anti
a nation possessing so many noble qualities shall
adopt a form of government more calculated to
create respect end to inspire confidence, more modes
rate in prosperity, and more cautious and far-sighted
in adversity. At any rate Europe has breathing-
time. The immediate danger of a general conflag-
ration is averted, and an opportunity is given once
more for the voice of reason to make itself heard.
Every one has felt that to gain a supension of arms
was the great difficulty, and that this, once accom-
plished, some sort of a pacification might reasonably
be calculated on. Yet the suspension of hostilities
has come without bringing with it any firm assur-
ance beyond the present hour. The treaty of 1852,
the ambitious projects of Prussia, the claims of the
Duke of Augusten burg, the over-acted indifference
of France, the preternatural apathy of Russia, the
rising indignation of our own people, the habit
r mently engendered of breaking treaties and des-
pising the most binding obligations, are all causes
of anxiety, and sadly check the exultation which we
should otherwise feel at the announcement that, for
a month at least, the cannon will be mate and the
work of slaughter will be stayed.
POST.—The carrying of Mr. Dillwyn's motion
on Monday, that a select committee be appointed to
inquire into the most suitable arrangements to be
made respecting the Patent-office Library and
Museum, demonstrates plainly enough the hold
which the subject of the hon. member's advocacy has
taken on public opinion. Quite agreeing, as we do,
with Mr. Cowper that the granting of such come
mittee may be inconvenient, and that it does imply,
in a certain sense, disrespect to the Patent Law
Commission which has been taking evidence for a
period of almost two years, still, the issue of the
debate relative to the patent question on Monday is
so far satisfactory that it illustrates the solicitude
with which this more than ordinary social matter
has come to be regarded. The consequences of giv-
ing a thing a bad name are placed in evidence by
the matter before us. Undoubtedly letters-patent
for invention, together with the inventors, the long
train of professional people engaged in patent bush.
ness, and manufacturers who have to do with patents
and patentees, have fallen into some sort of disfavour
these few years past in certain influential quarters.
It suffices for the present to announce the fact,
without appending any commentary, or attempting
to furnish any explanations. So far as we know,
the opponents of letters-patent for inventions are
restricted to the two classes of men of science hav-
ing either independent means or else holding some
certain remunerative position, and large manufac•
turers, who, being capitalists, profess to hod the
faith that inventions and wealth asaurely attract each
other as heavy bodies free to fall gravitate towards
the centre of the earth. It is worthy of remark,
and, indeed, somewhat suspicious, that the great
body of inventors—men whom we may assume to
be especially concerned in all that relates to patent-
law adjudication—see no other practical means of
deriving advantage from their inventions save
through the mechanism of a limited monopoly as
now accorded. Such are the facts, the circumstances
of the case, and we fancy no great difficulty would
be found in advancing a plausible hypothesis to
account for them ; but what we were about to re-
mark is, that in consequence of the disfavour with
which everything concerning letters-patent for
invention is, in certain quarters, regarded, the
interests of the Patent Museum and Library have
suffered. Now, the real truth of the matter is, that
there does not subsist any necessary and intrinsic

connection between the operation, or even the exe
istence, of patent laws, and the so-called Patent-
office Library and Museum. The convection i%
wholly extrinsic and incidental ; dependent upon
the circumstance that up to the time being sine
causes have been in operation, no mechanism has.
been at work, for determining an aggregation of
books, models, and rnachinea illustrative of
national inventive progress, with the exception
of those the operation of patent laws has supplied-
Were it worth while to cavil about the propriety
of terms, then would there be no difficulty in
showing that the terms " Museum and Library
of "Applied Science and Invention" would be more
appropriate than the designation now employed ;
and, this understood, the question of para-
mount interest as regards the matter in
debate is whether the establishment and mainte-
nance of such a museum and such a library be, or
be not, worthy of national solicitude in any civi-
lised country, but more especially in a country eo
dependent for its prosperity on arts and manufac-
tures, the fruits of invention, as our own. On this
point we imagine there can be no room for any dif-
ference of opinion, and if so, the question is imme-
diately suggested of how best to carry into practice•
a desideratum so universally admitted. Only one
of two means of accomplishing the result are appa-
rent—a Government subsidy voted from the Trea-
sury, or a voluntary tax imposed by inventors upon
themselves. Now, in regard to these, the first, if
essayed, would be futile. Not only would the Trea-
sury fail to recognise the need of subsidies commen-
surate with inventive demands, but it would be
difficult, perhaps impossible, to devise in connection
with this means of support, an adequate tribunal of
selection for scientific books, models, and machinery.
The organisation would flag, droop, and ultimately
become effete, like all other organisations for the
promotion of industrial art by Government subsi-
dies. Such a measure would be wholly discordant
with our Anglo-Saxon maxims of individual enter-
prise and free association, under the guidance of
which our national progress in the industrial arts
has been so rapid—under the influence of which
British manufacturing industry has attained such
stupendous proportions. There remains, then, the
second alternative of voluntary taxation, and that
is precisely what the operation of patent laws
accomplishes—how well accomplishes may be in-
ferred from the fact that out of patent fees, after
deducting all expenses of giving effect to them--
after paying the necessary stamp duties, salaries,
and other contingencies—after merging large sums,
for many years past into the Exchequer, there
still remains in the Patent Commissioners'
hands a sum adequate to the building
of a library so soon as the (necessary per-
mission may be forthcoming, and to initiate a.
museum, with full prospect of increase year by,
year as other self contributed funds may be forth-
coming and available. All these are important
considerations to be borne in mind ; and doubtless
both select committee and royal commission will.
so regard them. The genius of all good govern-
ment consists in turning to account resources at
hand and available. If, contrary to what we be-
lieve, it should hereafter be made manifest that the
patent laws are the real hindrance to inventive pro•
gress—the real incubus to inventors that some
recent advocates for their abolition would have one
believe—then by all means let patent laws be abcs
lished and some better substitute devised ; but for
the time being, patent laws exist, their working
has left a surplus in cash and the germs of a library
and museum, both self-supporting, and self-expan-
sive, were room enough given them to expand. It
needs no great amount of argument to demonstrate
that the necessary room should be found.