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SPECIAL REPORT OF MR. HILL, ON MACHINERY. 409
of their own is curiously manifest; nearly all of their forms, styles, and even details of construction, are borrowed from the English or the Americans. In fact, they seem rather to pride themselves on skilful copying, and in the Exposition they displayed, with an air of satisfaction, machines constructed exactly from American tools, which they must have taken to pieces for the purpose. Such was the case -with a prominent Prussian house, which presented exact duplicates of the manufactures of some of our New England tool-makers. It is satisfactory to learn that the Prussian government, in placing their orders lately for some tools, passed by this establishment and gave the work to the American house, -whose ideas it had stolen, to the extent of more than a million dollars. Were it not that we stand in much the same position in regard to copyright matters, as the Germans in inventions, we might with reason complain of the morals of these gentlemen. As it is, they meet any objections of American inventors with this comparison.* In searching for the cause of this great difference in inventive power between the Germans and other continental nations on the one hand, and the English, and still more the Americans on the other, the prominent influence appears to rest in the stimulus of our patent system. Of the influence of this constant possibility of wmalth, through invention, we can form no conception till we see the work of countries whose industrial class is without it. It is stated, and with great probability, that two-thirds of our whole manufacturing capital in the United States is occupied in the production of objects covered by patents. The inventive power of our people, and the influence of our patent laws, as shown in our exhibits at Vienna, made a great impression on the continental mind. Had our authorities caused us to be adequately represented, and had we shown a fair amount of our peculiar labor-saving inventions, the impression would have been profound. As it is, through the means of the Patent Congress, an excellent opportunity was found for illustrating the matter, and the writer fully believes that they are awakening to the importance of the influence of an adequate recompense to invention as a stimulus to industry.
* In the Patent Congress, held at Vienna, this was the constant comparison most disagreeably advanced in reply to the arguments of those who were in favor of a patent system in Europe.
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