The presentation to Mr. Thomas is deferred. His arduous labors having
affected his health, he is at present in Australia, after having, I am
happy to say, received great advantage from the voyage; and his
mother, justly proud of his merits, and appreciating fully the value
of their recognition by the award which we have made, has requested us
not to present the medal by proxy, but to await the return of her son,
in order that it may be handed to him in person. But honors, whether
conferred by the Crown, by learned bodies, or, as in this case, by the
colleagues of the recipient, though they stimulate invention, are by
themselves not always sufficient to encourage inventors to devote
their labor to the improvements of manufactures or to induce
capitalists to assist inventors in the prosecution of costly
experiments; and it is on this account that the protection of
inventions by patent is a public advantage. The members of our
profession, unlike some others, have not been eager to apply for
patents in the case of minor inventions; on the contrary, they have
freely communicated to each other the experience as to improvement in
detail which have resulted from their daily practice. It has been well
said that all the world is wiser than any one man in it, and this free
interchange of our various experiences has tended greatly to the
advancement of our trade. But new departures, like the great invention
of Sir H. Bessemer, and important improvements like the basic process,
require the protection of patents for their development.