adopted, as he was sure that they would be adopted, the improvement in the power of our artillery would be so great, that in any campaign we became engaged in, we should, if we kept it to ourselves, and did not announce it to all the world as a patent, be in a position of superiority such as the Prussians acquired by their exclusive use of breech-loaders.
Nor, considering that the improvement in shrapnel, of which Mr Hope was thus manifestly the inventor, has been adopted by every army in Europe; that the artillery feature of the war of 1870 was the decisive effect of the new shrapnel as compared with all other forms of artillery action; that, according to the despatches of Lord Wolseley, it was the shrapnel we were using with our troops in 1882 which alone gave to our artillery its decisive superiority over the admirably served artillery of the Egyptian army, – can this opinion of Mr Hope's be considered to have been exaggerated.
For all the so-called "improvements" introduced into the shell brought forward in 1856 by Mr Hope have since been discarded; and the only difference in the most modern form of shell from the pattern of 1856 is due to the perfection to which the manufacture of steel has since been brought, permitting of a thinner case than was shown in that model. We have said that we believe, and that we feel confident that every unprejudiced person who reads these papers will be convinced, that this is the perfectly natural and only possible explanation of Mr Hope's conduct at the time – viz., that he confided in one Government official, who, if he listened to him and acted with entire loyalty, could introduce into the service of the country an improvement of the greatest possible moment, and could do so without allowing foreign Governments to be aware of the nature of the improvement introduced; and for this reason alone he did not patent his invention. But let us for argument's sake assume that this was not so, – that Mr Hope from mere neglect failed to patent the invention which was afterwards adopted. Even in this case there can be no kind of doubt that his shell was, during all the time between 1856 and 1864, left in official custody. And what we urge is this, that if a Government official has been shown to have been in possession for eight years of an unpatented invention, and at the end of that time patents an invention which, in the judgment of the best experts on such subjects, is virtually a mere copy of the earlier model, there is a primâ facie case for investigation of so strong a character, that the refusal by the public department for which the official has acted, of all public investigation, is a public wrong, – a wrong done to her Majesty and to the nation, much more than to any individual. If, according to the sound principles laid down by the American Commissioners, it is vitally important to the interests of a country that the inventive talent and manufacturing power of the country itself should be brought into the service of the nation, what course can be so fatal as that which is here described?
It must be remembered that Mr Hope, by abstaining from patenting his invention, deprived himself of any legal remedy. Therefore it was worse than irrelevant on the part of the department to treat the question as a private one and nothing more. Mr Hope's only chance of justice lay in an impartial investigation being made.
