Monitory Letters

Communications of warning and admonition sent from an ecclesiastical judge, upon information of scandal and abuses within the cognizance of his court.

Communications of warning and admonition sent from an ecclesiastical judge, upon information of scandals and abuses within the cognizance of his court. Wharton. only, particularly a sole authority to manufacture or deal in some commodity. From historic reasons, " monopoly " has come to be used in a reproachful sense, to imply a privilege which is unreasonable or oppressive to the public. Some seem to consider this element a part of the meaning of the word. In early times, in England, exclusive rights to manufacture or trade were freely granted by the crown as a mere means of raising a revenue from the license fees exacted. The exercise of this power was at first believed to be beneficial, because ingenious foreign workmen were from time to time drawn to England by the expectation of substantial commercial advantages being secured to them by royal letters-patent (these being, really, grants of monopoly); and enterprising Englishmen were also induced by the like expectation to travel abroad, and acquire a practical knowledge of trades and arts. But the crown experiencing in those days the evils of no regular taxation, — the chief of which was a perpetually recurring want of money to conduct the affairs of government, — the prerogative was exposed to, and its exercise soon became affected with, many abuses, principally of this nature, that the monopoly was sold at a ruinous price, usually to the highest bidder, whether or not he was the true and first inventor of the process of manufacture, and latterly without any regard at all to his capacity or ability as an inventor or manufacturer, and frequently, indeed, to courtiers, who made it a means of gain exclusively, and did not assist the national industry at all. This prerogative was, however, freely exercised down to the accession of the Stuarts, and was carried to a very oppressive and injurious extent during the reign of Elizabeth. The validity of the grants was at length contested in the courts, which adjudged them to be illegal, for three reasons mentioned. " A monopoly, it is said, hath three incidents mischievous to the public: 1. The raising of the price; 2. The commodity will not be so good; 3. in the 44th year of Elizabeth; about 1601. The abrogation of the practice of making these grants was, from about the same time, agitated in parliament; and at length, in 1624, the statute 21 Jac. I. ch. 3, was enacted. This act declares^ that all monopolies, grants, letters-patent for sole buying, selling, and making of goods and manufactures, shall be null and void. It excepts patents for fourteen years, for the sole working or making of any new manu-^ factures within the realm, to the true and first inventors of such manufactures, not contrary to law nor mischievous to the state; also grants by act of parliament to any corporation, company, or society, for the enlargement of trade; and letters-patent concerning the making of gunpowder. Substantially this principle obtains in American constitutional law. Thus the constitution of Tennessee declares that "perpetuities and monopolies" are ' ' contrary to the genius of a free state; " but it is held that this provision does not apply to an exclusive privilege to a city to erect waterworks, nor to such privilege to a private company for a term of thirty years. City of Memphis v. Memphis Water Co., 5 Heisk. 495. So, also, it has been held that apatent for a useful invention is not, under the laws of the United States, a monopoly, in the old sense of the common law. It more nearly resembles a contract, which, under the authority conferred by the constitution, congress authorizes to be entered into between the government and the inventor, securing to him, for a limited time, the exclusive enjoyment of the practice of his invention, in consideration of the disclosure of his secret to the public, and of his relinquishment of his invention to the public at the end of the term. Attorney-General v. Eumford Chemical AYorlss, 9 Off. Gaz. Pat. 1062.