The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1855-07-31 00:00:00

,EMENT TO THE LIVERPOOL STAN

"CHEAP" NEWSPAPERS.

(FROM TIM TIMES.)

TEE public will remember the peculiar advantages which
were promised from the amendment of the Newspaper Stamp
Law. Enterprise was to be relieved of its trammels, edu-
cation was to be wondrously prnnoted, political knowledge
was to find its way into every corner of the country, and po-
pular ignorance was gradually to disappear. These desirable
results were to be accomplished by i certain specific agency—
viz., that of penny daily papers. Over this point no obscurity
whatever was permitted to rest. The one thing which was
wanted to insure the perfect freedom, perfect efficacy, and
perfect utility of the press, was an issu.; of daily papers at one
penny each. It was for this that agitation was so tenaciously
maintained. Nobody ventured to deny that the press of
this country, as it stood, was more.. independent, more
serviceable, and more decorously condtcted than that of
any other country. Nobody asserted ta.at either the me-
tropolitan papers,. or the country papers;- could be called
expensive articles at the current prices. Wheat was said was,
that a less expensive article was called 147, and that the
production of this commodity was prohibited by the com-
pulsory stamp. Of course, it was obvious tc remark that,
as this stamp was only a penny, that alone need not keep the
price of a newspaper at sd. If a penny or alralfpenny per
copy would in reality suffice to remunerate the goducers of a
good journal, it was plain that the whole seller price, even
including the stamp, need have been only 2d: yr lid. The
stamp could, at any rate, be only answerable fcr one penny
out of the five. Here, however, it was replied that the manner
in which the stamp operated so destructively wars in prevent-
ing the circulation of newspapers at the particular price of a
penny, and no more. This was the magical figure vhich was
to work such wonders. To produce newspapers at 4d.,
3d., or 20., was of no use ; in fact, the thing had leen tried
without success ; nothing would serve the real turn but
newspapers at id. Any advance above this sum Was fatal ;
nor was there much difference, for this matter, between- 21d.
and sd. The key of the whole argument lay in " the nenny"
that single, small, ever-present, and easily-spariil coin,
which nobody would begrudge for his daily news.
Well, the law was amended,' the stamp was removed, and
Mr. Milner Gibson, Mr. Cobden, and their indefatigable
friends were gratified with this enfranchisement of the press.
What has been the result ? Tiale sure, the new system has
not .been very long in operation, but the experience already
acqUired appears to have convinced the managers of at least
cue establishment of a very notable fact—to wit, that a penny
daily paper such as the public look for, and the " tax-on-know-
ledge" people designed, can never be maintained with a proper
remuneration to its producers. Such, at least, is the published
conclusion of the Yorkshire Daily Express, a paper issued
on the new system under circumstances unusually favourable.
We should not have cared.to assert or defend such commer-
cial maxims on our own proper authority, but the fact is com-
municated to the world as the result of actual experiment
with more than ordinary promise of success. It seems that
the conductors of the Leeds Times, observing that Man-
chester and Liverpool were getting their "penny dailies"
under the new system, resolved on giving their own
district the benefit of a similar issue, and accordingly
started the Leedt and Yorkshire Daily Express, price
one penny. We ,have two or three numbers of this jour-
nal before us. It seems to be very respectably "got up ;"
has its " latest intelligence," its " telegraphic," and so forth,
and, as one of tie articles in its leading columns appears in
each of the numbers before us to be transcribed from our own
pages, we presume we cannot well demur to the " ability" of
the productiov, Nevertheless, on Monday morning last the
readers of the promising periodical were informed in the
" first leader' that the proprietors had " determined to dis-
continue" the same. They had started, they inform us,
with consiierable advantages. Owing' to their already or-
ganized ettablishment, they were enabled to keep down
what, miler other circumstances, would have been the
expenses, of such a concern by at least one-third ' • they
had the benefit of an existing connexion, and they produced
a good ;Aide. The result, however, was, that their returns
were oily about one half what they should have been to
cover the bare expenses of production, and they have relin-
quishal the attempt accordingly. By way of convincing
those who might surmise that the trial given was not a fair
one,-they offer to any person inclined to repeat the experi-
melt any requisite assistance in making the trial for himself.
Ixperience must prove whether the promoters of other
sinilar enterprises are more fortunate or more skilful than
tin conductors of the Leeds and Yorkshire Daily Express.
Br ourselves, we can only repeat what we haVe fifty times
ranarked—that, as far as the idea of competition is concerned,
ve regard the matter with the most supreme indifference,
end that the working of the new law does but confirm in all
respects the views we entertained of the public taste and re-
quirements. We have not suffered, nor are we likely to suffer,
in a single particular; but, as we knew something of the ex-
penses contingent on the production of a daily paper, and of
what the public is accustomed to look for in a newspaper, we
could not but express our disbelief in the assumptions on
which the Manchester politicians proceeded. In the expiring
journal to which we have referred we find a very circumstan-
tial description of the difficaltiea actually experienced. To