The Press.
London, England, 1855-02-03 00:00:00

THE PRESS.

public men and measures, the members of the
" fourth estate," desire to maintain, on ethical and
social grounds; asserting that, though the most un-
limited liberty of the press is good down to a certain
point, yet that for a small capitalist to get up a
journal, and for labouring men to take it in, is dan-
gerous to the public morality. Is it uncharitable to
assuraa that fear of competition, threatened inter-
ference with their existing monopoly, and some lin-
gering love of " protection" in their own business,
may have somewhat clouded their perceptions of
right? In truth, the arguments by which you sup.
port the present law are in direct contradiction to one
another. For you affirm, first, " that the press does
" not possess any legislative favour, protection, or
" monopoly whatever ;" and, next," that the withdrawal
" of the stamp duty will supersede it by substituting
" a totally different and inferior class of papers.'
Therefore (according to you) English journalism is to
be ruined by the withdrawal of privileges which (also
according to you) English journalism does not
enjoy. To reconcile these discrepancies is no affair
of mine.

At this point I may fitly consider a rather
startling assertion which appears prominently in
your pamphlet. You say "the penny stamp on
" newspapers, entitling to transmission and retrans-
" mission by post, does not comprise in its nature
" the slightest infusion of the principle of protection;"
a proposition which you explain thus ;—" Protection
" is giving one class of producers or dealers an ad-
o vantage over any other class producing or dealing
"in the same commodity." Therefore, if your view
is to be accepted as correct, a postal charge so
arranged as absolutely to prevent any one from
producing a newspaper at less than a certain price,
does not give eny advantage to the larger and
wealthier establishments producing the same article.
I do not, I confess, see how such an assertion is
capable of proof.
Suppose the principle of the stamp law applied to
any other branch of trade. Suppose, for instance,
that Government, impressed with an idea that small
retail shops supplied inferior articles at exorbitant
prices, and that it was the duty of the State to
check this evil by putting them down, were to lay on
every shop of whatever size an annual tax of equal
amount, such amount being not less than 100 per
cent. on the gross receipts of the smallest establish-
ments; and, to make the parallel complete, suppose
that in return for this charge it undertook to trans.
port gratuitously all goods bought and sold by the
taxpayers ;—what would be the effect? Of course,
to throw all business into the hands of large dealers,
and to increase the profits of trade in proportion as
it was conducted on a larger scale. Small traders
would disappear altogether.
The whole supply of the market would be vested
in a limited number of great capitalists, residing pro-
bably in the metropolis, and carrying on their busi-
ness by agents in all the smaller towns. And when
men had become used to the system, and vested inter-
ests had grown up under it, I do not doubt but that
some one of these capitalists would be found—not
merely to declaim against the immorality of small
traders, which would become the habitual language of
the protected class—but to affirm, as gravely, as con-
scientiously, and as mistakenly as you do now,
that in the law as it stood there was not " the slight-
est infusion of the principle of protection."
It is, I apprehend, wholly indisputable that the
effect of the stamp duty is to establish a financial
censorship—one conducted on truly British princi-
ples. In foreign and despotic countries a journalist
becomes suspected by reason of his opinions; in
constitutional England he is restrained from periodical
publication on the ground of poverty. The law is at
least impartial. The most anarchical and the most
conservative of journals are treated alike, if they fall
below a certain price. They are written for labour-
ing men—they are circulated within a small area—
their intelligence is defective and tardy—therefore,
says the British Government, they shall not appear.
Is this an English or a Russian policy
But, after all, is there so much danger of our
press becoming " parochial "—or, what is meant by
this vague threat? As matters stand, the existence

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of local journalism in small communities is the ex-
ception, rather than the rule. It is only the largo
town, or the populous district, which can support
a high-priced stamped journal. Local affairs (call
them " parochial " if you will) receive comparatively
little notice from the public prints. Ido not see why
this is to be considered an advantage. If it is meant
that a press dealing exclusively with such small
matters will, by the operation of the proposed change,
be substituted for one which, as at present,
dismisses imperial questions, I deny the probability
—indeed the possibility —of any such result.
In journalism, as elsewhere, the demand creates
the supply. There is in England a large number of
educated and intelligent persons who take an interest
in the political affairs of their own and other corn
tries. Of such persons it has not been shown that
the number is likely to diminish, or the taste to alter.
The alternative, then, is apparent. Either (which
is most unlikely) the unstamped press will rival the
stamped in the value of its information and the merit
of its writing—and in that ease it matters not whe-
ther one or the other is most extensively patronised;
or it will not—the high-priced journal will still main-
tain its superiority—and the cheap local prints will
not drive it out of the market, but attract another
class of customers, those who at the present moment
neither purchase nor read any paper, and thus
flourish by its side without doing it injury. Take an
illustration of the state of the case. Suppose the
same legislative sagacity which dictates the retention
of the stamp duty to have prevented all cheap tra-
velling on railways—to have prohibited the railroad
companies from taking second or third class passen-
gers—is it likely that the number of first class tra-
vellers would have been increased by the number of
those who now travel in the lower-priced carriages ?
Is it not clear that on the restriction being removed
a vast multitude of persons would begin for the first
time to use the railways who never used them before"
So will it be with the press. Those who new take
in the Times, Daily News, Herald, or Advertise•,
are not likely to substitute for these first-class jour-
nals, with their early intelligence and superior
writing, the cheap penny print which will circulate
among mechanics and labourers. I have no doubt
that a dinner may be had in various London taverns
at a very much lower rate than is charged by the
clubs ; yet the clubs are not deserted in consequence !
No ; as in all other branches of business, so in jour-
nalism, the customer who is willing to pay the
highest price can always command the best article.
I do not quarrel with his taste, nor seek to limit its
indulgence ; quite the contrary. But I protest
against his measuring other men's purses and in-
clinations by his own. I do not see that being
wealthy and of refined ideas, he is on that account
entitled to say to his poorer neighbour, " If you can-
" not afford a newspaper at sixpence you shall buy
" none, for cheap newspapers are worthless."
The apprehension, then, that journals of the most
expensive class will not be able to hold their own
seems wholly groundless. Each rank of society will
find its own organ, the exponent of its opinions and
ideas : and this is desirable. But early intelligence—
familiarity with the political questions of the day—
eloquence and argumentative power—are not to be
had without paying for them ; and in these, though
stripped of the artificial and unfair privilege which
they now enjoy, the superiority of the large and long-
established journals will continue to consist. Nay, as
it seems to me, the power and influence of such
journals over the public mind will be not diminished,
but augmented ; for though there is no political ques-
tion on which an immeasurable amount of non
sense and verbiage may not be poured forth, yet the
real arguments on which all such questions turn are
comparatively few. A single night's debate in Par-
liament suffices to exhaust them ; at the utmost,
three or four nights do so. These arguments will
in all probability be most pointedly stated and most
thoroughly investigated in the metropolitan press.
Their articles—their comments—are now very gene.
rally copied by that of the provinces. They will be
so still. The indirect circulation of the leading DP
don journals will beeome enormously multiplied,
while the direct circulation is only in a slight degree

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affected. They will lose little, if anything, in money,
and gain much in power. Their opposition, therefore,
to the abolition of the stamp, and thus to the calling
into existence of a cheap press, seems as contrary to
their own interests as to those of the public.
But here a fresh objection is taken. We are met
by a cry of piracy, and a demand for copyright in
news. I admit that in this question there are dila
culties enough to furnish material for a debate
and to perplex a parliament. It is hard enough to
define copyright in books, to say what is original
and what borrowed, to fix the limit where the mere
literary offence of plagiarism ends, and the legal
crime of copyright-breach begins. No doubt the
intricacy of the problem is increased when dealing
with matter of such ephemeral interest as news.
The principle, however, that he who has gone to
expense in obtaining information from au exclusive
source should have an exclusive benefit in its sale,
is too manifestly just to admit of dispute ; and its
legal assertion is expedient also, because without
such protection it may be doubted whether the same
efforts will continue to be made, as at present, to
obtain priority of intelligence. • I readily concede
that to define piracy in the case of newspapers will
be no easy matter. Probably, let Parliament do the
best it can, any act likely to pass will leave large
room for legal sophistries and conflicting judgments.
But the difficulty, be it great or small, is none of our
making. It exists already. If it be contended that
the necessity for a copyright law will become more
pressing as the number of cheap newspapers in-
creases, in consequence of the repeal stamp law,
I answer, the same result will follow when the num-
ber of newspapers increases, from whatever cause.
In fact, the question must be settled, the difficulty