The Express.
London, England, 1851-10-07 00:00:00

A REMONSTRANCE.-THE ADVERTISE-

MENT TAX.

(Fran the Ilastings and St. Lotmard's News.)

The newspaper world has lately been considerably
agitated with discussions upon the propriety of the stamp
and advertisement duties. he press, which has helped to
make so many free, is itself a captive. It has proved pow-
, erful for others, but almost powerless for itself.
It is a fact that the mode in which the taxes are levied on
; newspapers is just that which favour's a large and influen-
tial journal, and presses heavily on the lesser. The whole
system tends to encourage a monopoly where success has
been attained, and to discourage the efforts of the journalist
famewlim.ohrasinsttoanstrecu,gtghleelliisioanayylto,i„i.temolument.hundcr.r
of the
alitleni "
nowspaper press, may have an advertisement covering a
whole page—as was the case when the Post-ottlee memorial
was advertised. its proprietor may receive a hundred
guineas for the space, and sixty thousand copies may be
struck off and circulated, or, if it were poss Pile, ten times
the number. But what is the odvertiscinent duty?
"Something handsome of course," imagines the uninitiated,
in whose care are ringing the doleful outcries raised through-
out the land against the " taxes on knowledge." No such
thing. Out of these one huudred guineas government re-
ceives a duty of eighteen•pence ! This is moderate enough
certainly, and it argues a marvellous degree of humility for
her Majesty's government to condescend to share so Meow
siderable a portion of the golden prize.
But let us look a little further. A governess wants a
place. She inserts halt-a-dozen lines in the News. Some
few hundred copies are struck off and circulated. The pro-
prietor receives three shillings and sixpence for his trou-
ble. What does the Board of Inland Revenue get out
of that ? According to the scale on which they levied
their duty on the hundred guinea advertisement in the
Tinges, thirty-three of the aelvertisianenns would, in the
aggregate bear a duty of one penny ! But the fact is that
out of this petty sum of three-and-sixpence, the proprietor
has to hand user eighteen pence to the collectors of the ad-
vertisement duty—the very same sum paid by the Times
proprietor fur his leviathan order ! referring to our
scale of charges, it will he seen that for the atonal insertion
of a six-line advertisement we charm, three shillings, mid
for the third and each following insertion only half a crown.
Consider, gentle reader, that on all our half crown adver-
tisements more than half the money goes to the payment
of the advertisement duty ! The Inland Revenue gets
eighteen-pence, and the newspaper gets a shilling; and out
of this shilling all the wear and tear of type, the interest on
capital, and the cost of labour, have to he paid. Perhaps
we may be told we ought to charge noire. But such a plan
would only limit our custom, and bring us up too near the
price of larger papers, which have nu more duty to pay
than we have.

This is out all the grievance. Such a tax, if levied with
all the consideration and fairness " allowed by law" would
still be obnoxious. But the fact is that the officials at
Somerset-house appear to be animated by a suicidal desire
to make the tax as uupopular us they possibly can, by levy-
ing it in the most harsh and arbitrary manner. They have
a peculiar made of solving the question—" What is an
advertisement ?" Sow months ago we were favoured
with art iuteresting communication, informing us that if wo
had the audacity to 211110.1 MM fashionable arrivals and de-
partures in u paragraph headed by the name of the hotel at
which they took place, we slion!il be liable to a charge of
advertisement duty iu consideration thereof, though Sumer-
tet-house must have known very well that we received no
remuneration fur such announcements. A gracious permis-
sion was, withal, conceded to us, namely, that we might an-
nounce each arrival or departure separately without becom-
ing liable to a duty of eighteen-pence per item. These sepa-
rate items were to lie mercifully considered free. Happily for
us, we had for some time adopted the plan of inserting tha
items separately,—cousequently we smiled at the " tithing
of mint, anise, and mana," cud put the official document

on one side. A short time ago a contemporary, having re-
ceived a similar communication, nut being so well disposed
to "put up" with such nonsence, made a noise about it;
and the Daily Sews, likewise, put on an angry face upon
the subject. The latter journal resolved to try the issue,
and forthwith commenced publishing a short list of arrivals
and departures, headed by the title of a distinguished hotel
in London. The result remains to be seen.
Still we have another "grievance" in store, far more
serious in our estimation than the one just referred to, and
certainly far more imporaut in its bearing upon the adver-
tisement revenue accruing to the Sews •aud provincial
papers in general. Fur a lung time past we have been
favoured with au advertisement from the office of a tire and
insurance agent in the town of Hastings. For sumo
months he advertised himself as agent to three different
companies. At length he added another company to the
list, and week by week the advertisement appeared.
Once a month we receive a bill containing our " little ac-
count" with the Board of Inland Revenue in respect of ad-
vertisement duty. Of course, in the case of so unpopular
and heavy a tax, we "look sharp" to see that we are nut
charged twice over. To our surprise, a few days ago wo
found ourselves charged with six advertisements more
than we could account for. The apparent error was nut
discovered till chair upon the tune when payment of
the bill was required. We wished to detain the bill, in
order to receive some explanation, hut dared not, the fol-
lowing ominous notice (the invariable custom) appearing
at the Mot of the account :

" N.B. The above duties are payable by law on the 28th
of August, and unless they are discharged before the cud
of the month of August, proceedings will be commenced
in the Court of Exchequer for the recovery thereof, and
also of may subsequent duties which shall then be payable
by law."
Under these " pressing circumstances " we paid the bill,
and followed up the matter by asking for an explanation.
We waited a few days, and then received the following as-
tounding answer:
"Inland Revenue' Somerset Rouse, Sept. 10, 18ril.
" Stu,-1 have laid before the board your letter of tho
29th ult., requesting relief front an overcharge which you
consider has been made in respect of advertisements in-
serted in the llastinys and St. Leonard's News of the 20th
and 27th of June last. In reply lam directed to inform
you that the advertisement alluded to has been charged
with four duties in consequence of it relating to four dif-
ferent Fire and Life Insurance Offices, and as it refers to
four distinct interests, the assessment in four duties is per-
fectly correct —I am, sir, your obedient servant, THOMAS
Kzoon."
_ _

_
Now in this case the party advertising had announced
his agency in respect of three offices fur a long series of
weeks without anything more than the erdinmy duty being
levied. But directly his advertisement embraced four in-
surance offices, without any notice, we were immediately
charged duty for each office! The result is that a duty of
six shillings is charged on an advertisement just about as
many inches long. We conceive this to be one of the
greatest cases of 'hardship which the newspaper press has
yet had exercised upon it in this " land of liberty." In so
saying wo look—not at the mere solitary instance—but at
the principle involved. Of course we have lost a customer,
and aro "in for" a pretty heavy quota of taxation.
But let our contemporaries and let the public at
large consider the real scope of the precious epistle
which we have "advertised " above. If a man be-

_ _ --
Comes agent to several different companies, he is
to be bound to advertise earls company separately and
distinctly. At least, if he choose to lump them together,
the newspaper proprietor must charge him such a price as
shall cover the multiple duty. Now, is it likely that an
agent in a country town cm afford such an outlay ? He
may hear it fur a short time, but certainly he caunot be-
come a regular advertising customer to the newspaper. If
every "distinct interest" in an advertisement is to pay a
distinct duty, where are we to draw the line? How many
men of business advertise their chief occupation, and ap-
pend at the bottom a notice that they are agents for some
insurance company, or for the sale of some patented ar-
ticle. This is done every day. But according to the rule
laid down in the above letter, such a notice is a distinct ad-

vertisement. Will Somerset House dare to make such a
levy ? We wish they may try it—get it, they will not, ex-
cept from the weaker brethren, who are powerless before
the jaws of that monster—the Court of Exchequer.
As the bill for each month's advertisement duty comes to
hand about two months or more after it is due, our readers
will see that we have incurred the quadruple for a period
of several weeks without our knowledge. Had a timely
notice been sent to us, we might have been spared consider-
able loss.

It is high time the advertisement tax was abolished. Of
all taxes it is the most injurious to a paper of limited circu-
lation. The leviathans can afford to care comparatively
little about it. To them the stamp duty is a more important
question ; while in our case the stamp appears to possess an
advantage. if the advertisement duty were to be abolished
trade would at once acquire an impetus, and the provincial
press would receive a vast increase of advertising patronage.
The poor governess, or still poorer (if possible) maid servant,
would no longer be obliged to pay the gentlemen at Somer-
set-house eighteenpence in order to ask for a place; the
tradesman would no longer be obliged to pay the govern-
ment for the privilege of becoming a customer to the ad-
vertising columns of the press ; trade would be accelerated,
the humbler classes would be benefited, and the provincial
press would be encouraged.
We hope the all-grasping cupidity of the officials who
preside over the advertisement tax department will have
the good effect of so disgusting the press and the commu-
nity that we may soon see a death to this extortion. We
hope our ease will meet with consideration. Somerset-
house has lost Is. Gd. a week, and we have lost a customer,
in addition to being mulcted of our hard-earned cash.
Perhaps the Board of Inland Revenue, iu the depth of its
wisdom, and in the plentitude of its power, may think
proper to charge duty even on our leading article, inasmuch
as it announces our charges for a six.line advertisement.
Had we dared to mention the name of the agent in whose
service we have got into this scrape, and the titles of tho
offices which he represented, possibly we should have found
ourselves again subject to a quadruple duty, which, with
the other item, would have made up a quintuple, and sub-
jected our leader to a charge of 7s. Gd. in respect of the
" distinct iaterestx " which it advocated—a procedure which
we should be told, on our venturing to remonstrate, was
" perfectly correct."

PRESCOT, ST. HELENS, AND WIGAN JUNCTION
RAILWAY.—A meeting of the inhabitants of Prescot has
just been held at the Town-hall, when resolutions were
rand a memorial to the directors of the London and
li s Western was agreed to fur the formation of a branch
railway from Helton, by Preseot, to St. Reims and Wigan,
eo as to accommodate, in addition to the passenger traffic,
the conveyance of coal from the Wigan coal fields into
Liverpool.

SOUTIE EASTERN RAILWAY.--Gross traffic reces
for the week ending Oct. 4, MI, 19,820. lts. 9d. ; ditto, Oct.
5, MO, 15,3924 2d. Increase in 1851, 4,4621. 9s. Id.