The Express.
London, England, 1853-04-15 00:00:00

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TO CORRESPO:4NENTS.
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L'INDON, FRIDAY, APRIL 15.

THE House of Commons has decided, by a majo-
rity of 200 to 169, that the Tax on Publicity ought
to be repealed. Henceforth the housemaid searching
for " a place," and the governess for a pupil. may hope
to be able to make their wants known Without
paying eighteen's:nee out of their poverty into the
money-bags of the CHANCELLOR of the Exetieut•Eß.
Mr. MILNER GIBSON has followed Mr. WILLI MS
iu getting a vote in favour of a long-worked and well-
advocated proposition ; and a tax indefensible either
on grounds of principle or policy has been doomed to
its fall. The omnibus, the railway carriage,
the lumbering street van, the peripatetic
baardinen, the wall-chalker, the pavement painter,
and the bill-sticker, are to surrender their monopoiy.
The journals that pay a double tax in paper and
stamp have been declared entitled to relief from the
third impost they have hitherto suffered under. The
Eighteettpenny Plunder on each advertisement
is to fall, and henceforth we may hope to see the
business of the Trader, the "want' of the See
vent, the school of the Teacher, the sale of
the Auctioneer, and the thousand other needs
of the active myriads who keep alive the progress
of civilised society, announceable in the press without
that monstrous check which has hitherto made pub-
licity in print a thing to be enjoyed only by high
payments. The maintenance of our social and com-
mercial position in the family of nations demands
the removal of all needless restrictions on honest
activity. We cannot run our race of trade with
fair chance of success—against America fur instance—
if
our rulers surround us with regulations crippling
the energies needful for success. In New York the ;
trader can for a shilling tell, in a few lines, in the
best journals, what lie has to sell, or wishes to buy,
or desires to hire, or intends to let. In England—from
the operation of the Advertisement and Paper Taxes
—such a statement in a journal costs at least five times !
the money. The Advertisement Duty—like other
duties—does not simply put the full amount of its
own weight upon the thing charged to bear it, but
superadds additional costs, and hence to advertisers
the eighteenpence which the Government take on
each announcement in a journal rises in costliness in
proportion to the additional weight induced by bad
debts, cost of capital, and the other consequences of
keeping up unnaturally the price of a thing which,
if untaxed, would necessarily be cheap. The string
of reasons for the abolition of the Advertisement
Tax given in our columns yesterday seems to have
had its due weight in the House of Commons, and
the vote of last night having followed, it is needless
fur us now to go again over the details
of the subject—but one or two considerations'
still force themsel fee on our attention. The defeat— I
for defeat it was in its way—on Kilmainham Hos-
pital, followed by this adverse division on the Adver-
tisement Tax, must tend to show the Coalition Cabinet
that they cannot beard public opinion with impunity.
They must, in accordance with constitutional right and
usage, shape their policy, fiscal and other, in something
like agreement with popular sympathies. They exist
on ly on the popular belief in their readiness to do right,
and the moment their views on general topics swerve
from those entertained by "the majority out of
doors," they become—as they must now feel—mere
reeds in the wind. On these subjects of taxation
especially the nation are inclined to de-
mand justice. There is no unwillingness to
pay—no desire to cripple by mean snippings
or ungenerous thrift the full payments required for I
amply rewarding public service. But the nation
has grown wise enough to see that, by the
equitable adjustment of a few broad and common-
sense imposts, the taxpayer could know what to
expect and how to provide for the demands upon
him, whilst his energies, his industry, his capital, and
his intelligence might all be released from a number
of petty and unprofitable demands now emptying
his pocket and chafing his temper. his not the just
load that society puts on a man which makes his
journey through life wearisome, but those little
thorns in the foot which link each step with a
twinge of vexatious and unprofitable pain.
Your petty taxes aro your great nuisances,
making much grumble whilst bringing little grist
to the mill. So last night the House of
Commons seemed to think when they ended the
debate on My. MILNER GIBSON'S advertisement
motion, by a majority of 31 in favour of removing
the Tax on Publicity. After that division, the CHAN-
CELLOR of the EXCHEQUER MLA surely deal, on
Monday night, with this paltry and unprofitable, yet
irritating, Impost. He cannot well put at defiance
the clearly expressed opinion of the House, on
whose votes his tenure of power depend., nor
can he so far stultify himself as to overlook the ad-
vantages which must accrue from the removal of one
of the three loads under which the Fourth Estate
now labours. The abolition of the Advertisement Tax
will, in truth, induce its own fiscal reward. Its
removal must give a stimulus, more or less, to all
branches of business—to say nothing of the spe-
cial increase that must take place in the
consumption of paper and in the Post-office
revenue from enlarged written correspondence.
The tide of commerce raised by the advent of Free
Trade would by the absence of this cheek to publicity
grow still higher, and out of the expanding wealth
thus arising the Government must inevitably receive
new revenue. The country cannot be prosperous with-
out the Exchequer sharing in the general good ; and
it should, therefore, be a sufficient consolation to the
Coalition Cabinet, that if the division of last night
mast lead to the abolition of an obnoxious source of
incJme, the very striking off of the fetter will set
free new sources of general profit—all sure to. tell
satis'actorily on the public as well as the private
resources of the country.