The Sun.
London, England, 1855-05-25 00:00:00

SECOND READINGS.

. On the motion of Lord REDESDALE the following bills
were read a second time :—Hyde Gas (No, 3), Oromarty
Estate, Liverpool Corporation Water, Jenitin's Estate,
Live:iay's (Blackbourns) Estate, Hartlepool Gas and
Water„ Kelso Bridge, Kilmarnock Gas, Londonderry
improvement.

THIRD READING.
Hoffs Estate Biil was read a third time and passed.
THE SECOND SECRETARY OF THE
AD MIRALTY.
The Earl of HARD WICKS said he begged to put a
question to the noble lord opposite, but he did not care
whether he answered it or,not, as it was merely for the
purpose of hanging a remark upon. He saw, by the
newspapers, that Mr. Phinn had been appointed to suc-
ceed Admiral Hamilton, as Second Secretary of the
Admiralty. On referring to "Dodd," he found that
Mr. Phinn was a barrister, and member for Bath ;
that he was highly educated at Oxford, and was
a Liberal, and in favour of the ballot, &c., &c.
Now, he (the Earl of Hardwicke) thought that great
public inconvenience would arise in consequence of the
appointment of a civilian to an office that had been
held by a naval officer. (Hear, hear.) The Second
Secretary of the Admiralty had hitherto been
looked upon as irremovable. It would be a great in-
convenience also if the present appointment were made
a political one ancld.remo ►able by a change of Govern-
ment. He wished VT know whether the statement he
had referred to was true or not ?

Earl GRANVILLE said that the fact was perfect!y
true that Mr. Phinn had been appointed. The fact was
that the appointment of a naval officer to that situation
was an exception, and not the rule. Mr. Barrow, who
had occupied that position for 30 years, was not a naval
officer. The great qualification was that of an highly
educated lawyer in a time of war highly useful, and such
he believed Mr. Phinn to be. . .

The Earl of ELLENBOROUGH saw the appoint-
ment of Mr. Phinn with regret, because the public thereby
lost the cervices of Admiral Hamilton. He objected to
the appointment of a civilian. It might have been
the exception to appoint a naval officer to
the situation referred to, but he thought that it should
be made the rule, and not the exception. After some
further conversation, in which the Earl of Hardwicke,
Earl Granville, and Lord Colchester took part, the sub-
ject dropped.
ALTERA.TION OF PLEADINGS BILL.
This bill was read a second time.
CUSTOMS DUTIES AND SPIRIT (EXCISE)

BILLS.
These bills were severally read a third time and
passed.

NEWSPAPER STAMP DUTIES BILL.
Viscount CANNING moved the second reading of this
bill. He said, that although the subject to which this bill
related had of late years been frequently discussed in the
other house, it was a long time since it had been brought
before their lordships, owing, perhaps, chiefly to the cir-
cumstance that it was connected with the public revenue ;
but the state of the law was now such that it was not only
desirable, but absolutely necessary that some change
should take place. The early history of the stamp on
newspapers might be very shortly told. The first mention
of a stamp duty was found in the reign of Queen Anne, at
the time when newspapers, having ceased to be mere chro-
niclers of events, assumed the character of commentators
and critics on what was passing around, and also that of
partisans of the various factions in the state. The freedom
with which they exercised these functions seemed to have
been ill taken, not only by the ministers of the day,
but also by Parliament. On one occasion a mes-
sage came down from the Crown to Parliament, call-
ing its attention to what was described as a nuisance, and
asking for an adequate remedy; and the result was the
passing of Is law imposing a stamp dray. A stamp duty of
a halfpenny was the remedy which suggested itself to the
Legislature.l No change took place in the duty until the
year 177 G. In that year, under the administration of Lord
North, the duty was raised 50 per cent. In introducing the
measure to the house, Lord North was reported to have
said that " it was a matter of dispute whether newspapers
did more harm than good ; he pronounced no judgment on
that question ; but one thing was certain that they largely
disseminated calumnies ; that they abused the parsons and
misrepresented the measures of Ministers ; that they were
bought and read with great avidity, but that it was quite
clear that the cause of this avidity was not a mere desire
for knowledge." These were the reasons which led Lord
North to recommend the House of Commons to increase
the duty. On two occasions a further increase took
place under the administration of Mr. Pitt. That
Minister took pretty much the same view of the
matter as Lord North ; declaring to the house of Com-
mons that in his opinion newspapers could only he consi-
dered an article of luxury, and that he felt no hesitation in
snaking people pay dearly for them. The last increase
took place in 1815, when the duty was raised to 4d. ; and
there was this indication of the spirit in which the in-
crease was made, that shortly after, and under the same
administration, by one of the acts of Lord Castlereagh,
commonly called the " Six Acts," the necessity of giving
securities was imposed on the proprietors of newspapers.
He had taken the liberty of calling their lordships' atten-
tion to these features in the early history of the stamp
duty, because he apprehended that any objection which
might be made to the measure would be based, partly at
least, on the fact that the Government were asking their
lordships to consent to an abandonment of revenue. It
was impossible to deny this fact ; but he denied that, the
question ought to be considered entirely or even mainly
as one of revenue. He thought he had shown that
hitherto it had not been so considered ; and he contended
that if any good cause could be shown for making
this change their lordships ought not to be deterred from
making it because the question of revenue was to a certain
extent involved in the measure. If the question of the news-
paper stamp were not dealt with chiefly as one of revenue
in the early stages, by which the stamp advanced from a
halfpenny to fourpence—the maximum which it had at-
tained—still less had it been dealt with in that light at a
subsequent period. The next change was made in 1830,
when the noble lord near him (Lord Monteagle) was Chan-
cellor of the Exchequer in Lord Melbourne's Government,
and he believed ho did not misrepresent the noble lord's
motives or arguments on that occasion when he said that
the penny, which was then substituted for fourpence, was
retained avowedly not as a source of revenue, but as an
equivalent for the postal service performed for newspaper
proprietors by the state. As long as the duty was 4d. it
was defended, not as a source of revenue, but as a measure

of literary police ; but since the period to which he had jus
referred it had been defended merely 213 a postal charge.
The imposition of the penny duty had of late years involved
great anomalies and inconveniences, arising partly from
the unexpected and various growth of newspaper publica-
tions since the time when the duty was first, imposed, and
partly from the complicated and very imperfect definition
of a newspaper. In the first act that was passed, the act
of 1712, the definition given of a newspaper was, "A paper
containing public news, intelligence or occurrences in Great
Britain, to be dispersed and made public." This definition
pervaded all the acts from that of Queen Anne to that of
1835. But it was not the only one. In 1819, at the time
when the act of Lord Castlereagh to which he had already
referred was passed, the definition was enlarged, and was
made to include not only publications containing news,
intelligence, or occurrences, but also publications con-
taining " comments or observations thereupon, or upon
any matter in church or state." At the same time the
operation of the act was limited to publications of that
description which were printed at intervals of less than
twenty-six days, and there was a limitation of size.
Five or six years later, the definition was made to
include newspapers consisting wholly or chiefly of adver-
tisements. Thus their lordships perceived there were three
definitions, and the result was that under the present system
it had been found almost impossible to comply with all the
requirements of the law. He would mention one or two
samples of the difficulties which arose under the law as it
stood. The noble lord then referred, in detail, to the case
of the " Household Narrative," and the prosecution of the
proprietor under the Earl of Derby's Government. The
question involved in that case was, he observed, ultimately
settled—satisfactorily enough—by the passing of an act of
Parliament ; but ever since fresh inconveniences had
arisen. It was customary, as their lordships were perhaps
aware, for the editors of many of the provincial papers to
issue from time to time, between their days of publication,
slips containing information which was sometimes distri-
buted freely and sometimes for a small payment. The pro-
prietors of rival newspapers had complained of this
as an evasion of the stamp duty and an injustice to
themselves; but it had been found impossible to connect
these slips with the regular series, and hitherto they had
altogether escaped the duty. This showed the difficulty
of patching up an incongruous law so as to make it effi-
cient. Another inconvenience arose from the publication
of what were technically called " class newspapers"—news-
papers which were devoted to science or art, and which
had no general or political character. Acting in accordance
with the spirit rather than the letter of the law, the Go-
vernment had decided that publications of this sort should
be exempted from the stamp duty. The matter which
these papers contained was not that contemplated by the
law when it was first passed, as its object was to repressith
political and public discussion, and not to interfere
mere scientific publications. These papers had oefwl.i.tate.
years multiplied very much ; from two or three 5371
risen to 140 or 150 in number. Every science—architec-
ture,Ti,he
agriculture, building, kc. —had its own journal.
consequence has been that other newspapers, jelouadoeafltiThige
privilege of these sought to obtain it, although
with matters of a different sort, on the
were confined to one object. Since the cg:lnd
motu that they
mheen.;ie.ii,nileinvt
cos!
the war a number of papers had sprung which,
patch., the War Chronicle, and othheerasr,my,claimcoedntaaiiiisienxg.
only news of the movements
emption from the stam
fout
nbe considered as class news-
of
on their abstinence from
other subjects, and o
papers. In the numbergreate.rnttastopofthceasiesssatah,ehtuhtr etas. teoef le
eal
proceedings sufficie
the editor having refused toassttohpe
cieirnotcnewerdetin.agis.Thwue,r.neatiraknend
against him. The e
elreland,gen general intelligence,
althoug
de-
scribed Family Herald, publishedp
did not wholly exclude a
literary
a r a
matters r
character. The number
scribed itself as a paperect of
of lega proceedings contained 24'
chosen as the snhj
news, and eleven
columns, nine of advertisements, four of
of literary matter. The case was
found for the defend-
tried in the Court of
Exchequer in Ireland, and the jury
ant, intimating their opinion that although
it contained
some news
it was not a newspaper, as its several contacts