The Sun.
London, England, 1855-05-01 00:00:00

his arguments. The immediate object of the clause
which he held in his hand was to take as the measure which
might be transmitted through the post for ld. a standard
rather above that of the paper which had the largest circu-
lation. He might be asked why he had chosen dimension
rather than weight. To that he would reply that in such
cases weight was uncertain, and if the act became one of a
permanent character, under the competition which it might
give rise to there might arise circumstances connected with
the manufacture of paper itself which would render weight
no criterion as to the amount of matter contained, and he
had, therefore, felt it to be his duty to shape his clause in
accordance with the 17th of Victoria, cap. 3. He found
that hie •right hon. friend the member for the University
of Oxford, then Chaucellor of the Exchequer, when he
brought in a bill to alter the Stamp Act, had thought that
it was only justice to take as the measure for transmission
by post the dimensions of the largest paper then in circu-
lation, and he (Mr. Milnes) now asked the committee, in
altering the present law, to take as the measure of dimen-
sion th largest paper at present in circulation. It had
been said that it would be much better not to enter on the
question of weight or dimension, but to allow any daily
paper to be transmitted by post for ld., without regard to
its weight or size ; and it had been argued that by confining
that concession to the daily papers it would be without the
range of possibility that any very extraordinary weight
would be imposed upon the Post-office. In reply to that
opinion, the argumentum ad absurdum, had been used, and
it had been asked whether, if the editor of a newspaper
chose to wrap himself up in a copy of his own journal, he
would be conveyed through the Post-office for ld. ; but the
argument which weighed with him was, that he did not
see how such a concession could be made to the daily pa-
pers alone without acting most injuriously and unjustly
upon and against the provincial and weekly papers, and
upon that consideration he had felt that he could not
fairly argue the question upon the ground of conveying
the daily papers through the post for ld. without any
limitation whatever as to their size. He hoped that the
Government would not have any objection to lay it
down as a principle that the daily papers of the metropolis
which had by their diligence, exertion and ability raised
themselves to the position of distributing over the whole
length,and breadth of the kingdom an amount of intellec-
tual matter never produced in the same way in any other
nation, should enjoy a full share of justice, and that their
chances of circulation should not be diminished at a mo-
ment when power was being given to very large papers to
circulate an enormous number of copies within a certain
radius without going to the expense of a stamp. It was, he
thought, a matter of simple justice to papers which mem-
bers of that house bad become accustomed to look upon
almost as political rivals, and of which it was impossible,
however one might disagree from the principles contained
in them, to-think without respect. All that those papers
asked for was that they should not be placed in an unfair
position, but that they should be allowed a reasonable
chance of keeping up the high intellectual position which
they now enjoyed. The late Chancellor of the Exchequer
(Mr. Gladstone) stated the other day that the question of
weight was at present so nicely balanced that the railways
were unable to carry into the country by the early train a
complete supply of the Times; that portion of the paper
containing news being sent by the early trains, and the
supplement by later trains. He (Mr. Milnes) had made
inquiries on the subject, and he found that, though the
fact was true, the inference was entirelyfalse. The question
was one depending altogether upon the manipulation of
newspapers; and now, when the circulation of newspapers
was so considerably increased in consequence of the war,
the difficulty of manipulating the large number of the Times
required to be transmitted by the early trains was too great
to be overcome, and it was solely on this account, and not
in consequence of the excessive weight, that one portion
of the paper was conveyed by one train and the remaining
portion by another. He did not think that, if the pre-
sent bill should be passed, it would have the, effect of
destroying the great metropolitan journals, for he be-
lieved they had sufficient energy and power to overcome
any difficulties to which they might be subjected by
the measure. Hon. gentlemen were aware that when,
during the last century a penny stamp was imposed upon
periodicals it was predicted that such publications would
be destroyed, but the Spectator, though shaken temporarily,
not only survived the blow, but rose with redoubled vigour,
and in the very last article, in the 7th volume of the Spec-
tator, --Nir Richard Steele congratulated himself that that
paper, by the buoyancy of its own merit, had attained an
enormous circulation in defiance of the stamp. Although,
however, the Spectator of that day, and the best periodicals ,
of the present day, might possibly survive such an injury,
it was impossible to avoid the zetlection that the Spectator
might have had a tenfold circulation if it had not been sub-
ject to a stamp. He had no doubt the newspapers of the
present clay would derive great advantage from the aboli-
tion of the stamp which now limited their circulation, but
he asked the committee, as a matter of public policy and
justice,ito assent to his proposal. He did hot ask a privilege
for one newspaper or another, but he asked them to enable
every newspaper, metropolitan or provincial, to rise to the
same height of intellectual merit, to deserve the same pub-
lic attention, and to exercise the same' influence over the
country as had been attained and were exercised by the
leading journals of the metropolis. He asked them to
assent to his proposal in recognition of the merits of those
great newspapers which formed their daily delight. If they
neglected this opportunity they might have cause for per-
manent regret hereafter, when they discovered that they
had destroyed or damaged an important means of promot-
ing the intellectual advancement of this country.
Mr. COWAN thought he owed an apology, or at least an
explanation, to the committee for not having pressed the
amendments of which he had given notice. Having found,
however, that those amendments were unpalatable to the
Government, that they were objected to by the late Chan-
cellor of the Exchequer, and also by the noble member for
Lynn (Lord Stanley), whose manly and independent con-
duct on this question did him great credit, he felt it would
have been very unwise on his part if he had pressed them
upon the attention of the committee. He thought, consider-
ing the various parties whose interests were affected, and
taking into account also the transition state of the 'Pest-
office in connection with the duties it was called upon to
discharge, that that house was a very unfit tribunal to de-
termine what amount of weight or charge should be fixed,
and that the subject was one which should be left to the
decision of the executive Government. He imagined that
the Government would not be disposed to assent to the
motion before the committee, which seemed to be based
upon the assumption that the State must convey by post
any amount of weight. There were newspapers in exist-
ence, such as the Illustrated London News, which weighed
as much as 10 ounces, and if the committee agreed that
newspapers of the dimensions of 3,500 inches should be
carried at a rate of one penny, he did not see why they
should not go a step further, and convey such papers as the
Illustrated London News at the same rate. He would call
the attention of the committee to the enormous weight of
newspapers the Post-office now carried, as contrasted with
what was the case 40 or 50 years ago. He found, from an
article in the European Magazine of 1803, that the number
of newspapers in England, in 1782, was 52 ; in 1790, 60 ;
and in 1801, 135. The number of newspapers in Scotland
in these respective years was 8,7, and 31; and in Ireland,
3,9, and 56. The circulation of the London morning
papers in 1808 was 16,000; of evening papers, 14,000; of
Sunday papers, 25,000; of weekly papers, 20000 ; and of
others, 10,030 ; making, as the writer of the article ob-
served, the " enormous number" of 85,030 newspapers,
using five tons of paper in the course of a week. There
was another article on the subject in the European Maga-
zine of 1822, when the circulation of the Times was stated
to be 5,700. The average daily circulation of that journal
taite tnhe
of ptrhees eon
bt
staimvere wi
na slBs t2a2t stated tos
ebt
ae
t6eo,d Otoeoh.
6T, 1186 e
oc, inr cf ntlhae-
, Morning Chronicle 3,180, and of the St. James's Chronicle
3,700 ; and the writer of the article, after referring to the
circulation
extraordinaryo f other
proof, onbfs
theery ea
ed
ttihv
ttyt
ehfe t
hr ees
pu
el result rdei
cal press. How would the writer have been astonished if
theen
dhad
ng stehe
en
et
ihr the
upl
ar
toigerne sesf that
the had
pb
se
pe
en
consumption of paper by the London press being five tons
rssi?ncernmstnedade ionf the
week, as was the case in 1808, it was now between 130
and 150 tons weekly. He believed the Times alone, pub-
lished in one sheet, would consume 25 tons of paper
weekly, and if published in two sheets the consumption
would be annually 48,000 tons. Now what was done to-
wards des', .tching this enormous weight of newspapers
by railway ? It was stated before the committee, which
had considered the subject of the conveyance of mails by
railway, that last year the average weight of the mails
that left London daily was 279 cwt., of which 219 cwt.
consisted of newspapers. It was clear that if the weight
of newspapers sent by post continued to increase, duties
would be thrown upon the Post-office which could not be
properly discharged, and very considerable delay must
probably take place in the transmission of the mails, not
the ingenious contrivances that had been
adopted for depositing the mails at the various stations
without materially checking the speed of the trains. It
appeared to him, then, very important that the house
should impose such a rate of charge for conveying news-
papers as would duly remunerate the Post-office for the
service it was called upon to perform. He believed that
cheap newspapers, of a small size—about the size of those
published 20 or 30 years ago—would be of great advantage
to some classes of the community, for the newspapers now
published, however ably conducted, were inconveniently
large. If we were to have cheap papers,. why should we
impose so high a postage as ld. for what perhaps might
not weigh more than an ounce ? He was much disap-
pointed at the Government not taking the plan which he
had pointed out to them into their favourable considera-
tion, as he believed i t would have proved beneficial to the
press, to which this country owed so large a debt of grati-
tude. The adoption of the universal penny reoeipt stamp
was likely to prove highly advantageous to the revenue ;
and this fact ought to encourage the Government to make
at least an experiment in the way of cheap postage for
newspapers

unnecessary for him ti argue that question. But let the
committee recollect thitt a letter weighing under half-an-
ounce was sent for Id., while the largest newspaper printed
and weighing nearly 6 ounces, was to be sent also for id.,
according to the proposition of his hon. friend. (Hear.)
Thus the privilege given to the newspaper was 12 times
greater than that given to the letter, and in addition,
there would be the privilege of retransmission. The news-
paper might pass 6 times through the Post-office in the
week, and these two multiplied—the weight and the quan-
tity—it would be found that we were conferring on the
newspaper 72 times the amount of postal privilege we
were conferring on the letter. (Hear.) He did not see
any argument of justice or -sound policy that could be
urged in favour of such a proposal as that. In dealing
with this question, the principle on which we ought to
act was, to carry a certain quantity, say 4 ounces, of all
matter, whether printed or manuscript, for the sum of ld.
(Hear.) Let there be no distinction between printed mat-
ter and manuscript letters: On the other hand, we mast
remember that we could not afford to loss any revenue,
though, if we came to argue that point, it might be found
that the additional revenue derived from letters weighing
half-an-ounce was less than might be supposed, and, there-
fore, that that difficulty might not be so formidable as
some people imagined. We should also have to tolerate
another anomaly, and that was the privilege of retrans-
mission. Already we were sending eight times the
weight of newspaper matter through the post for the
same price at which we sent manuscript matter un-
der half-an-ounce, and that eightfold advantage we
added to by sending the newspapers during the
week for as many times as their owners pleased.
He thought that sufficient allowance had already been
made for these interests, and that, if the privileges were
further extended, the committee would only confer .in
another shape that which in a former case had already been
abolished. (Hear.)

Mr. LOWE was sure that the committee would believe
him when he stated that he ventured to address them upon
this subject with great reluctance, and that he should not
be induced to do so did he not believe that he could give,
them some little information with regard to it. The noble
lord who had just sat down had argued the question as if
they were about to establish a totally new principle for the
conveyance of printed and written matter through the
Post-office. It might or might not be right for the House
of Commons to do so, but he would not enter into that sub-
ject, because it was not the question before them. The'
question 'simply was whether ld. should be the amount of
postage to be charged upon a certain quantity of matter
publised at intervals within a certain date ? Whether
that were just or unjust depended materially upon the
principle which was applied in viewing the question, and
he submitted that it should not be the principle which had
been laid down by the noble lord. It could hardly hays
escaped the committee, and the noble lord must himself
have felt it, that his argument suffered from some amount
of inconsistency, 'because the noble lord was very much
shocked at the disparity of carrying six ounces of a news-
paper for ld. and a letter, under half-sn-ounce, for the same
amount; but the noble lord was not shocked at the dis-
parity, almost equally startling, of carrying fourounces and
half-an-ounce for ld. They must fix upon a principle,
however, and apply it strictly, fairly, and logically. The
noble lord's principle would appear to be to treat news-
papers and letters as the same, and to apply the same rule
of postage by weight to all. He did not gather how the
noble lord intended to accomplish, this; but if he might
be allowed the phrase, he thought that the proposition
was " practically impracticable." If the noble lord took
letters as his guide, ire would impose a rate upon news-
papers which, however just according to the noble lord's
abstract theory, would effectually exclude them from the
Post-office. If, on the other hand, he took newspapers as
his guide, and carried letters at the rate of four ounces for
ld., he would make such an enormous invasion into the
postage revenue that it would be impossible to conduct the
establishment upon such a basis; because. in the case of
large concerns, a number of letters would be sent under
one envelope, and the Post-office would be defrauded. If
he took letters, then, as his guide, he would exclude news-
papers from the Post-office, and if he began with news-
papers, he would charge too little for letters exceeding the
ordinary weight to permit of the establishment being re-
munerative. He therefore submitted that the proposal of
the noble lord was not a practical one. (Hear, heart) Let
them look at this question as men of business, and what,
he asked, was the fact ? The truth was that the Post-
office existed mainly and primarily for the purpose of car-
rying letters. Those letters paid the expenses of the Post-
office, and if it did not carry a single newspaper it would be
impossible to diminish the expenses of the establishment in
any respect, becaw a it would to necessary to maintain it for
the purpose of carrying the letters alone. Mr. Rowland
Hill had given his sanction to this statement, and there-
fore there could be no doubt about it. The principle, then,
he apprehended, upon which the Government had hitherto
proceeded was this :—Here was the Post-office existing for
the purpose of carrying letters, and having, as it were, a
surplus facility for carrying other matter, and Parliament,
being of opinion that the conveyance of newspapers was a
great public benefit which was worthy of being encouraged,
had chosen to carry newspapers at a rate infinitely cheaper
than that which was imposed upon letters, and to give them
the privilege of being transmitted and retransmitted
through the Post-office ad infinitum. (Hear.). Unless the
committee would grant him that there was some public
pdlicy in carrying newspapers cheaper than letters, there
would be nothing for it but to treat them both alike, and to
charge newspapers at the same rate as letters. He concluded,
therefore, that thare was some public policy in carrying
newspapers cheaply, and he imagined that the Government
saw no reason for changing that principle. That was the
ground upon which he had started. In a country like this
free communication, freedem,of knowledge, and freedonl
of intelligence were the very lifeeblood of the constitution.
(Hear, hear.) It was by such means that people acquired
their information ; by it the public were made participa-
tors virtually in the deliberations of that house, and every
one who addressed them in that chamber had the ad-
vantage of addressing in fact, the whole civilised world.
He thought that that was no small advantage, and that it
was one which the Legislature had clone wisely to consider.
He came next to the question, what was the limit which
ought to be imposed ? The limit at present was 2,295
inches. Was it enough or was it too little ? That was the
practical question. He could only illustrate it by a refer-
ence to the most prominent case which existed—that of
the Times newspaper—which had been frequently referred'
to in the course of these debates. The case of the Times
was this :—When it, printed 12 pages, as it did three days
a-week, its limits did not exceed 2,295 inches, and it was
then enabled to print its impressions upon a penny stamp;
but when it printed 16 pages, as it did on three other days
of the week, it had to pay an additional halfpenny in the
shape of stamp duty, which, upon a sale of 60,000 copies,
cost the, proprietors of the Times 125/. ; and when to that
amount was added the extra expense of paper and print-
ing, he was told, and he believed it, that the extra supple-
ments were not remunerative. The proprietors of the
Times, however, had no choice bat to publish these supple-
tnents unless they preferred to send away advertisements.
It was a necessity imposed upon them by the nature of the
news and the advertisements which they published that,
three times a-week, this additional expense of 125/. a-day
should be imposed upon them. Were that a uniform charge
upon the proprietors of the Timei it might be met by
an addition of one halfpenny to the price of the news-
paper, and then the expense would be transferred to the
reader ; but as the charge was only an occasional one, it
fell upon the Times itself. He would scorn the notion of
arguing a question of this sort with reference to only one
newspaper ; but the matter affected a whole class, and
what was the case with reference to the Timesto-day might
be that—and he sincerely hoped that it would be—of
other newspapers in a few years. See how the circula-
tion of the Times itself had increased within the last few
years. In 1808 it was somewhere about 5,000, in 1841 it
was 11,000, and now it was 60,033. What was there to
prevent the other papers doing the same thing? Upon what
principle, then, he asked, should they fix a limit upon the
size of newspapers ? Why insist that newspapers, after
exceeding a certain size, should pay an increased amount
of taxation ? Upon what ground should they select a par-
ticular stage of advancement in a newspaper in order to
levy a severe fine upon it ? The committee appeared to be
of opinion that there was no limit to the size of a daily
newspaper; but that he apprehended to be a mistake—the
very circumstances of the case put a limit upon the size.
First of all there was a natural limit. The news of the day
and the advertisements of the day, to be followed by the
news and advertisements of the next day, imposed one
limit. Another limit was the quantity which a man could
possibly read and get through in the course of a day • and
he was certainly inclined to think that that limit had
reached already. But, besides these, there was another
limit which was certain to prevent the increase of news-
papers beyond a certain size. It was quite obvious—for
considerations palpable enough—that it was not the inte-
rest of the daily newspaper, however large and well con-
ducted, to raise its price above its fellows, and therefore it
was that we had the publications of the Times and the
Globe sold at the same price. It was not a case in which
the proprietors of the former journal could raise their price
because the competition of other newspapers kept down
the price to their limit. There was, therefore always a
struggle on the part of that journal to keep itself within
the amount which it could publish without a loss in its cir-
culation. There were two sources from which a newspaper
derived its income—its sale and its advertisements. There
were also two sources of expenditurethat which was in-
volved in the circulation, and that which was implied in
filling the newspaper with the matter which it contained.
It was quite evident, therefore, that while the pries of
the latter item increased, and that at which the news-
paperwicoop of that
paper were ; and how did he account for it? How did they
of getting getting a
was sold remained the tame, the paper
might grow at length to such an extent that the
" circulation " alone would cease to return a profit.
eomneiumd the
atdffibeiuichtY
Under these circumstances, it was absolutely necessary to put
a limit to the increase of the circulation. That point the
Times had reached. The hon. gentleman the member for
M copyanc ho ef stthe re
Times,himselfhad
andaccount for the fact that anewspaper proprietary, if influenced
alone by a regard for their own interest, should neglect to
supply the article in which it dealt ? The reason was obvious,
that matters had come to a point when the Times was neces-
sitated to contract its circulation. There apprehension was,
them e
lest the circulation by increasing the paper should become the
means of a loss ; and any loss would be very serious, because
it would be immediately multiplied by 60,000. That was the
state in which things were now with respect to that
and at which every paper sooner or later must arrive. Ofone
paper
thing he was quite certain, that if they desired to taaintain the
press at its present standard they must allow the largest j our
nals, and therefore those on which the greatest amount
of
capital and talent was employed, to circulate through the
country with as little difficulty and expense as possible
Mr. M. GIBSON said the proposition before the house was
simply this—that there was a case for relief for carrying the
Times through the post ; and that whereas the Tintes
supplement full of most profitable matter, was now, with a
carried
through the post for 11,d., it was now proposed that it
be carried for Id., the Ad. being deducted from the
public
iklie
:hould
re-
venue. Now; he maintained that there was no fair case for
relief. Why, if the Times would give him the money received
from their advertising connection, he would bind himself
legally to pay the extra id. postage. They ought not to
make
exceptions in favour of any one concern, but should
carry all printed matter at the low rate now ould either
Pre
applied to the Times, or should not reduce the prevent
to be
Preaent rate at
which that journal was carried. When it was
said that the
Times newspaper was fined, and bad a case for
.Gibson) would say it was a monstrous appeal, and
he (Mr.
ppeal, and the hou
se
ought to resist it. He, for, one
, would record his
vote against
the motion of the right hon. gentleman ; for, if
this supplemental stamp, they would b morel they repealed
y
the proprietors of a prosperous commercial granting to
certain portion of the public revenue, and if theablishment a
do so they had better vote the sum at once—(hear,y resolved to
and say the Times was an institution, and hear)--
ported at the public expense. (Hear, ought to be hear.)sup-
call attention to the fact that the Illustrated He begged to
occasionally weighed ten ounces, and London News
would probably have a
much larger amount of • ted prm matter
paper. in it than any other

REGISTRATION OF BIRTHS, &c. (SCOTLAND), BILL.
This bill was read a second time.
PARLIAMENTARY REPRESENTATION (SCOTLAND)
BILL.

The other orders of the day were postponed.
MILITIA.

.
Lord STANLEY understood that the principle which
his hon. friend (Mr. Milnes) wished to affirm was this—
that every newspaper should be transmitted through the
post at the sane charge of ld., altogether irrespective of
its bulk or weight. That ho understood to be the prin-
ciple of his proposal, because, though he took a limit, he
took one that would cover the size of the largest newspa-
per now known, and he was prepared to increase the limit
indefinitely so as to cover the largest size that could be
published. (Hear, hear.) Ho agreed with his hon. friend
when he said this was a question of simple justice; but
he did not think that justice lay on the side which his
hon. friend contended for. (Hear, hear.) The committee
could not deal with this question as if it were personal to
any particular journal. If they did so, they would be
acting on no sound basis of ascertained principle, and the
result would only be inextricable confusion. (Hear, hear.)
He understood the principle of the bill before them to be
generally this—that, whereas formerly we had a tax on
newspapers, imposed on certain conditions, we were now
asked to abolish that tax and substitute for it a simple
postal charge. A tax, properly so called, might be in it.
self unequal ; it mighti fall more severely on one class
than on another, and yet that inequality, the result of the
incidence of the tax, might be balanced by countervailing
advantages, which would make an unfair tax fair iu
reality ; and that was his answer to the hon. gentleman li
opposite. A postal charge was the result of a contract
between the Government and the public, by which the
Government undertook for a certain compensation to per-
form a certain service. Now, what we were bound th ob-,,
serve in such a case was, that the charge imposed should
always and in every case be proportioned to Ogle service
rendered. (Hear, hear.) That was the fair principle of
a contract, and we were especially bound to observp it in
regard to such contracts as those of the Post-office. Now
what his hon. friend proposed was to carry any weight to
which a newspaper might extend through the Post-office at
the same price—an unlimited weight to be carried for an
unlimited number of miles, Would he apply that prin-
ciple to all printed matter? (near.) It was laid down
clearly the other night that we desired neither to give the
newspapers any advantage on the one hand, nor to put
them under any disadvantage on the other. If we carried
them on more unfavourable terms than we ought we were
taxing there, which the house had declared its intention
not to do. If we carried them on more favourable terms
we were subsidising them, and preferring them to other
publications. (Hear.) Or was it proposed to carry this
principle to all printed matter and to all private dom.
ments ? L" No," from Mr. Mikes.] Then, it would be

Mr. E. BALL hoped the right hon, member for Manchester
would excuse him if he did not follow the advice he had given
to the house. He (Mr. Ball) was of opinion that the Post-
office could convey any newspaper at a much less cost than a
penny, and that the Post-office would suffer no lose by cam'

TEE LONDONa TUESDAY EVENING, MAY 1, 1855

ing a much larger newspaper than any published in this
country.
Mr. WARNER was of opinion that every newspaper con-
veyed through the Post-office was carried at a loss to the re-
venue, and the more they discouraged the traffic the better
for the public revenue. (Cries of divide.)
The CHANCELLOR of the EXCHEQUER said that if the

proposition of his hon. friend the member for Kidderminster,
that a uniform principle should be applied to the postage of
'newspapers and of every article carried by post, was practi-
cally enforced, he feared that nearly the whole of the pre-
sent system would have to be abolished. If they compared
the rates of charge upon letters, upon newspapers, and upon
books and other printed publications not being newspapers,
they would find the discrepancy so great that if it were the
pleasure •f Parliament to reduce them to a uniform scale it
would be 'necessary to sweep away all the existing rates and
to commence de novo. In the bill which lie had the honour
to lay before the house he limited himself to carrying into
effect with the smallest possible alteration of the existing law
what he understood to be the decision and wish of the
house, namely, that the compulsory newspaper stamp
should bo converted into an optional stahip. That bill
was founded exclusively upon the existing principle,
and therefore maintained the present rule. With respect
to superficial inches of the newspaper, that rule being
that the newspaper printed on one or two sheets might con-
tain 2,295 inches of letters for one penny; and any number
of additional supplements might he printed at the rate of one-
halfpenny for 1,148 inches. That was the rule now in exist-
ence,,aud was the result of legislation two years ago by which
the then existing charge upon newspapers was diminished,
and the charge for that which was previously carried for three
halfpence was reduced to a penny. The effect of the measure
now before the house would be, that every newspaper pro-
prietor would be at liberty to stamp such portion of the cir-
culation as they thought fit, but no part of it could go through
the post without the impression of a stamp. That change in
the law would confer a considerable benefit on all existing
newspapers. They would be relieved from the compulsory ,
stamp on a certain portion of their circulation, and to that
extent they would be benefitted by the measure before the
house. (Hear.) Unless the house was prepared to sacrifice not
only that portion of the revenue which was necessarily lost by
the abolition of the compulsory stamp, but also that further
portion which would be included in an offer on the part of
the public to carry at a lower rate a larger sized newspaper
than at present, there seemed no reason for departing from
the arrangement at present in force. It had been argued that
as a portion of a newspaper was given gratuitously to its sub-
scribers, and as no additional charge was made for an addi-
tional quantity of matter, it was unreasonable that an addi-
tional charge should be made by the Post-office. But the Post-
office had nothing to do with the question as between a news-
paper and its customers. All the Post-office had to look to
was the. bulk and weight of the article. To the Post-office it
was utterly indifferent what the price might be, or whether in-
deed the article was priced at all. With regard to purely adver-
tising sheets, which were circulated gratuitously, the trouble
and expense to the Post-office were as great as in the case of
a high priced newspaper ; and therefore the argument that
was derived from the gratuitous circulation of a portion of a
newspaper containing advertisements appeared altogether
destitute of weight. He admitted, however, that the
whole question of the transmission of newspapers, as
compared with other printed matter, required the most
careful consideratiDn, and that the present system must
soon undergo a considerable change. But the alteration of

the law which he now proposed was one of great magnitude
land importance, and he thought they should wait to see how
it operated before they plunged into a fresh series of changes.
Mr. DRUMMOND said that he objected the other day to
the whole conduct of the press, because it was a system of
stabbing in the dark. He equally objected to that house
stabbing the Times in the dark, for there could be no ques-
tion, after the debate which had just taken place, that this
was an attack upon a single newspaper. They were begin-
ning to indulge private pique under the pretence of public
virtue. (Hear, hear.) They hated the Times. (A laugh.)
They were afraid, of it, and instead of standing up boldly
against it, they were giving it this dirty stab in the dark.,
The house then divided—
For Mr. M. Milnes's clause B6
Against it 260
. Majority against the clause —l74
The preamble of the bill was then agreed to, and the bill
was reported with amendments to the house. The report or-
dered to be brought up to-morrow (this day).

The Parliamentary Representation (Scotland) Act Amend-
ment Bill was read a second time.

Mr. PEEL obtained leave to bring in a bill to amend the
laws relating to the militia in England. He stated, in reply to
some remarks by Colonel Sibthorp, that the object of the bill
was of comparatively minor importance. It did not affect the
point of the liability of the militiamen to serve in the embo-
died militia. It simply amended certain details relative to
the apportionment between counties and boroughs of the ex-
pense of storehouses and arms to the militia regiments.