The Sun.
London, England, 1855-03-27 00:00:00

THE NEWSPAPER STAMP BILL.

( Front the Times of this day. )
It is the fate of every question discussed in the House of
Commons, however simple it may be, however practical, to
branch into numerous issues. Every member has his own
view, which may or may not be a purely theoretical or fanci-
ful way of treating the subject. Mr. Deedes selected his
financial bearings of the Newspaper Stamp Bill, and he im-
plored the house to pause before it sacrificed 200,0001. a-year
without being sure of an equivalent. Certainly, that is a
large sum of money. On Mr. Lindsay's estimate it is a tenth
of what has been wasted in The idle detentions and frivolous
use of the transports engaged since the beginning of the war.
But, after all, the fate of this bill had to be decided on grounds
more peculiar to itself, for the real question is how to do jus-
tice to the Press, how to encourage its freedom and enter-
prises, and how to render it the greatest possible convenience
to the public. It was natural that we should ourselves take
a simple view of the matter, and that we should recommend
hon. members to regard it as plainly and practically as they
could before they finally settled the position of the Press, the
most public-spirited and the best managed institution in these
realms. Let hon. members take the bill as it stands, let them
suppose it to be the law of the land, and then fellow its ope-
ration,lwe will not say upon ourselves, but upon every paper
whatever that does its work well, adthereby attains a cer-
tain amount of success, and they will see that as soon as the
paper has succeeded so far as to give more news and to con-
tain more advertisements than its contemporaries, it is
immediately weighted and hindered in the competition,
in order to give all the " torpids" and " slow coaches,"
and broken-winded jades a better chance with it. That
is the case as the law now stands, and it is no slight
argument against the bill in its present state that,
while it pretends to a permanent settlement of the
question, it perpetuates an injustice. But it will be seen fur.
ther, that in the event of the London newspapers finding it
necessary to throw off the weight, by choosing the alternative
of an unstamped issue, which is likely enough, they will im-
mediately be exposed to the most extensive depredations.
Their bulk will exclude them from the post,a while the light-
fingered and light-bodied gentry that live upon them will pass
at small cost through the post, besides having a large provin-
cial circulation independent of it. The moment the Times
or the Morning Herald arrives at the banks of the Mersey
or the Clyde, all its precious news, its costly reports, and
priceless correspondence from the seat of war, will be seized
by the Manchester Pickpocket, the Bury Appropriator, the
Birmingham Plunderer, the Liverpool Thief, the Glasgow
Burglar, the Paisley Pilferer, or the ,Edinburgh Pirate,
aoa the induarieue population of the north will bask in the
light of satellites that borrow all our light and give none in
return. Can any member of the House of Commons deny
that this is the certain result of the bill in its present form ?
Can any member say that any London newspaper could stand
such continual depredations upon its substance and curtail-
ment of its circulation? Can any member say that we are
not justified in requiring such a measure to be considerably
qualified ?
The question, then, as we take it, concerns the very prac-
ticability of a great newspaper, which by dint of exertion,
expenditure, orgauisation, and a lengthened experience, shall
command the very first intelligence from all parts of the
world, and offer such comments upon it as the
public may think it worth while to read. That there
should be a newspaper or' newspapers of this class
is certainly more important to the public than even the
200,000/. a year which iias the object of Mr. Deedes' and Sir
F. Baiing's patriotic solicitudes. We think it, too, rather
more important than that the Attorney-General should be re-
leased from the trouble of ascertaining what constitutes a
newspaper. Sir B. Lytton has earned our thanks by the very
handsome testimony he has given to the conduct of this paper,
and to the integrity, candour, and courage of its writers. He
avows that he would desire no more lasting memorial of the
existing British civilisation than a file of the Times. But,
perhaps, he has presumed too much on the supposed impossi-
bility of suppressing public opinion. After all, public opi-
nion is not a plant of universal growth. It does not flourish
in all climes, and has not long flourished in this. It has been
much more hardy since the appearance of our first number,
or, to speak in general terms, since the commencement of
this century; and nobody can pretend to say that public opi-
nion, as it now exists in this country, is not intimately asso-
ciated with the existence and prosperity of its most powerful
organs. It is all very well to suppo-e the existence of a
thing as a sort of abstract idea in the mind of the people, or
as a general feeling, apart from any acts or institutions. But
it might so happen that when hon. members had on the one
hand, shit the Times out of the post, and on the other ex-
posed their Gulliver, bound hand and foot, to the attacks of
some thousand Lilliputian depredators, they might some day
miss the stern, independent, and incorruptible organ of
their opinions. Among a crowd of newspapers thoroughly
representing with infallible and appreciable accuracy the
opinion of Lord This or the Duke of That, of the Country
Gentlemen or the Manufacturers, of the Independents
or the Latter-day Saints, of the Manchester Econo-
mists or the Crotchet-work Knitters, they might live
to ask in vain for a journal that represented no school, and
that did not cultivate a mock consistency by perpetually
dishing up afresh the articles of the previous day.
As if to illustrate the animus with which this subject is ap-
proachi.d in some quarters of the house, there were two dis-
tinct efforts made last night to divest the press of its anony-
mous character. Sir B. Lytton is for adopting the example