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

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 inforruatioh 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 id. 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 have
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-
paperbut the noble
for ld. and a letter, under half-an-ounce, for the same
amount; 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, he would impose a rate upon news-
papers which, however just according to the noble lord's
abstract theory, would effectually exclude them from the
Postaoffice. If, on the other hand, he took newspapers as
his guide, and carried letters at the rate of four ounces for
id., he would make such an ,enormous invasion into the
postage revenue that it would be impossible to conduct the
estaulishment upon such a basis; because, iu the case of
large concerns, a number of letters would be sent under
one envelope, and the Post-office ivould 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, hear.) 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 theexpenses of the establishment in
any risp:ct, becaus it would I e necessary to maintain it for
,tie 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,
wing of ,pinion that the conveyance of newspapers was a
great public benefit which was worthy of being encouraged,
tad chosen to carry newspapers at a rate infinitely cheaper
than that which was imposed upon letters, and to give them
he privilege of being transmitted and retransmitted
through the Post-office ad infinitum. (Hear.) Unless the
committee would grant• him that there was some public
policy
,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 there 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 non which he had started. In a country like this
Free communication, freedom of knowledge, and freedom
of intelligence were the very life-blood 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 'done wisely to consider.
He came next to the question, what was the limit which
ought to bo 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-
suce 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 rot exceed 2,295 inches, and it was
then enabled to print its impressions upon a penny stamp;
but when it printed 16 pagan, as it did on throe 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 but to publish these supple-
ments unless they nreferred 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 1251. a-day
should be imposed upon them. Were that a uniform charge
upon the proprietors of the Times it might be met by
an addition of one halfpenny to the price of the noises-
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 e but the matter affected a whole class, and
what was the case with reference to the Tienesto-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 60,000. 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
end 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 seine price. It was not a case in which
the propri. tors 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 cite.
culation, There were two sources from which a newspaper
derived its income—its sale and its advertisements. There
were also two sources of expendituree-that which was in-
volved in the circulation, and that which was implied in
filling the newspaper with the matter which it contained.
Et, was quite evident, therefore, that while the price of
the latter item increased, and that at which the news-
paper was sold remained the tame, the paper
might, grow. at length t such an extent that the
iuniatterfeosrti,t ?sb
" circulation " alone would cease to return a profit.
Under those 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
Manchester had himself mentioned the difficulty of getting a
Hulodwnedgidleetthetyo
copy of the Times, and the premium at which copies of that
regard; a nd howf
otheirr i d h eoawclei o
account for the fact that anewspaper proprietary, if influenced
supply the article in which it dealt The reason was obvious,
that matters had come to a point when the Times
paperalone bwye were
ra was.o neces-
sitated to contract its circulation. There ap
lest the circulition by inereas,ng the paper shouldP becomeslllwas,
b the
means of a loss ; and any loss would be 'very serious,
it would be imreediately multiplied by 60,000. That because
state in which things were now with respect to thatw paper
and a nlve: t which every paper sooner or later must a • Of one
thing he was quite certain, that if they desired to. maintain the
press at its present standard they' must allow theram
largesta .1
jour-
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 a
Mr. M. GIBSON said the proposition befores possible.
the house was
simply this—that there was a case for relief for carrying the
Times through the post ; and that whereas the Times, with a
supplement full of most profitable matter, was now carried
through the post for lid., it was now proposed
be carried for ld., the being deductedthat it should
from the public 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 either
carry all printed matter at the low rate
now proposed to be
applied to the Times, or should not reduce
which that journal was carried. When it
the present rate at
Times newspaper was fined, and had it was said that the
Gibson) would say it was a monstrousa case for relief, he (Mr.
ought to resist it. He, for one, would laPpeal, and the house
the motion of the right lion. gentleman'ecford his vote against
this supplemental stamp, they would be or, if they repealed
the proprietors of a prosperous commercialnierely granting to
establishment a
certain portion of the public revenue, an
do so they had better vote the sum atd if they resolved to
once—(hear, hear)—
and say the Times was an institution,
ported at the public expense. (Hear,and
hear.)ought to be sup-
call, attention to the fact that the Iliad He begged to
occasionally weighed ten ounces, and rated London, News
much larger amount of printed would probably have a
matter in it than any other
paper.

Mr. E. BAIL hoped the right hon. member for Manchester
would excuse him if he did not follow the advice he bad given
to the house. He (Mr. Ball) was of opinion that the post-
office could convey any newspaper at a much less cost than 3
penny, and that the Post-office wealcl suffer no loss Air carrr.