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London, England, 1855-07-18 00:00:00

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Russell,, has already propitiated Mr. Roebuck by up-
setting the late Ministry, and has now propitiated
fate by his own fall. The second is Lord Palmerston
himself, and, as he 'really is the only one that pre-
sents even a p;.inta facie case for the summary proceed-
in; s, Mr. Roebuck suggests we will give him a separate
consideration.

• The question, then, as cleared and extricated by
Mr. Roebuck himself, is simply this :—What has Lord
Palmerston done, on the evidence and in the opinion of
the Sebastopol Committee, to demand that he should be
immediately ejected from the Government ? Being
Home Secretary last year, he did not worry Lord Aber-
deen to worry the Duke of. Newcastle to do his work
batter. He did not ask for Cabinet meetings. He was
not at his post constantly in the. autumn, ostensibly
making manufacturers consume their own smoke, really
stirring up the Duke of Newcastle. What else did he
fail in I Well, there was something else. I He carried
out the Militia Act rather slackly. But we very much
doubt whether the British public will push things so far
as to quarrel with Lord Palmerston for not meddling
enough with the affairs of his chief and his c•llea;ues
last year. The truth is, that he has long laboured
under the reputation of being rather too meddlesome,
and in this instance it will be•concluded that he would
have been only too happy to meddle, if he' might have
been allowed. Nay, on further consideration, it will
'be remembered that Lord PalmerstOn was especially
put into a quiet office, out of harm's way, sur-
rounded by a crowd of sanitary reformers, undertakers,
gra,vediggirs, manufacturers, select vestrymen, and
other small metropolitan fry. As for the operation
of the Militia Act, that, as it happens, has not come
into question. But there, again, is another sore point
in which the British public must consent to share the
blame with their Minister. At the express wish of the
people, declared in a most unequivocal manner, the Mi-
litia Act was made a less stringent Measure than that

proposed by th© previous Government, and the late Go.
vernmEnt came in by getting rid of the hallo"-, But,
in sober truth, the Militia Act and its operation are not
under review, and Mr. Roebuck has not mentioned it,
except by a general charge, reflecting on all the Govern-
mints; Parliaments, and people we have had for twenty
yeare, that we had not provided a re.,erve sufficient for
the magnitude of the Crimean expedition, and the rapid
drain of such a war. So there ends the case- as
regards the only man whom Mr. Roebuck himself would
think at the same time worth punishing, and still un-
punished.

But if Time has thus defrauded justice at home, and
left Mr. Roebuck looking about indignantly for the vic-
tim to be immolated in special honour of the ,Sebastopol
Committee, that same awful poe er has made greater
changes at the seat of war. There all is change. Mr.
Roebuck himself is obliged to pronoun ce, not indeed an
acquittal, but a eulogium on Lord Raglan. Yet, when
it comes to plain matter of fact, if Lord Raglan is to be
acquitted of the imperfectly prepared expedition, the
want of transport, the defective arrangements for the
carriage and care of the wounded and sick, and the want
of a communication from the harbour to the camp, it is
impossible to lay hold of any one man in this country,
and say that he is more answerable for these things than
the Commander-in-Chief on the spot. The offenders
whom the indignation of tha public has successively ar-
raigned, justly as we believe, have fled from our poor
earthly tribunals, one after another, to that before which
we must all one day tremble. We summon them inte
court, and the answer is, that they are no more. All
things considered, then, we can not anticipate any other
result of the question than that which Time itself, quicker
than Parliamentary process, ha 3 already brought. The
report of the Sebastopol Committee may still afford
matter for discussion ; it will long continue to throw
light on the official system of this country; and it ren-
ders the present Cabinet inexcusable if they do nut avoid
the errors and neglects of their predecessors. But it
has ceased to be available for the furtherance of justice
and the indictment of the offenders. They may profess
to appeal to it, and to challenge a trial upon its contents;
but they know that their appeal is safe enough, and that
the past is now laid•on the shelf.

THE NEWSPAPER STAMP ACT.
(Prom the Times of this day.)
The public will remember the peculiar advantages
which were promised from the amendment of the News-
japer Stamp Law. Enterprise was to be relieved of its
Mmmels, education was to be wondrously promoted,
political knowledge was to find its way into every corner
of the country, and popular ignorance was gradually to
disappear. These desirable results were to be accom-
plished by a certain specific agency—viz., that of penny
daily papers. Over this point no obscurity whatever
was permitted to rest. The one thing which was wanted
to insure the perfect freedom, perfect efficacy, and per-
fect utility of the press was an issue of daily papers at
one penny each. It was for this that agitation was so
tenaciously maintained. Nobody ventured to deny that
the press of this country, as it stood, was more indepen-
dent, more serviceable, and more decorously conducted
than that of any other country. Nobody asserted that
either the metropolitan papers or the country papers
could be called expensive articles at the current
prices. What was said was, that a less expensive
article was called for, and that the production of
this commodity was prohibited by the compulsory
stamp. Of course, it was obvious to remark that, as this
stamp was only a penny, that alone need not keep the
price of a newspaper at sd. If a penny or a halfpenny
per copy would in reality suffice to remunerate the pro-
ducers of a good journal, it was plain that the whole
selling price, even including the stamp, need have been
only 2d. or lid. The stamp could, at any rate, be only
answerable for one penny out of the five. Here, how-
ever, it was replied that the manner in which the stamp
operated no destructively was in preventing the circula-
tion of newspapers at the particular price of a penny,
and no more. This was the magical figure which was
to work such wonders. To produce newspapers at 4d.,
3d., or VA., was of no use ; in fact, the thing had been
tried without success ; nothing would serve the real turn
but newspapers at id. Any advance above this sum was
fatal, nor was there much difference, for this matter, be-
tween 2.1 d. and sd. Tho key of the whole argument
lay in the "penny,"—in that single, small, ever-pre-
sent, and easily-spared coin, which nobody would be-
grudge for his daily news.
Well, the law was amended, the stamp was removed,
and Mr. Milner Gibson, Mr. Cobden, and their inde-
fatigable friends were gratified with this enfranchise-
ment of the press. What has been the result ? To be
sure, the new system has not been very long in opera-
tion, but the experience already acquired appears to have
convinced the managers of at least one establishment of
a very notable fact—to wit, that a penny daily paper
such as the public look for, and the " tax-on-knowledge'
people designed, can never be maintained with a proper
remuneration to its producers. Such, at least, is the
published conclusion of the Yorkshire Daily Express, a
paper issued on the new system under circumstances un-
usually favourable. We should not have cared to assert
or defend such commercial maxims on our own proper
authority, but the fact is communicated to the world as
the result of actual experiment with more than ordinary
promise of success. It seems that the conductors of the
Leeds Times, observing that Manchester and Liverpool
were getting their " penny dailies" under the new
system, resolved on giving their own district the benefit
of a similar issue, and accordingly started the Leeds
and Yorkshire Daily Express, price one penny. We
have two or three numbers of this journal before
us. It seems to be very respectably " got
up ;" has its " latest intelligence," its " telegraphic,"
and so forth, and, as one of the articles in its leading
columns appears in each of the numbers before us to be
transcribed from our own pages, we presume we cannot
well demur to the "ability" of the production. Never-
theless, on Monday morning last, the readers of this
promising periodical were informed in the " first leader"
that the proprietors had " determined to discontinue"
the same. They had started, they inform us, with con-
siderable advantages. Owing to their already organised
establishment they were enaled to keep down what,
under other circumstances, would have been the ex-
penses of such a concern by at least one-third ; they had
the benefit of au existing connexion, and they produced
a good article. The result, however, was, that their
returns were only about one-half what they should have
been to cover the bare expenses of production, and they
have relinquished the attempt accordingly. By way of
convincing those who might surmise that the trial was
not a fair one, they offer to any person inclined to re-
peat the experiment any requisite assistance in making
the trial for himself.
Experience must prove whether the promoters of other
similar enterprises are more fortunate or more skilful
than the conductors of the Leeds and Yorkshire Daily
Express. For ourselves, we can only repeat what we
have fifty times remarked—that, as far as the idea of
competition is concerned, we regard the matter with the
most supreme indifference, and that the working of the
new law does but confirm in all respects the views we
entertained of the public taste and requirements.' We
have not suffered, nor are we likely to suffer, in a single
particular ; but, as we know something of the expenses
_
contingent on the production of a daily paper, and of
what the public is accustomed to look f.(7 in ainuetwhs;
paper, wo could not but express our
which
ine iassumptions on which the Manchester politicians
have
pro-
ceeded. In the expiring journal to tice
referred we find a very circumstantial dTe:crmipatikoen ofei
the difficulties actually experienced
penny paper pay it must hay:
as
price, but th is circulation corm-
spending to the cheapness f
circulation presumes a propsorotilovneastecsnwvoerykanocef
adnisci
tribution, and distribution
iv
agents. Now, the cost of conveyance for a penny paper
nehlreythe percentage
awmhoi
ulallowed
seuttauolr
return
ngueptnoht
upon
each l the same as that charged for the
is, we are told, a
larger journals,'"‘
is also "within awfraction
iissoollftehtdha,etlhe outgoings in these
case of more costly sheets;
diminished,
rs to be the ex-
each issue is largely m
respects stand nearly Such appears
candidly nroclaimed, of the
ex-
perience, cal Leeds and York-
:shire
_Daily Express. Perhaps it may be conceived that
the proprietors of a weekly newspaper were not alto-
gether ill-pleased at establishing a case
against the new
class of competitors with which they were threatened ;
but, on the other band, it would be absurd to imagine
that any such inducement would have tempted them to
discard a second source of profit, if profit could be mad?.
A few months more, however, will bring all thi;