The Sun.
London, England, 1852-04-23 00:00:00

NM '

t.,PIRIT Of' the PUBLIC ,JOURNA:LS.
enotr THE `AtOR'NPTG l'AP* OF THIS nAY.
TIMES -I-The gilt/tee-kit pulfceitt or 'rather necessity;
which makes a man teae
-4 - Perwif to the State for learn-
ing thetews of the day, ;
'hghteert ;pence for publishing
his wants dr his warea, Lanai:mat halfpence t;-pound for
the material o in Ili
tk..-''geneO‘tuti-instruation is a self,
evident evil. ,As vie LIPPea, Wile ourselves the larg'st
channel of .thete payments,
nu eas we have reason to
believe that they are to.a largateastent at our+ own ex-
pensea we o,ltl only regardthearin their natural light,
At berdeits on one peculiar industry. So far, vie cannot
but be grateful Gib Son for his vigorous
denunciation of '" tithe on titiowledge " cshich, lilts
41, ,
taxis on' food," "parrs on indtistry," "'taxes on Fir'.
leneero taxes on light," and either like penalties, very
significantly mark the character ofd this
a. vulgar
'3:enee .
strange as ~itiii4yr seem,good talker
Inidetveri;o:.l3ut
likely to goleeongtaa when t, handling a
seifeevident. truth. When se, preacher opens his germ on •
with a truism; we may .he,
surfeit in order to redeem it-
from poverty, he is about
. to gild it with paradox and •
-exaggeration. Mr. Minter Gibson, haw e rather
eacknied truth to deal hobby lasi night a
good deal too hard; and, el.;
" tiS dismounted, the inSa-
were ascribed all the rnisfortuneS of litereture—iillaid
ciable Mr. Essart rode" it 'stele -
declare it
Authors, ruined publishere, an illtteepplied public, trades-
men without custom, h°USEllialdi out of place, '
s--.
dais without readers, and sews apes in a state
Urder. To these tax, s
to us to describe. Them) misfortunes are owing to a
which w© most unaffectedly
great variety of oases, and Mr; Milner Gibson referth
hem only to tine—that is, to !':taxes knowledge.";
['his narrow view of the euNet
eta not merely an in-
justice to the 'S'ucceisiulttertt&i,
tett otters very "little, bat,
What is far more impostunteti
the public- to re-
medies within everyhode's, , ea as Winer
is no pleasure
•
tlibson says, the-Time o**e-the-other papers,
it is as unfair to ascribe that devouring process to the
tion of the udvertieement duty as it would be to
Axe a
the secret of Mr., Macaulayte success to the duty on
oaper. The circulation of our .contemporaries rises and
fulls under the same conditions as to taxation; new
journals have beaten old ones even since " taxes 01-
nowledge" wiqe-ehnuilly discussed; serials have in ace,
.nd are still making, the fortunetoof their authors an
üblishers; aud, to crown all, every good servant with
good characer can get a. good
place, notwith-
ttending the irresistible influences which were last
deht imagined against in The greater part of Mr.
shiner Gibson's speech, and nearly all that was new in
,t, was devoted to the duty on Paper; which, unfortu-
(lately, is So productive that its repeal is almost a hope-
less affair. Oa the testimony of some well-known pub-
lishers, this duty was described es Partictilarly injurious
and indeed fatal to the- cheap and instructive class of
serials. It is said that they only pay by
gaining sub-
scribers as they proceed, through the increasing appre-
ciation of their merits, and by the consequent sale of
their back numbers; but, as the back numbers will-not
be disposed of till many-months or years after the date
of their publication, it follows that a good deal of capital
must be sunk for that period in the shape of paper duty.
Perhaps we are hardly fair judges of such a speculation,
but, as it appears to us, it can never fail to be ha-
zardous under the most favourable circumstance. The
+mast casual glance at the book-stalls reveals the
fact that serials don't keep, and it can only be
a limited class of . very enthusiastic, probably
youthtul subscribers, who are so pleased with
To. 50 that they order the Whole series from the. be-
einning. There is a general cemplaint 'in the trade
hat cheapness is carried too far in these publications,
,hat is, at the risk and inconvenience of others ; nay,
it was stated the other day at a meeting of publishers
hat several of the class have lately determined to have
eothing to do with Cheat; serials. We wish, too, that
we could persuade ourselves that the saving to arise
from the remission of the piper , duty would naturally
and directly be added to the remuneration 'of authors.
Phis seems to us a gratuitous supposition, as there would
still remain the same inducement as now to cut down
all the costs to the lowest possible scale, not only in the
spirit of rivalry, but for thesake of profit. One of the
most singular and lamentable.festares of American so-
eiety is the very low scale of remuneration, even for the
highest literary services, compared with the profits
of all other occupations ; and, whether with rea-
son or not, that is abscribed to the extreme cheapness
of allkinds of literature. It is, in fact, so cheap and abun-
eant as to swamp real merit and vulgarize the taste of
~he public. We have made these remarks upon serials
because they occupy the chief place in Mr. M. Gibson'a
catalogue of grievances. As to the inconvenience of the
Excise in the process of manufacture, and the neces-
sity, under existing circumstances, of first drying paper
for the Exciseman's scales, and then wetting it for the
press, that is an undeniable nuisance; though, we are
sorry to say, only one Excht nuisance out of a legion.
We find ourselves occe more the object of allusion,
with a running inuendo that we have an in-
terest in maintaining the taxes op, knowledge. Oa se-
veral former occasions it has beea shown in these co-
lames that, as the remission of the paper duty would
constitute only a small fraction of a penny in the price
of each paper, it could not be deducted from the price,
and must fall to the proprietors. Of course, we could
not object to that. As for the duty on the advertise-
ments, there can only,be one opinion on its gross int-
qualtty. We feel it so strongly that for servants wan-
ting places we charge on a very unprofitable scale. But,
after all, they contribute only a small portion of our ad•
vereisements. In round numbers, there were yesterday
about twelve hundred advertisements in our paper, and
of these about two hundred were for servants wanting
places. The advertisement; duty for the day amouaten
to 90/ , of which 15/, or not more than 17 per cent. of
i,he whole, was paid fur the class of edvertisements
which is very naturally felt to deserve consideration.
It is not our interest that this class should increase to
the exclusion of . a more profitable kind; and, if the
duty shold be taken off, and our office should be more
thronged than ever with servants wanting places, it is
not improbable that we should find it necessary to
keep up the charge to nearly its present scale. As
to the other classes of advertisements, the duty in ge-
neral forms but a small portion of the cost. We have
no interest in the maintenance of this duty, and, con-
sidering the infinite variety of other ways in which
people can advertise their commodities, their professions,
their books, and themselves, at no other cost than the
clogging of our thoroughfares, the defacement of our
walls, and the general annoyance of the public, we can-
not but think the newspapers are rather hardly used.
There remains the stamp duty. Here, too, we can have
no possible interest, except to be emancipated from
much cost and trouble. We heppen, indeed, to be special
sufferers, being the only paper that almost invariably
publishes a supplement. The more we give our readers
for their money the more we are taxed, and the duty thus
operates as an express discouragement to enterprise.
Mr. Milner Gibson, by the by, tides not state with per-
fect accuracy the evidence. given before the Committee
as to the effect of this duty on our eirenlation. It is not
the stamp on the fast sheet, charged 5d., but the stamp
on the second sheet, given gratis, which destroys the
profit of oar paper after a certain circulation, and thus
operates to the injury of the advertiser arid purchaser—
in fact, of the public at large, A
.43 to the general question
of the stamp duty, en behalf a the whole metropoli-
tan press, we only ask to be fairly dealt with. Mr.
Ewert sufficiently indicates the efftct of substituting a
postage for a stamp duty, when he recommends the
localization of the press. At present the London papers
and their more ambitious provincial competitors start
fair, being equally weighted, with the penny stamp.
While, therefore, the country papers appropriate our
Parliamentary, legal, commercial, and foreign intelli-
gence, and such other costly matter, with the utmost
dispwch, and without so much as thataks, there still ex-
ists a Loge class of country readers who prefer the
Times at sd. to any provincial paper at that price. But,
if they have to pay sd. or 514. for the Times by post,
and only for some provincial reproduction of its con-
tents delivered at their door by a running messenger,
they may possibly prefer the cheap mad piratical sub-
stitute. We trust that this is not to be recommended
on the principle of free trade; for, in fact,
it will be no-
thing but a protected robber our own part, we
thine. buty. -Por
6fair pla
never asked for %IV; we have never
received more than fair play; and
WO never wish for

at there are two
more. the"
DAILY NEWS.—Last night Attorney-General
which binds
proved, during the debate
literature,on Mr. Milner Gibson's
honour
gentlemen to fulfil their promisee and to respect their
maaor!isonorfehspoenootuinrgintaxve
jsgoune:t.heh
pledges, and the honour peculiar to revenue boards d an
law officers, which loads them," for the interest of the
public," to forswear their most solemn engagements:
This is the sort of honour which hat,
cl been vouctunf-
by the Board of Leland Revenue to Mr. Charles Dickens
ie reference to his Household Narrative of Current
Events. Our readers are aware; that puh. this e
.cation is
a compact little monthly newspaper, put forth on the
faith of a common sense construction of statutes, which
exclude froai stamp duty periodicals issued at int,- r... -,.1.c
greater than 26 days between each number. The Board
of Inland Revenue, having rashly annihilated au obscure
provincial monthly journal .of a similar cha-
racter, wore obliged, in self-justification, to
follow up one wrong by
of
another.
Although
afterwards examined before the Select 0 :
—oranuttee on
newspaper stampe, owned that they could not tell—from
the contusion and contradictioulof the law--.what a
stm.
btg ,
tutable newspaper.is or is rif)te!-8 board toe upon itself
to decide that the Heusehota, Narrative of Current
Events is liable to be eteinP4Lbut its proprietor, Ung
stronger in parse than the unfortunate provincial, re-
sisted this dEci3ion, uni a seaciai case was agreed upon
and referred to the Court of Esch'2quer. After an elabo-
rate argument before four of t 4 Barons, three of them
decided in favour of Mr. Charles Dickens; the fourth
supporting, upon parcely technieal
grounds, the affirma-
tion of the Stamp.office. I. celyi be necessary to explain
to non-legal readers that s Weill case is SjUIPIY a state-
ment of facts agreed upon by the parties on both sides,
which is to .Lorm the basis of an arbitration—not to a
single referee, as in ordinary.. cases—but to a bench
of judges; these facts being ergasd upon by counsel on
both sides. B ich party atipulates in all faith and
.honour to be bound by the decision; ageinit which,
consequently, no appeal can honestly lie. Men of ho-
nour in private life, whj have. entered into such a com-
pact abide by it, or they cease to be men of honour; but