The Sun.
London, England, 1852-11-15 00:00:00

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LONDON, MONDAY, NOVEMBER 15, 1852.

The taxes on knowledge must be repealed ere
long ;no one doubts it. Argument has settled
the question in every mind acquainted with the
subject, and if only remains for an adequate
number of mind,. give their attention fn
and the thing is done for ever. The press in •
England once liberated—liberated not by a mob
revolution—brit by full discussion both within and
without the walls of Parliament, will never be
enslaved again. Enslaved ! some reader may
exclaim—yes, enslaved, we repeat. The news-
paper press works in fetters. It is chained to
nowning-street—.-:chain.ed to the Excise-office—
celaained to the Stamp-office. It is trebly chained ;
it works under the load of a paper duty, a stamp
duty,
and duty.- How it works
all'onall,al:llthe wonder ; and we doubt- not that the
the pockalre,ea of ale fruits of its labour goes into
irrefutai4 ofa •its oppressor. Nothing can more
than the contrast
its bondage in England
periodical press asotf with America. There the
es:ix.a every class is really free ; no
duty of
checks its movements. What
is the consequence 7
pool, two great coramh
Take e
arkeiajNewYork and Liver-
ten days sail of each neighbours, within
coi3ie:ther. In New York
at least 100,000
are circulated in the city of
aidally newspapers
pool there is not one daily pa In Liver-
y Paper
trast with London, the fountain: The eon-
Encd.
daily papers, is almost as glaring. , ish
which numbers its.population by
millions,
ten daily papers. reckons has
New York, which s
population by hundreds of thousands only, has
fifteen. London ought, by the same proportion,
to have forty or fifty. Three-fourths of all the
families in America take a daily paper, every
skilled operative takes one ; nay almost every
workman enjoys the privilege of the substantial
L'idola citizen, and has his own Newspaper
regularly with his breakfast.
Such unquestioned facts as these, affirra) beyond
the possibility of denial, the bondage of the English
newspaper press. Our manufacturers of the raw
materials, our printers
and publishers, our editors,
are no way inferior to the Americans iu skill and

enterprise. We could beat them. We do beat
them in every manufacture which is free at home.
We send them our textile fabrics, and our hard-
ware, even in the face of their high protective
duties. In cheap production of almost every
kind no country can surpass us, and certainly not
America. There can be, then, but one reason for
the humiliating disparity of our newspaper circula-
tion, and that is that our press is heavily fettered.
It is to little purpose to begin calculations attempt-
ing to prove that the burdens on the newspaper
are not very heavy after all. That the paper-
duty is only an amount per sheet which no coin
will express ; that the penny stamp is but twenty
per cent. on a fivepenny paper, and the advertise-
ment duty but eighteenpence for each insertion;—
the broad answer is, that the working of all three
combined is such, that New York takes 100,000
copies of the daily papers ; while Liverpool has
not a single daily paper of its own, and, at most,
takes a few scores, possibly a hundred or two, of
the London dailies. By a little consideration, in-
deed, it is easy to see the execrable working of the
three duties. Every man of business knows that
the Excise regulations and interference augment
the cost of paper probably quite as much as the
duty does. Then the. stamp and the advertise-
ment duties necessitate the expense of increased
capital, on the part especially of the actual sellers
of the paper, the newsmen. Again, the limitation
of the sale, by the increased cost of the paper, re-
acts upon the cost itself, since every newspaper is
obliged to incur preliminary expenses for each im-
pression, which, if distributed over double or
treble the number of copies, would lower the pro-
portion of those expenses which belonged to each
copy. It is obvious that in these ways, and others
which might be mentioned, the three taxes en-
hance the cost of the newspaper considerably be-
yond their own absolute amount.
In a fiscal point of view, moreover, nothing can
be more absurd than retaining three taxes at the
same time. 'Supposing the paper duty to be,
fiscally the best, since it yields altogether more
than double the penny stamp duty, and more than
five times the advertisement duty,—then how
foolish beyond measure to check the consumption
of paper, by taxing it again twice over. The
three taxes impoverish each other. Each tax, to
realize its largest produce, requires an extensive
circulation ; while each contributes to check the
circulation ; indeed, it seems likely that a larger
amount might be real ized by one than by the
three. At any rate, like protective duties, they
are now so arranged as to inflict the greatest pos-
sible loss upon the consumer compared with the
amount they bring into the public treasury.
Of all the duties, however, we think the adver-
tisement duty the least defensible. Its amount
is insignificant. Some 160,0001. or 170,000/. a
year ; while its palpable injustice to the lower
classes, is .alone a sufficient reason to demand
its instant abolition. It ought no longer
to be endured, that any servant wanting a place
should pay as much to Government for permis-
sion to advertise his or her wants in a few lines,
as the North-Western Railway Company for a
column or more about its millionaire transactions.
It is well known too that advertisements are to a
large extent the support of every newspaper ; not
only do they support it directly, but the adver-
tisements and the circulation mutually aid each
other. This is again exemplified on the largest
scale in America, where some of the principal ad-
vertising papers are actually sold at one half-
penny each. Every tradesman in town or coun-
try advertises the arrival of almost every parcel
of goods. The advantage of this practice to the
retail trade is sufficiently obvious from the success
of all the great advertising dealers in this coun-
ay. _ _ _

As to the penny stamp, defended as a postage-
stamp, though the majority of papers never go
through the post, it is doubtless maintained, as it
was laid on, to check the diffusion of political
knowledge. No one would complain of a half-
penny stamp, as in America, or even a penny one,
for papers actually sent by post; to charge all
alike, whether they go by post or not, is no bet-
ter than a fraud; the amount, deducting the ex-
pense to the Post-office, is inconsiderable to
the revenue; we fear this tax is but a. rem-
nant of the Six-Acts spirit, of the political
corruption and cowardice which, by such
a device, put an end to Wm. COBBETT'S " two-
penny trash." By far the greatest mischief of the
newspaper taxes, however, has yet to be men-
tioned. They are taxes on the most efficient edu-
cator of the day. It is the universal fashion now
to laud education to the skies, but each party fights
bitterly to get the education into their own hands,
and the number is by no means very large who
are for thorough liberty of education. If they
think they can make it serve party purposes all is
right, but if the advance of the people in general
knowledge merely, or political knowledge espe-
cially, is in question, they are indifferent or op-
posed. We test the sincerity of the advocates of
education very much by the attitude they assume
in regard to the taxes on knowledge. It is upon
the newspaper, and upon the many cheap and ex-
cellent publications for the million, that these
taxes press with the greatest severity. The
Marchioness or the Duchess finds little or no
effect from them upon the cost of her three-
volume novel. But they put a stop to many
an admirable series of penny and three-half-
penny tracts ; while the comparison with
America proves that they exclude the newspaper
from the cottage of the working-man. This last
fact is the most important. There is no educator
like the newspaper. It creates the wish to learn
to read. It perpetuates the ability to read.
It supplies what all like to read ; it sup-
plies that which some will read who will read
nothing else. All wish to know the news. Mr.
HORACE GRRETX, Editor of a New York paper,
stated, before the Committee of the House of
Commons, that in his opinion nothing made the
children of the working classes think learning to
read a necessary acquirement more than seeing
their fathers read the papers at home, and that
without the inducements supplied toy the news-
papers numbers who had learned to read would,
as in England, soon forget it. Newspapers,
therefore, we regard as self-educators of the
people ; while all the various school-systems are
not only in part bounty-systems, but they fail of
producing permanent results, because not backed
up in subsequent life by that greatest of all in-
t. etain the habit of reading—the
newspaper. We know we shall be met by some
dilettanti sneer, at the little worth of such read-
ing. Well, but Mr. EXQUISITE, do you not
read some newspaper. And if with all your philo-
sophy and taste you want your morning and even-
ing paper as much as your tea or breakfast, why
should not the newspaper be somewhat worthy of
the poor man's attention. SIR CHARLES LYELL,
surely a competent witness, bears testimony to
the general good quality of the cheap American
papers. He bought them largely, he says, in
every place, and considered them quite equal to
the average in this country. He was particularly
struck with their frequently giving good reviews
of valuable works, and much larger extracts from
them than are given in England, and thought the
general effect of the papers must be to lead to the
reading of books of value. How desirable that
such lectures and speeches, as we have occasion to
publish, by Lord CARLISLE, the Duke of NEW-
CASTLE, and Sir E. L. BULWER, should have the
largest circulation amongst the mechanic class.
This can only be done through the Newspaper
Press. Much in the sante way therefore as we
regard the ballot as the test of a real reformer, so
we regard the Repeal of the Taxes on Knowledr
as the test of a real educator.
We can only add at present, that we consider
Mr. DISRAELI'S accession to office as the time for
a decided effort. We know from the past that
his sympathies are with the object. It would be
more
for his historical reputation to be known as
the Emancipator of the British Press, than to
carry any fiscal or party measures whatever. If
he does not ° i
credit ofit, done it will be by the force of
public opinion,a
measure
and why should he not have the
teresting to hira than
which must be far more in-
The Whigs went out fnoto most of our statesmen.
offioce, and with regard to
the people, " left the
padlock DisBAELI only hath kon their mind." Let
" courage to take it off,

and if PvEL be remembered by them as the States-
man who gave them cheap bread, DISRA.ELI will be
remembered as the Statesman who gave them
cheap literature.

No time will be lost in bringing forward, or,
at least, announcing the nature of the different
measures of Legal Reform, about to be introduced
with the sanction, and under the auspices, of her

MAJESTY'S Government. The LORD CHANCELLOR

has appointed to-morrow evening for that purpose,
thus evincing a creditable promptitude on a sub-
ject in which the entire community of all classes

and grades in society are so deeply interested.

The Noble and Learned Lord at the same time