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

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culation—but he would not put that 1001. into his own
pocket; competition would force him to by it out in
the improvement of these publication:,, and he would
expend it in a higher order of authership and better li-
terary talent than he was able to employ at pregMt, It
was a monstrous thing that, to issue penny peblications
In this country—such a publication as the Popular Edu-
cator, or the Working Man's Friend—a man ceeeild be
called upon to baud over week by week to the G ,vere-
ment 401. or 501., the fund ow of which authorship
Would be paid. A man who did not care what he pub
lished, and who only looked to cheapness and issumg
translations from French novel., red 3 variety of mat-
ters that epees:43cl to the passions, for the pureetie of a
large eircutaeore might copy whet he we teem other
works, and the paper duty whicii he peid did not stand
stand
o
in the way ei.
f his penny publicltions, because he
ift
want any fund out of which to pay auitari.hip, but
they wished to meet that q testion in the mac k t as to
circulating these publications, which were as bad as
._ w
they were cheap, they must (wove a fun.] out c t 11 h
authorship shoull be and a higher order
of lite-
rary talent should be emple eed.
lie had received a let-
terthe House would
from a gentleman woo hesure
admit was a high authority this subject—Mr. C.
Knight. It was awed from Fleet-street, the 19th of
April, 1852. He bad published one or two excellent pam-
phlets ou the question of he piper duty. known by the
name of •"rhe Struggles of a Book against T emotion,
and also the case of authors in reference to the paper
duty, and ho said:—
"It is difficult to add aelythine new to the arguments
which have been urged in the House of Comtnone and
by other modes for the abolition of the pspe.r duty. A
few points have struck me in addition to what I have
written on the subject. Amid much which is injurions or
frivolous in cheap publications, I think there is a manifest
tendency towards the moral and intellectual improve-
ment of the general character of our populist- lieloure:
The conductors of periodicil winks almost exclusively
aedressed to tho working classes, as they are termed,
appear to me to have commenced c.essing to thick that it
is necessary to write down to their readers. As a neeu•
ral cons, quer.ce of this tendency, writers of information
and ability are more needed, perhaps more employed.
But this tendency is counteracted by the paper-duty. I
will explain myself as briefly as I can, It 2501. be given
for the authorship of a lame octave volume, it operates,
as a charge of 5:4. per copy if 1,000 copies be printed,
and the book must be high priced; but if 10,000 be
printed, the authorship only enters into price at the
rate of 6d. per copy, and the book may be law-priced.
But the paper-duty upon such a volume amounts to 6d.
per copy, whether 1,000 or 10,000 be primed; and it
10,000 be printed, amounts to as much as the author-
ship. Reduce the payment or authorship, and the
value of the book is injured; take away the paper
duty, and you neither lower the quality nor limit
the sale of the book. There is, Lure, a fund fur
the better remuneration of that labour which is
to raise the quality and extend the sale, and thus ad
Vance the great end of all popular literature—the diffu-
sion of knowledge and the elevation of the menet and
religious character of a people. But it is said that the
repeal of the paper-tax would only operate as a b inus to
puolishers, without lowering the price of books to the
public. I believe that the ordinary effects of competition
would determine this doubt very satisfactorily. It is
possible that there might be no direct lowering of price
in many cases of low-priced books, but I am sure that
there would be an improvement of quality. The number
of printed pages sold for Is. might be the same as new,
but there would be better paper, better type, and, what_
is more important, improved authorship. Publishers of
Very cheap books would look for somethiug to publish
having a copyright value, instead of bad translations sad
hackneyed reprints. Beyond this, large undertakings,
of which we have very few now, would have a greater
encouragement were the paper-duty repeeled, for the
price of voluminous works could be directly lowered and
their sale consequently increased. I will give an ex-
ample. tI have oetermite d to bring out a ewe Cs cop die
--the Imperial—tonAed uoon the Penny Cyclopedia. L
will torm 20 volumes. I' I print 5 Ouu cepiea, he texed
Paper would cost 12 0001,, of wn'ch the actual dutt
would amount to 2 2501, and the direct tied indi-
rect additious to cost, cones queue teem the duty, would,
as I believe, double the tax. Leaking at :he operate'',
of the cost of paper alone, I could reduce the price of
the book 5
per cent. to the sub,cribtra if the tax were
removed; out, taking into cousisferaden the fact that I
could then print 1,000 cepies at the price at which I
Could stereotype th, 20 volumes (which process ts
chiefly employed to save the outlay of cspitnl in tested
PasPerVl could reduce the price 10 per cent. Toe .ffects
o"tell a tax upon prices are not to be measured by its
direct amount. For example, it may be said that the
drawback of duty upen exported boils allows the fo-
Xeigners to be charged as low a price as if the paper
Were untaxed. This is really not the case. The draw-
„fte/i °lely represents the positive tax, and not the in
piublis,her
'eased price consequent upon the tax. Assume that I
ems sell 500 copies of my Cyclopedia to an American
at Si. per copy, the taxed paper costing me
1,1,t2C1°11 I obtain a drawback of 2251., which reduces the
enecoeienerdtberhsoo copies to 2,2751. ,_ at which rate they were
227/. 104. American tat in of s 0 per cent. adds
The
2,5021.10 to the importer's ouday, sleeking a total
eider thtit3i But if I could buy my paper ofuntexed,lhcoti
illight red should save, in various ways, 4501.,
teiifflo old
the price to 41, 2s. per copy, to wslaticth at-
he
2.47/.10.141d add 2051. The iteporterwoule therefore save
Would • That: advantage to the importer of 10 per cent.
one Probably double my sale in the United biates.
eaao Pe'reion_ of the advantage would be the &mines:tied
tint of tax which be would pay to his own Govern •
teh_ t• The direct tax sad its collateral effects, in one
country
produce similar effects in another country, rais-
ing the price to the consumer, and thus narrowing the
market of the producer. The chief argument which .1
have
; constantly urged for the repeal of the paper-duty
4/9 that the tax bears most unequelly upon the lower-
Itriced publications, as compared with the higher-priced,
and therefore interferes injuriously with the education
of the Prople. Upon the wholesale price of n modern
11,tvel it is le per cent. Upon Mr. Dickens's Household
„words it its 12 per cent.; it is 2:1- per cent. boon the
Quarterly Review; it is 17 per cent. upon Chambers's
Papers for the People. Look at the inequality as re gards
the two latter .examples of periodical works, addressed
to different classes of the community. 1,000 copies of
number of the Review, sold for 65., pay a duty of
4/ la
7, -.1-1 1,000 copies of one unbound velum? of the
°Pea sold for 8d , pay a duty of 31 6s. there were
an ad valorem duty of 5 per cent. upon all printed bunks,
1,000 copies of the Review would pay 151., and 1,000
enPiee of the Papers would leg 1/. 13e. 41. It is
estimated that the annual sales of all books and
Periodical works, nut newspapers, amount, at
o the retail price, to 2,000,0001. An ad valorem
'tali') of 5 per cent. would raise as much as tee
Paper duty upon printed books, and would operate less
injuriously. Capital would not be locked up in lex, fur
the stamp would be demanded as the demand for copies
west on; and the manufacturer's and stationer's profit
upon the tax would be got rid of. The public would then
really understand that a tax upon paper is a tax upon
knowledge, and would not be deceived into e belief that
because it enters into the price of a 12s. volume to the
extent only of 6d. its removal would not benefit the
great and increasing body of book purchasers. Such a
mode of levying a tax up en literature would be more ob•
noxious than the paper duty though less harmful; but
there would be justice in the principle instead of gross
inequality of the existing law."
lie thought that mace it clear that if they were sincere
in their deire to spread education, thsy ought to evince
• • tith:,t sincerity by taking off this paper duty. It was not
. • im-
p netto'f3r trade
question,
it was a morel and itei-
v,ple
to
onrael question. It was monstrous to teach
the
all they could hin if theY did not at the Same time do
Peruse, and
the quality of the books they
Were likely to
greattsaand the cli-tuand for penny publi-
cations was 90
other ud the appetite for knowiede,e of
some kind or
so strongly evinced by
the extensive tranrao:o"
that branch of business, tnes of rall engaged in
there would not beeu that they must not euppose
:e.tive circulation of some
kind of cheap literature
wellwisher of the a matter of doubt—it wee a liar.
of certainty, and,
That was no longer
therefore, every
country must desire that the qta,.yeal interest of the
which was circulated should be
9: ate good
that litereture
rendered.—(elear.) He bed dealts wgioo as it could be
at the same time with the advertisem•nt
with the paper duty
stamp they hadoriginatedand newspa er
duties, because
at 6,
tlether and the saran
time, had been put on she should be glad t°
take them off together. ede admitted that the
duty
amounting to - 800000?
paper, am about
- a Year, te,
the moral 'ugh a
small sum to to set against provement of
re,' a sum fur !rat to ask
the people, was too la the geese
Mut:oils regeld to the
to repeal. The rPS advertise'.
us on arm to ripply for an
rnent and stamp do flea called
resolution
t
imaseeeete tepeel; hut the Tebtc:th„ir
10,tutotittetpepee
duty only mated upon there to
sermiesent tae. Her Taidt
W3B not fit to be continued as a p
e.great, suspicion that the paper
emus disguiso of raising valency for duty, under the spe-
carrying on the war,
:really was part of a system for toe purpose of restrain-
ing literature and keeping down the Press • Those
_e
duties being enacted in the same s ear, h
could not help thinking that perhaps the same
motive that had actuated Parliament as to the paper
duty had actuated them in enacting the advertisement
end stamp duties. Now, tee advertisement duty
amounted to 150,0001, or, if they pleased, 160 000/., a
Year. Was that is large sum to be trighteecd eS when
they talked of repealing duties, considering how large a
surplus revenue they had, and considering Oast this tax
°Pon advertisements struck, as he believed, more than
anything that existed, et the very revenue they proposed
to increase by it ?—(Hear, hear.) A tax uoon (Myer-
iis4inentsl—that no men might say what he wished and
What be wanted to be known in the way of busieess
transactions in print and in a newspaper, but he must be
need Is. 6.1. each time he did so. It was, he said, impos-
41e to conceive a more stupid tax. If he wanted a
?bode for leSeeiiing the public revenue he would suggest a
ode,which lessened transactions between men and the
meansof making their mutual wants known to each
_other,: which lessened, in fact, trade, consumption, ein-
lqielent, and revenue; and he would undertake to say
that
if
they repealed this advertisement duty, they
Would never know it in their next year's revenue.-1
(Rear
se But, if that were true, could there be conceived
anything more unjust than to say to a poor servant
girl
iarlte
ho wane d a place, " You want a place—if you
it
known to the world by the only means that
, Cases'
you must be fitted Is. 61. each time?" Take the
t of
eve "hied, merchants' tratisautiene connected with
of
thenoe that Could anything be more obvious
Prev eieing the knowledge of what was going
" Was the •
of all surest mode of preventing the icaprovernetit
epeerecommercial transactions and of the bl
revenue?
rthancowaaids nothing one mau wanted to sell but another
• °e feline weeee to buy
it; and, if t y were
icious, they ws gof
t
ttial w eats u d not stand in the way teee
elite mads known; the diffisuldes that were
avoidAhle •
State were great eoough. L set at the United
B 01 Ae mr ca
•. 444 • • They bed 10,000 000 of advutise-
tt lit their newspapesa in a year. In England there