The Sun.
London, England, 1853-07-02 00:00:00

tamed various articles, amongst others, one against pub-
lic dinners, in which he thought hon. members would fully
agree—one criticising our Chancellor of the Exchequer's
budget, in part justly—and one upon the Manchester
school ; but he must say, as far as the Manchester
school went, it did not do them justice at all
(Laughter.) He ventured to say that there was not a
a better paper than this in London. Moreover, it espe-
cially wrote in favour of temperance and anti-slavery ; and
though honourable members were not at all members of the
Temperance Society perhaps, they yet, he was sure, all
admitted the advantages of temperance, while not a voice
could be lifted there in favour of slavery. Here,
then, was a newspaper advocating great principles, and
conducted in all respects with the greatest propriety—a
newspaper in which he found not a syllable that he might
not put on his table and allow his wife and daughter to
read with satisfaction. And this was placed on the table
every morning for ld. (Hear, hear.) What he wanted,
then, to ask the Government was this—how comes it, and
for what good end, and by what contrivance of fiscal op-
pression—for it can be nothing else—is it that one of your
workmen here should pay sd. for a London morning paper,
whilst his competitor in New York can buy his for ld. ?
(Hear.) A might go to the New York Tribune with an ad-
vertisement for a year; it was set up, it did not want
setting up again for twelve months, and that made a large
receipt every day, at a small expense. But how was it
here? He asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer, who
had, he believed, some ambition to follow in the footsteps
of his former leader, was there an industry in this country
so much taxed as the newspaper ? There was the paper
duty added to the price of the paper, and the red stamp,
a hundred per cent. on the original cost of the paper and
paper duty. After that came the advertisement duty,
Is. 6d. hitherto, and after this great measure 6d. But
not only was there the duty on paper, the stamp, and the
duty on advertisements ; you had to go to Somerset-house
before you began your paper, and to declare, or swear, he
did not know which—swearing was here such a formality
that people did not notice—that after all your debts were
paid you were worth 400/. A man not worth 4001. could
not start a periodical of any kind. You had then to give
security that you would pay the newspaper duty and the
stamp duty, and that you would not be guilty of any libel,
' sedition, or blasphemy in your paper ; and you had to find
securities equal to 1,8001. He asked any gentleman in that
house—he asked the honourable member for North War-
wickshire (Mr. Newdegate)—and he hoped the day would
come when that honourable gentleman might be amenable
to reason—whether there was in this country anything
taxed to so scandalous an amount as a mere matter of in-
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whatever on which his financial talents could be better
exercised than on this, which was the very life and soul of
the intelligence of the country. You could not find your
way into the cottages of this country unless you could give
the great bulk of the labouring classes newspapers to read.
You might circulate amongst them'pestilent publications,
with all sorts of exciting stories in them ; you might give
them what would stimulate them to all depravity and
crime; that would bo one sort of education; but you might
give them a newspaper, with all the facts, all the matters
of interest of their neighbourhood, mixed, of course, with
news of a more extended character; and that was another
and a better sort of education, an incentive to education,
and a means of keeping up what of reading and thinking
they had learnt at school. He believed he had made out
a case ; if the Chancellor of the Exchequer had any argu-
ments against it, they must arise from his fear of a free
press, from his fear lest the people should have greater
means of political information. He, who came from a
county which had a population of two millions, who knew
how recklessly men spent their earnings, how much rational
instruction and means of improvement were required,
thought it impossible to submit to the house a case which
so called for their speedy action and sympathy as this.
(Cheers.) He had not intended to say so much, but he had
thought the right hon. gentleman's speech unworthy of
his position as Chancellor of the Exchequer of a Govern-
ment which boasted that it had powers within it greater
than almost any preceding Government. He hoped, how-
ever, that the hon. gentleman would still ask them to
abolish that duty, but failing that, he, as an independent
member, would do all that he might honourably, and in
accordance with the forms of the house, in opposition. The
Chancellor of the Exchequer was not using the friends he
had on his own side of the house as he ought, in obsti-
nately adhering to this 6d., in defiance of every argument
which even the most common understanding could bring
forward to refute the subtleties by which the proposition
was supported.
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came from a district that was purely agricultural, and he
would put it to other country gentlemen, whether the
spread of knowledge was not of still more importance in
the country than in the town. In a country district there
was one, or perhaps two newspapers published, but the
farmers and labourers had not the slightest chance of see-
ing either, unless thoy went to the public house on the
Saturday evenings. (Hear, hear.) He was grievously
disappointed that the Chancellor of the Exchequer had
come to the conclusion he had clone, and when the right
hon. gentleman pleaded fiscal arrangements as an objection
to the repeal, he begged to tell the right hon. gentleman
that he was throwing away more money upon the tom-
foolery at Chobham than the advertisement duty would
amount to, (Oh, oh.)
Mr. NE WDEGATE wished to disabuse the house of the
notion -which the hon. member for Manchester appeared
to countenance in one part of his speech, that all use-
ful knowledge was taxed, for in another part of the same
speech the hon. gentlemen admitted that the tax fell
only on political knowled"e. In fact the hon. gentle-
man very naturally objected to a tax which fell on the cir-
culation of his own speeches. (Hear, hear, and cries of
oh, oh.) He would not press the amendment ho had
proposed, as he saw the Chancellor of the Exchequer had
got no credit for the reduction he had already made.
The amendment was then withdrawn.
On the question that the blank in the clause be filled up
with 6d.

Mr. CRAUFURD could not let this opportunity pass
' without protesting against the course taken by the Chan-
cellor of the Exchequer. Though anxious for the abolition
of the advertisement duty, he had voted with the Govern-
ment on the 14th of April last, because he believed, from
the Government meeting the motion with the previous
question, that they intended themselves to repeal it. But
when that motion was carried against the Government, he
certainly thought they would have respected the decision
of the house. Finding that was not the case, he had un-
hesitatingly voted in the minority to-night, and ho could
not but express his regret that the resolution of the com-
mittee should have stultified the decision of the house.
Ho begged now to move, if the forms of the house would
allow, Chat the blank would be filled up with the cipher 0.
Mr. HUME expressed his surprise that no answer had
been given to the strong appeal of the hon. member for
Manchester. He would now appeal to Ministers, as the
advocates of the spread of education and of morality, to
remit the tax. One of the greatest reforms in the drun-
kenness of London arose from the fact that the working
men could read the newspapers in coffee-houses instead of
public-houses. But how much better would it be if
they could buy the newspaper, and take it to their
own homes. He hoped the Government would not put
them to the necessity of dividing on this question.
The CHANCELLOR of the EXCHEQUER denied that
his silence, after the speech of the hon. member for Man-
chester, was intended as any disrespect. The reason of
his silence was this—that without denying the importance
of the reasons contained in the speech of the hon. gentle-
man, or the ability with which they were urged, he felt
that they related to a question which was not, in fact, be-
fore the house. The question raised by the hon. member
was the general question of a cheap press—a question
which had a very slight connection with the advertise-
ment duties, though it had a close connection with the
stamp duties. (Hear) Ho did not think this general
question was so simple as the hon. member for Manchester
appeared to regard it. It appeared to him to involve a
great variety of considerations, to which the hon. gentle-
man had not alluded at all. The fiscal question was the
least of those considerations, because if the stamp duty
was repealed they would get as much, and probably more,
from the duty that must be laid upon newspapers passing
through the post-office. But there were other questions
which could not be disposed of without grave and delibe-
rate consideration, and certainly they could not be dis-
posed of on a collateral question of this kind.
Mr. HUME said he had attended various deputations to
the noble lord upon the subject, and the noble lord always
admitted that the fiscal objection was the only one.

Mr. LAING said, as one who was a warm admirer of
the general financial scheme of the right hon. gentleman,
he would now earnestly appeal to him to reconsider his
determination on this particular question, and give way
to the wishes of his warmest supporters in the house. His
position had enabled him to become well acquainted with
the feelings of the working classes, and he could state that
there was no measure more important to them in a moral
point of view than cheap newspapers, as he believed the
greater part of the improvement which had already taken
place was the result of cheapening the means of informa-
tion. Now, to cheapen newspapers it must be evident that
the removal of the advertisement duty would be one great
means, because if a cheap newspaper was to be supported
at all it must be by means of the advertisements it re-
ceived.
Mr. WILLIAMS added his entreaties to those of the
other supporters of the right hon. gentleman that he would
give way on this occasion.
Mr. MALINS had voted against the duty both in April
last and to-night ; and he still hoped that the Chancellor
of the Exchequer would not persist in maintaining a
tax which, by his own admission, would only produce
80,0001.
The CHANCELLOR of the EXCHEQUER—I said
80,0001. the first year, with a rapid and constant increase.
Mr. MALINS—But that increase was doubtful, and the
right hon. gentleman need not take off the supplement duty,
which it was the general opinion there was no necessity
for him to touch (Hear, hear.) He was sure there were
hundreds and thousands of persons in this metropolis
who would be glad to have a newspaper every morning
upon their breakfast table, but who were now prohibited
by the expense. And if the inhabitants of New York
could have a newspaper for a penny, there seemed no reason
whatever why the people of London should not have one
also, or at least for twopence.
Mr. COBDEN showed the great importance of the repeal
of the advertisement duty to a cheap newspaper press, by
quoting the evidence of Mr. Horace Greeley before the select
committee on newspaper stamp duties in 1851. Mr.
Greeley came over to this country as a commissioner to the
Great Exhibition, and he was proprietor of the newspaper
which his hon. friend (Mr. Bright) exhibited to the house.
Mr. Greeley being asked his opinion of the_onpration of
our advertisement duty in America, said that it would
destroy newspapers altogether. The duty was the same
on a newspaper that eh misted 2,000 as on one that
circulated 50,000, though the advertisements might be
worth 5/. in one and only 10s. in another. Its operation
was the same as to lay ls. tax upon a man's day labour,
whether ho earned by that labour 2s. a-day or 2/. The long-
established and well-circulated newspapers might afford
the tax, but the new papers would be crushed altogether.
Now, ho thought that reasoning was unanswerable, and
he would only add to what Mr. Greeley said, that if in
America such a tax would destroy newspapers, here it
would prevent them coming into existence. Unless that
view of the question was fairly met, he would have no al-
ternative but to conclude that the object of the Govern-
ment was to prevent new papers from coming into exist-
ence; for this view of the question had been urged upon
them by various deputations • yet the right hon. gentleman
came down, and adhered pedantically to his 6d. without
offering a single argument in support of his view. It was
as much as if he snapped his fingers at his own friends, and
said, Ido not care 6d. for you. (Laughter.)
Mr. WARNER also hoped the Government would give
way. He could not agree with the hon. member for West-
minster as to what was going on at Chobham, but he
thought the Chancellor of the Exchequer might save the
money out of the sum proposed for education, for he was
sure the people of this country would educate themselves
mere by
cheap newspapers than by any forced system of