The Sun.
London, England, 1853-04-15 00:00:00

will cost about 5,000/., of which the actual duty will be about
1,000/. But if I rely upon a very large demand, • and make
my estimates upon a sale of 20,000 at 6/. per copy, the paper
will cost 30,0001., of which the duty will be 6,000/. If I
produce a dear book for the few, the State will tax me 1,0001.
if a cheap book for the many, I shall be taxed 6,0001."
Was that a policy which could be justified, while they were
(endeavouring to promote education among the people ?
Hear.) If they raised the cost of paper for cheap literature
they struck at the fund from which authors must be paid,
and prevented the ablest talent from addressing itself to
the great masses of the people. If they had this enormous
sum of the duty on paper to replace by the sale of these
cheap publications, they had nothing left to pay for the
original authorship ; and he would ask whether it was
wiser that the best minds of this country should be able to
derive remuneration from cheap literature diffused among
the great bodies of the people, or should be limited, as they
are now, to the production of expensive works for the few ?
The strongest argument against the duty on paper was,
that it was antagonistic to good literature. Penny publi-
cations they could have, but if they wished to combine
goodness with cheapness they must endeavour to remove
obstructions in the way of the cost of the materials of
which those cheap publications were composed, or there
would be nothing left with which to pay the author.
(Hear.) He therefore confidently appealed to the right
hon. gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer to take
into consideration, when the circumstnnces of the country
should permit it, the oppressive nature of this duty on
paper. Mr. Knight said in one of his works that during
20 years he had paid about 80,0001. to authors and literary
men foi• their labours, and 50,0001. to the State for paper
duty, in order to give to the public the benefit of the com-
positions of those authors and literary men. So that for
80,0001. worth of intellect and knowledge, before he corld
circulate it even in the limited way in which it was now
circulated, he had to pay no less a toll than 50,0001. to the
State, and that in a country which was constantly pro-
claiming to the world the great desire it had of diffusing
knowledge and promoting education among the people.
They were unable, from the difficulties of their position,
to pass educational measures ; they were compelled to re-
sort to all manner of petty expedients and partial legisla-
tion in order to get legislation bit by bit through the
country; but here was a plan at least which they could
adopt, and which was free from religious controversies, as
between voluntaryism and State education • all they were
asked to do was to remove the obstructions which pre-
vented people from educating themselves. (Hear hear.)
How much, too, was the risk of literary speculations in-
creased by the fact that the duty on paper must all be
paid, that there was no drawback, no bonding of paper and
taking it out as it was consumed ! When a man entered
on a literary speculation he must print the number of
copies of the work he intended to sell ; and, if he failed to
sell them, there was no return to him of the duty he had
paid to the State in the ineffectual attempt he had made
to diffuse knowledge among the people. If he was a dealer
in tobacco or brandy he might pay his duty when he sold
those articles to the consumer, but if he was a dealer in
knowledge he must pay all the duty on the paper in the
outset ; and it was, indeed, a matter of serious considera-
tion whether he would pay a sum of 16,0001. or 20,0001.,
to be replaced, for paper duty, before he would undertake
a large literary speculation. Many and many were the
works that, even with a good sale, the duty on paper had
prevented from leaving enough to repay the author. He
would not detain the house, or he could mention numerous
instances of particular books and publications which,
when the duty on the paper was replaced, left nothing to
repay the author for his labour, or to encourage literary
men in future to devote their talents to enlighten the
public. That was not becoming in a country in favour of
education, because they ought to do all that in them
lay not only to remove those obstructions to the diffusion
of good cheap literature, but also to remove all the im-
pediments that prevented the ablest men from turning
their minds to the instruction of their countrymen. He
knew no way so calculated to promote the interests of
authors and literary men, and to furnish rewards for good
literary labour, as the repeal or the duty on paper. It
could not be obtained by adding to the price of small
publications. If they wanted to command a large cir-
culation, they must have penny publications. They
could say that, in consequence of the duty on paper, it
should be sold at a penny and a fraction. If they in-
creased the price to lid. or 2d., as Messrs. Chambers had
attempted, the sale decreased, as they had not a sufficient
circulation. They were limited to ld., and therefore they
ought to remove this duty. But, having taxed the paper
as a vehicle of knowledge, the State was not satified. It
said there were two particular kinds of information ; that,
if they were printed on paper, they should each, under
certain conditions, bear other taxes ; the one was the duty
of ls. 6d. on an announcement known as an advertisement
—the other was a tax for the particular kind of knowledge
called news. Was it conceivable that if Parliament had
in former times had nothing in view but to derive a re-
venue from paper, it would, after putting a tax on paper,
immediately impose other taxes to prevent persons from
making use of the paper, and thus lessening the revenue,
which it professed to have in view? (Hear, hear.) If they
put a duty on carriages, would they also put a toll on every
man that got into a carriage, and so make it his interest to
ride in some other description of vehicle ? No ! They
would rather desire, he should fancy, to increase the num-
ber of those vehicles, so that, having taxed them, they
might derive the greatest amount of revenue from 'them.
But there was nothing of that kind with reference to the
duty on paper. Take the case of an advertisement. If a
man made an announcement by word of mouth, no duty
was put upon it ; if he made it by the crier, no duty was
put upon it ; if he used an advertising van, no duty was
put upon it ; but if had it printed on paper frequently
and periodically, then the exciseman interposed, and
charged him with a duty of Is. 6d. for each announcement,
thus making it the direct interest of everybody to avoid
making announcements in that manner ; and, as it was
only leviable in the case of announcements being made pe-
riodically, it was a direct hindering of the growth of the
periodical press. If a man advertised in a newspaper one
would suppose he was attempting the most obvious and
rational mode of making known his wants, because it was
a newspaper, of all things, that, from its frequent publica-
tion, gave the frequent announcement so desirable for the
advertiser ; but when he made such announcement he
found the exciseman there, who said it should not be made
without a tax to the State, It was a barbarous tax. Was
there anything more desirable in society than that men
should make known to each other their mutual wants ?
Anti did not this tax lie at the very root of all commercial
transactions ? It was by this toll that they prevented the
knowledge of commercial tranactions that might be most
beneficial to those who were engaged iu them, and to so-
ciety. But what a monstrous thing it was, when the
Amazon steam-ship was lost, or the Irish famine occurred,
and it became necessary by repeated advertisements to
arrest public attention to those calamities, that the excise-
man required is. 6d. to be paid on every one of those
announcements—(hear, hear)—thus converting the adver-
tisement duty into a tax on calamity, and causing the
funds of the subscribers, who fancied they were contri-
buting to the relief of the Irish famine, or the orphans and
widows of the men who were lost in the Amazon, to
contribute to State necessity, and to pay a portion of
their money to the revenue ! This was a tax which
ought not to be encouraged in a commercial coun-
try, where everything impeding the intercommuni-
tion of information should be carefully avoided by
the State. It was a tax, in fact, worthy only of a barbar-
ous country—a tax raising a very small revenue at the ex-
pense of some of the most valuable interests of the country,
and not improbably, destroying in other ways a greater
ntehwanspiatpecrrsel for,ted. pressurethTohueghbylaw a
olflths
ad-
vertisements, whether in newspapers or books, ought to
pay the tax, those published in books were allowed to
tax amount
was of
limited f revenue
t o
evadeade the tax. How great an injustice was here ! Take
the catalogue of the Great Exhibition. In that volume,
purchased by thousands and thousands of persons at Is.,
there were 53 pages of advertisements inserted, not one of
which paid the duty ; and, no doubt, in the same way the
catalogue of the Crystal Palace would have its 100 pages,
of advertisements, all equally exempt from that impost,
which was rigidly exacted to the last farthing by the Ex-
cise from the struggling proprietors of newspapers. He
held in his hand another illustration of the grossly unjust
competition to which the proprietors of newspapers were
exposed with reference to advertisements. Here was the
prospectus of a railway advertising association
" The importance of this novel system of advertising can-
not be two highly estimated, when it is remembered that rail-
way travellers include within their numbers every individual
of rank, property, or influence in the three kingdoms, while
the frequency of their journeyings may be calculated from
the fact, that the number of passengers booked at the princi-
pal railways in Great Britain alone in the year 1850 exceeded
60,000,000. It must be borne in mnd that these immense
numbers—the possessors of the aggregate wealth of the coun-
try—are concentrated, day by day, at the railway stations ;
and the circumstances of each journey are such, that either
on the departure or arrival, or in the course oftratsittheevely
presents It may
passenger must of necessity become acquaintedhis with
an-
nouncements which present themselves
be safely asserted, that no other. mode
so favourable a means of reaching that class which the adver•
esofto adveiristitge.
tiser desires most to attract."

Now all this might be very true, but was it just to the
newspaper proprietor to tax the advertisements in hiR
columns, and to leave untaxed advertisements published in
railway carriages, under circumstances manifestly so advan-
tageous? (Hear.) The only remedy against this injustice
was to repeal the tax altogether; its mere reduction would
leave the inequality and the unfair competition completely
unredressed for the newspaper proprietors, to whom the
advertisements should supply the fund mainly enabling
them to diffuse that information which was becoming
more and more emphatically a daily necessary to the
people. He doubted even whether the remedy, if now ap-
plied, would come soon enough to save many of those pro-
prietors from the effects of that injustice to which they had
been exposed. The repeal of the tax had been opposed on
the ground that we could not spare the revenue it supplied,
but he was satisfied that its repeal would, in reality, occa-
sion no loss to the revenue at all. (Hear.) The whole
tmeitunwt.as
ureeaddyentoi
Eamvoonunatnopfporsetvnegnutehartaistehdis frlo7mB,ooothig.s
wsoeurrecwe
e d sacrifice
how-
ever,
that the 178,000/ would be lost to
House of Commons had on many occasions h
hwoal Isy 1170 8s
t,
?re.
s own that for
uchimlapi
nfin it
oet lay lessm
important
a
ppublicurPoß moneypurposes
i
the public. The
house should boar in mind that well nigh every advertise-
ment gave rise to more or less c
Now, at the present time there were
(Hear.)
B"t • 2in Great ri am 000000 of advertisements, or perhaps
somewhat more. In the United States with
with the same
population, there were 11,000,000 of advertisements
pub-
lished every year. (Hear.) There
was no advertisement
duty in the United States, yet -under a free trade system
we were called upon to
thus the advantage of compete with a country which had
age of being. able without let or hindrance,
t
to intercommunicate all h '
o mutual wants of its people.
(Hear, hear.) Well,
in the United States there were
11,00t4,000 of advertisements, in Great Britain 2,000,000 ;
let him ask, was it not probable that in this country,
piruilar as
its population was in many respects to that
of the United States, we might look for a correspond-
ing increase in our advertisements if this impediment were
removed? (Hear, hear.) He had remarked that every
advertisement well nigh gave rise to a greater or less num-
-I)e,r. of letters in reference to it. He held in his hand a

;Ater he had received from Mr. Edward Baines, the pro-
Tietor of the Leeds Journal, who informed him that the

average of advertisements in his journal requiring answers
to bo sent to the office was about 15, and the average