The Sun.
London, England, 1854-05-17 00:00:00

to save individuals from this system of persecution ; bu
no said the then Chancellor of the Exchequer, the judges
were wrong, and the Board of Inland Revenue was right,
and the Government were determined to take farther
measures to enforce their own view of the law. In a short
time the Government of Lord Derby came into power, and
they announced that they intended to settle the point by
legislation, and . a measure was prepared which was after-
wards brought by the present Government for the pur-
pose of exempting Messrs. Bradbury and Evans, the pub-
lishers of Mr. Dickens, from the stamp, and releasing theta
from further persecution by the Board of Inland Revenue.
What was their present position ? A bill had been passed
to exempt a particular publication from the stamp and to
define news and newspapers afresh, but several point's of
law had since arisen, springing from that bill, in addition
to those which had previously existed. The Government
had commenced a prosecution against the publishers of the
Penny Commercial Journal in Dublin of which Mr.
Shaw was the proprietor, the object, according to
the counsel for the Crown, being not to recover a
penalty, but to enforce a right and ascertain a point
of law'. Mr. Whiteside, the counsel for the defendant
had, in an eloquent speech in the Dublin Court of
Exchequer, deprecated this system of singling out
individuals as victims, in order to ascertain what was the
law, and said that it was the duty of the Government, as-
sisted by the law officers of the Crown, to bring forward a
bill to make the law clear and simple. In this prosecution
the Government had again been defeated, and the Chan-
cellor of the Exchequer had declared that he did not in•
tend to acquiesce in the verdict, but should go on with the
proceedings against Mr. Shaw until he could get some
court of law or jury to assert that the Board of Inland
Revenue had taken a just view of the law. It was a mon•
strong injustice to individuals to persevere in this course
of policy—(hear)—and he appealed to the house, whether
he had not a right to call upon the Government to put an
end to those difficulties by bringing in a bill to make the
law clear and intelligible. (Hear, hear.) The point of law
raised in the case of the Penny Commercial Journal was
a very peculiar one. The question raised was whether
this paper, consisting for the most part of literary matter,
but containing also some few scraps of news, was, in the
eye of the law, a newspaper? The defendant pleaded three
pleas—first, that if the paper did contain news there was
only a very little of it ; secondly, that the news it contained
was not political ; and, thirdly, that there was no proof
that the news was true. The last plea was pleaded because
it bad been contended that if it could be shown that what
was stated as a fact was in reality a fiction, it was not news
and therefore was not liable to the stamp. Mr. Baron
Parke, whose authority would not be disputed, had con•
tended that a little news was not enough to constitute a
paper a newspaper, and that the words of the act, "a
paper, containing public news, intelligent*, and amnia
renFee" was meant to apply to a paper the main object of
which was to give a record of current events. If it should
be decided that a paper might contain a little news, what
questions would be raised as to the quantity it might law.
fully contain, and as to the amount of the space of a paper
which might be occupied by news without its becoming
liable to a penalty. He should be sorry to misrepresent the
learned judge, and he would therefore read the passage to
which he had referred. In speaking of another publication
Mr. Baron Parke said :

" Now, I am clearly of opinion that it is a newspaper within
the definition of the act of Parliament. That act contains in
the schedule a description of what is to be considered as a
newspaper ; therefore, we must look to the schedule to see
whether this is a newspaper within the meaning of the clause
or not, and the schedule says the following shall be deemed
and taken to be a newspaper, and chargeable with the said
duties Any paper containing public news, intelligence,•or
occurrences printed in any part of the United Kingdom, to
be dispersed and made public.' That is the definition. It
does not say any public news simply, but containing public
news, intelligence, or occurrences ;' and if the question had
turned upon that part of the act of Parliament, I should
have thought that it was not enough to bring the paper within
the meaning of the act if it contained only a single article,
and its main object was something else, either a scientific
work or a discussion upon matters of science or fine arts. If
it happened to contain a single article only of news, I should
have considered that it was not within the meaning of the
section, but that it was to be a paper the particular object of
which was to contain public news, intelligence, or occur-
rences ; and if it happened that the paper contained a matter
of science or discussion upon the fine art, but that its main
object was that it should contain public news, intelligence,
and occurrences, I should have thought it would still have
fallen within the meaning of a newspaper."
This doctrine as to the legality of a small quantity of news
was still a matter of doubt; and the counsel for the Crown,
in the prosecution at Dublin, had made the important de-
claration, that that case was to decide the law with refer-
ence to a very numerous class of publications in this
country as well as in Ireland. With reference to the point
that the news in the journal was not political news, it was
endeavoured to be shown, by some sort of inueudo, that
the object of the Legislature in passing the Stamp Acts
was not revenue. The learned counsel for the Crown
, said :

"Now, gentlemen of the jury, I will bring before your,
notice what appears to me to be the question before you.
First, let me say one or two words on the general policy of
stamping papers such as these. You are aware, no matter
what may be said of the liberty of the press, a great deal may
also be said of its licentiousness, and the Government of the
country, to keep a proper control over the public press, and
to keep within its own power a proprietor of a paper, who,
departing from liberty, may indulge in licentiousness, has
provided a machinery by which every proprietor of a paper
is bound to restrictions, and bound to pay a certain stamp
to protect the public."
He contended withgreat deference, that this was bad law;
and ho defied the learned counsel to produce any act of
Parliament which said that any stamp should be imposed
upon licentiousness. The stamp was to be put upon a re-
cord of facts, and any one might publish as much licen-
tiousness, as much blasphemy, as much sedition, as much
obscenity, as much of extreme democratic views as they
pleased, without putting any stamp upon it. But a fear
had always been entertained of the circulation of facts,
and it was only upon records of facts that the stamp had
ever been imposed. But the journal in question was not,
in fact, a licentious paper. It happened to be a most
moral, harmless, innocent, literary paper, and no one
contended that it contained a word that could be con• •
strued into what was called license. (Hear.) He had
looked at the particular copy of the paper which had been
prosecuted, in order to see whether there was any ground
for raising a prejudice against it in the mind of the
jury by talking about the licentiousness of the press,
and he found that it really contained nothing more than
some good natured half-complimentary remarks upon her
Majesty's present Ministers. In speaking of the present
Government it said—
" With all this undoubted personal ability, I have little
hope that the new Cabinet will work well. It wants a prin-
ciple, and it is too rich in individual talent."
(" Hear" and laughter.) An attempt had been made in
the course of the trial to set aside the act which had been
passed last session, which was met by Lord Chief Baron
Pennefather, who presided upon the occasion. By that
act the stamp duty had been repealed upon observations or
commentaries upon news, but not upon news itself. He
thought it must have required an intellect of the refining
power which was attributed to the present Chancellor of
the Exchequer to have brought in a bill which drew a
distinction between a commentary upon a fact and a fact
itself ; but, at present, the law was that you might observe
upon a fact, but if you gave that fact you were liable to a
penalty. (Hear, hear.) The learned judge, in his charge
to the jury, said—
"One paragraph is contained in the paper on which reli-
ance has been placed on both sides. It is the Letter from
London.' Now, this contained a good deal of observation on
public occurrences. It consisted of matters of considerable
public interest, a good deal of observation and discussion on
what is considered political, change of Government, &c. The
fact of its containing observation and discussion, I must tell
you, in point of law, does not constitute that portion any-
thing that would make the publication newspaper.' The
mere fact of their being observations and discussions was at
one time a test on whic a publication was to be determined
whether it was a newspaper or not, but that test no longer
exists in point of law. You will consider, with respect to
that portion of the paper, whether that letter conveys infor-
mation of a fact of a public nature—whether it contains
public news, intelligence, or occurrences.' So far as it
contains observations and discussions, you will exclude it
from your consideration as a test, but so far as it conveys in-
telligence of facts, you will give it such weight as you think it
deserves."
The committee upon which he had sat had reported that
nothing was more undesirable than to attempt to draw a
distinction between observations upon a fact and the fact
itself, and had pointed out that by so doing they would
produce a harvest of Exchequer cases, and the case to
which he had referred was ono of the results of the course
which the Government had taken. The law was now,
therefore, in this position—if he published in an unstampod
paper the despatch of Admiral Dundas, expressing his re-
gret at having been compelled to attack the batteries at
Odessa, he would be liable to a penalty of 201.; but if he
published a violent commentary ou Admiral Dundas's con-
duct, and accused him of not saving done his duty to his
country, he was free from all stamp duties. If they al-
lowed observations to be circulated through the country
free of stamp, they ought, as a matter of public policy, to
allow records of facts themselves to be circulated on equally
favourable terms, so that facts might correct erroneous
Fie
men might not be led astratheyb violent obser-
that this case of Dub lib Penny
ita Jountal would be sufficient to induce the
He thought
stations.ne7. theories,
house to come to the conclusion that the law required to
be better defined and rendered more intelligible. (Hear.
hear.) He had been told that, instead of the word " early"
in the resolution which he had moved, he ought to have
inserted the word " immediate," and he was certainly of
Opinion that not only an early but an immediate settle-
ment of the question was required, as he had nut conjured
up refinements to bring before the houeo, but had shown
that practical grievances existed which demanded the im-
mediate attention of the Government. He would now
give them another case of more recent origin with refer-
ence to the present state of the law. The discovery had
lately been supposed to have been made that musical
announcements came under the head of news. Mr. No-
velle, the publisher of a paper called the Musical Times,
had received the following communication from the Board
of Inland Revenue, dated May 8, 1854, so that it was
clearly a very recent discovery by the board :
" Inland Revenue, London, May 8, 1854.
" Sir,-1 am directed by the commissioners of this board
to communicate with you respecting a paper entitled tho
Musical limes, printed and published by you, some un-
stamped copies of which have been brought under their obser-
vation. As this paper contains news, as well as principally
advertisements, and is published at intervals of less than 26
days, it is a newspaper liable to stamp duty, and for every
copy printed upon unstamped paper a penalty has been in-
curred. I shall be happy to submit to the board any exphtnae
tion you may think proper to offer upon the subject.—l am,
Sir, your obedient servant,
" J. Timm, Solicitor of Inland Revenue."
In reply to that, Mr. Novelle wrote as follows :
" London, 69, Dean-street, Soho, May 11, 1854.
" Sir,--4 have to acknowledge your letter of May 8. I
have delivered to the Stamp-office stamped and unstamped
copies of every number of the Musical Times for the last ten
years (as compelled by law to do) and each of these copies has
been thoroughly examined by your officers to ascertain how
much of it was liable to duty for advertisements, so long as.
that impost was chargeable ; and I suppose that, both before
and since, it has been examined to see that it contained na
blasphemous and seditious libel, as I am compelled still to
deliver a copy for the latter purpose. During these 10 years
the news contained in the paper has always been precisely of
the same kind, and your office (as I have shown) was
thoroughly acquainted with its nature ; and, as no objection
has been made, I must suppose that the Musical Times has,
during 10 years, been published with the sanction of your
office. I should be glad, therefore, to be favoured by
your pointing out what particular passage of news you
now consider as making the paper liable to be all printed
upon stamps. The Musical Times has always consisted
principally' of a piece of music, for which the same price
is paid, whether printed alone, or whether accompanied
. by the matter of temporary interest, which is given away