The Sun.
London, England, 1853-04-18 00:00:00

ABOLITION OF THE ADVERTISEMENT DUTY

( From the Examine?:.

The House of Commons has condeinned the tax on
the wants by a majority of thirty. On the other hand
it has opposed a repeal of the stamp duty by a majority
of eighty, and also the repeal of the paper duty by a
majority of seventy-five. Thus have Mr. Milner Gibson's
resolutions been disposed of.
In these divisions the house has manifested a discri-
minating sense of the merits of the proposals. Not
being prepared to assent at once to the three proposals,
it has selected the most desirable, and has negatived the
other two more or less strongly, according to their place
in the order of importance. It would have been good if
financial circumstances had allowed of sweeping all the
three duties away ; but as that could not be done, the
right preference was given to the repeal of the adver-
tisement duty, after which, in the graduated opposition
to the repeal of the other two, is marked the opinion
that the abolition of the paper duty stands next, and last
the penny stamp. The order of the importance of the
objects is here justly observed. The majorities have
signified clearly enough, "This we will have at once ;
and. of these two other proposals, which we must nega-
tive at present, we will mark an opinion by opposing least the one we should prefer if practicable." Thisb
course completely accords with our view of the question.
We have always contended that the abolition of the ad-
vertisement duty or tax on the wants should be urged
first, next the paper duty, last the penny stamp.
Of the objections to the advertisement duty it is hap-
pily now unnecessary to say a word. The paper duty
sins doubly : it sins against literature, and it sins against
industrial policy. As the soap duty operates with re-
gard to the persons of the poor, so the paper duty
operates as regards their minds; but here the parallel
ceases, for the soap manufacture does not recommend
itself by any peculiar graces or incidental circumstances,
but the paper-mill, whileit turns the most worthless
thing to account, plants a little thriving manufacturing
colony on the banks of some pretty stream, combining
for the workpeople the advantage of the wages of the
factory with the residence in a pleasant rural scene and
with wholesome air. Seldom indeed is a paper-mill
found in an undesirable spot, and many of them give life
to charming localities. And both sexes and all ages find
employment in them. But alas ! the operation of the
duty has closed many of these mills, which stand de-
serted, with their clusters of closed cottages about them,
reproaching the law, and signifying what happy things
might be if the fiscal hand would relax its oppression,
and let rags be turned to thrift and life, feed the poor
and cherish intelligence.
For the abolition of the stamp duty we toiled in sea-
son and out of season for many weary years. We advo-
cated the entire abolition, and only accepted the penny
stamp as a postage. Experience has satisfied us that its
merits as a postage have surpassed our calculation. The
effect of it has been that the best papers are circulated
through the country, the same copy supplied to several
readers at a very cheap rate. This fact was stated in
evidence before the Parliamentary Committee by Mr.
Smith, of the Strand, a news agent in a very large
business, who, from his own dealing, must know the
distribution of a very considerable portion of the daily
and weekly newspapers. Hundred of thousands of the
middle classes in the country read the Times in their
leisure hours for a penny a day, and there are few in-
deed, if any, of the artizans and better labouring classes
who have not access to newspapers in reading clubs, or
other associations.

The railway circulation of newspapers is now enor-
mous, and the traveller who buys a newspaper to amuse
or inform him on his journey, does not treat it as waste
paper when it has served its ephemeral purpose. No,
as it is postage free by virtue of the stamp, he bethinks
himself of some one to whom it will be acceptable, and
transmits it accordingly, and by so much the circulation
of papers is considerably extended.
We take no Protective view of the penny stamp. We
do not regand it as a means of upholding the character
of the Press by enhancing price. We do not look upon
it as a guarantee for morality and moderation. We
scout the notion that fiscal legislation can form the
character of the Press. The operation of the stamp as a
postage, has given an advantage indeed to the London
journals over the provincial, but as one of the London
journals it is not for us to insist on this as a benefit to
the community. But on the other hand we protest
against Mr. Cobden's argument for abolishing the stamp
in order to assimilate the Press of this country to the
Press of the United States. We do not contend for the
stamp, to maintain the character or the Press, and still
less can we assent to its abolition for the express pur-
pose of lowering the character of the Press. The one is
untenable Protectionist ground, the other purely destruc-
tive. It by no means follows as certain that a cheap
thing must be bad ; but the cheap thing which Mr. Cob-
den proposes as the model is bad, and at its low price less
worth its money than the higher priced article in this
country. An honourable exception will be found here
and there in the enormous territory of the Union, but
generally the American newspapers are contemptible,
void of literary talent and acquirement, vulgar in senti-
ment, and meagre in the intelligence. They are indeed
mainly advertising sheets, and deserve the character of
a Press little more than the vans perambulating our
streets.

One part of the newspaper stamp duty might be re-
mitted with great advantage to the public, and with little
•r no loss to the revenue, namely, the stamp on supple-
ments. As the supplements of the weekly papers in-
case the circulation, they would by so much increase
the number of penny stamps consumed, if the duty cir-
cumscribing the resort to them were abolished, which
renders little to the revenue, while it checks that spread
of information which is desirable to encourage.
The defeat of the Government on Mr. Gibson's first
resolution is a subject which we must handle in Touch-
stone's fashion. Inasmuch as it is a defeat of the
Ministry, it is bad ; but inasmuch as it is the abolition
of the tax on the wants, it is good. Mr. D'lsraeli's
share in it no one will envy. He is like the sign in
Algebraic equations
_plus or minus as he changes sides
of the House.

Two defeats of the Ministry in one week cannot but
feelingly remind that it is a Coalition Government, too
often likely to find arrayed against it for the nonce
a Coalition Opposition, There is now but one mode of
managing the House, and that is by the management of
measures ; but even this method is not always success-
ful, as has been shown in the divisions on the Attorney
Certificates and Kilmainham Hospital.

(From, the Weekly News and Chronicle.)
Of all the taxes on knowledge, the most utterly in-
defensible is the Advertisement duty. This bad impost
sins against all the principles which have ever been laid
down as leading axioms in the science of taxation. It
is unfair in its pressure, and unequal in its relative ap-
portionment ; it is largely and easily evaded ; it falls
with special weight on particular species of property ;
it is a great impediment to trade, literature, and labour
seeking a market, through publicity ; its amount is
trifling—only about 178,0001. per annum ; finally, it is
a tax the repeal or reduction of which would be so much
clear gain fully realised by the public.
A few illustrations of some of these points will place
the matter in a clear light. The unjust pressure of the
tax, and the facility with which it is evaded, are both
shown by the rigour with which each separate adver-
tisement is taxed in every newspaper and periodical,
while no tax whatever is or can be assessed on the vast
masses of collective advertisements which line our
streets and roads, on blank walls and boardings and in
shop-windows—"go with us wherever we go," in
omnibuses and railway-cars—or terrify our horses,
block up our ways, try our patience, and imperil our
necks in those most dangerous of street nuisances, the
advertising vans. The injustice and unfair incidence of
the tax are sufficiently shown by the fact, that the same
duty is paid by the Joint Stock Company on its elabo-
rate prospectus, and by the maid-of-all-work on her
modest intimation that she wants a place. The conse-
quence is, that the latter is placed at a very consider-
able relative disadvantage, and can only enjoy the ad-
vantages of publicity by the payment of a price for it so
high as to be almost prohibitory. In fact, it tends to
create a monopoly of the advantages of publicity in the
hands of those who already possess the advantages of
capital.
The best illustration, however of the degree to which
the duty acts as a prohibitive check on the facility of ad-
vertising, is the condition of the advertising columns of
the public journals in those countries where no such duty
exists. ,No one;who has ever seen the broadsheet of an '
American newspaper enjoying any degree of circulation,
will be at a loss for arguments of the most practical co-
gency in behalf of an abolition • of this most impolitic
duty. _

The above principles in relation to this odious text
were on Thursday night pressed on the attention of the
House of Commons by Mr. Milner Gibson in one of the
ablest and most statesmanlike addresses that has for a
long time been heard within the walls of that assembly.
Its effect upon the house was correspondingly great, and
the result was most gratifyingly shown in the affirmation
of the resolution for the repeal of the tax by a majority
of 31, the Ayes being 200, and the Noes 169. We re-
joice that on this occasion the independent members did
their duty ; the divisions, indeed, on the other two reso-
lutions—those for the repeal of the paper duty and the
stamp tax were discreditably small ; but it was under-
stood that the strength of the friends of the measure was
to be put forth in supporting the first resolution, in re-
gard to which unquestionably the case for repeal was
most unanswerably strong.
With a view to giving all the prominence in our power
to the admirable arguments by which Mr. Milner Gibson
achieved his decisive victory, we print, in extenso, the
following extract from his speech, in relation to what he
justly styles this "barbarous tax "

the most obvious and rational mode
that he is adopting
his wants • because it is the news.
If a inan advertises in a newspaper, ono would suppose
of making known f .
its
when
ni ihcei tydolvshti which 8
iins a so
flows-
paper all things, rom frequent. publication,
he finds the exciseman there who says that no an-
nouncement shall be made without this toll of ls. Gd.
sitaPtbrlOgi;voresadtvherattisefrrse.clußenutt wl
being paid to the State. (Rear, hear.) It is a barbarous
tax. (Cheers.) Is there anything so essential to society
as that all should bo capable of communicating to each
other their mutual wants ? Does it not lie at the very
root of all our progress—at the very root of all commercial
transactions ? (Cheers.) For every communication that
you prevent by this toll, is it not probable that you pre-
vent some commercial transaction that might be beneficial
to those engaged in it, and also beneficial to the State !
(Cheers.) B what a monstrous thing it is, that if, when
an Amazor steam-ship is lost, or when there is an Irish
famine, and when it is necessary by repeated advertisements
to arrest public attention to those calamities, the excise-
man requires that there shall be ls. 6d. paid upon every
one of these announcements ; thus converting the adver-
tisement duty into a tax upon calamity,
and ' causing the
funds of subscribers, who fancy that they are contributing
to an Irish famine,or to the orphans and widows of men
lost in the Amazon, to contribute to your State necessities,
and to pay a portion of their money into the Board of In-
land Revenue ! (Hear.) It appears to me that this is A

kind of tax which we ought not to encourage in a commer
cial country; for is it possible to conceive anything more
unwise than to stand in the way of communications be-
tween men that cause commercial transactions, and that
operate favourably upon the Customs and Excise revenue.
Talk of the inequality of the tax,—l know that it has been
frequently mentioned that a poor servant maid has to pay
as heavy a toll to the State for making known that she
wants a place as a peer of Parliament has to pay to the
State for making it known that he has an estate to dispose
of. (Hear, hear.) Everybody is aware of this gross
inequality ; but the strength of the argument, I contend,
lies against the tax altogether. I say it is tax only worthy
of a barbarous nation. (Cheers.) It is a sort of short-
sighted attempt to get a little revenue at the expense of
the most valuable interests of the country, and probably
destroying, in other ways, a great deal more revenue than
it creates. I call upon the house to record their vote that
the advertisement duty is an unjust tax—is an unequal
tax—and strikes at the root of those communications of
mutual want which are necessary for the progress and the
welfare of the country. I call upon them to vote that it is
a tax upon calamity ; that it is a tax which is not capable
of being enforced even as it now stands upon the statute-
book ; and that it ought to be repealed. (Hear, hear.)
No reduction do I ask for. (Cheers.) If you merely re-
duce this tax, you leave these inequalities and this unfair
competition completely unredressed. (Hear, hear.) You
will find it impossible to impose your reduced advertise-
ment duty upon the man who paints the pavement of the
streets with his advertisement, or the man who goes about
with his advertisement van, or the man who advertises in
these catalogues. You cannot enforce your tax, however
small, against these classes ; therefore I call upon you, in
justice to the newspaper press of this country, which
ought not to be exposed to this unequal struggle, to repeal
this tax. The advertisement fund is the fund which forms
the legitimate support of the newspaper press. The news-
paper supplies publicity ; the advertiser buys publicity,
and has the article which he requires. Therefore, I say,
do not take him away from the newspaper press. On the
contrary, for the sake, I should say, of the independence
of the newspaper, for the sake of those men who are strug-
gling against great difficulties to give valuable organs of
obftnhi es
intelligence to the country, relieve them from this unequal
contest. Long as this tax bas lasted, it is not too late to
do them an act of justice ; though many of them, I believe,
are so far injured by the unjust system to which they have
ee
xhpoous
see to
d thatre e probably()yer them
fromit w
their
o u be beyondpositiont. h e power
(Hear,
hear.)

It is a matter of real congratulation to all the friends
of true progress, that the house was not to be diverted
by the plausibilties of the Chancellor of the Exchequer,
who did his utmost more auo to mystify his hearers—from
doing, as far as in them lay, an act of substantial justice
to the great bulk of the tax-payers of this country. We
trust that may be a lesson for the Coalition Government;
it surely must strike the most obtuse of their supporters,
that for a paltry amount of 178,000 per annum, it is
bad policy to have lost the opportunity of conferring on
the country a great and beneficial change, and to hay
incurred, what they are not so strong as to be well abl
to bear, a mortifying and ominous defeat.