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

to save individuals from this system of persecution ; but
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 further
measures to enforce their own view of the law. In a short
time the Government of Lord Derby came into power, and
they. an.nounced that they intended to settle the point by
legon, and
a measure was prepared which was after-
wards brought in 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 them
from further persecution by the Board of Inland Revenue.
I 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 points of
law had since arisen, springing from that bill, in addition
to those which had previously existed. The Government
bad 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 •
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-
strous injustice to individuals to persevere in this course
of policy—(hear)—and he appealed to the house, whether
be 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 had been contended that if it could be shown that what
was stated as a fact was iu 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, intelligence, and occur-
rences" 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 ; an'l 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."