The Sun.
London, England, 1836-06-21 00:00:00

sllll.

LONDON,
TUESDAY EVENING, JUNE 21, 1836.

The motion of the Right Hon. the CHANCEL
LOR of the EXCHEQUER for reducing the Stamp

duty on Newspapers, was carried in the House of
Commons last night by a majority of thirty-three
The smallness .of this majority is sufficient to prove
that we laboured under no erroneous impression with
respect to the private sentiments of a large number
of those Members who were returned to Parliament,
pledged to support every proposition having for its
object the•abolition of those taxes which shackle and
enslave the Press. By summing up the gross num-
bers on the division, it will be found that upwards of
one hundred Members were either not in their places
during the debate, or left the House without voting.
Of those who voted in the minority, fifty at least are
renegades from those principles by the parade of
which they were raised to the dignity of legislators.
Neither the absentees nor the renegades shall remain
unknown to their constituents or the country. We
have pledged ourselves to look after them, and that
pledge we shall faithfully redeem.
With respect to the debate itself, there is but little
to notice in it, with the exception of the luminous ap-
peal made to t;:e understanding of the House by the
Right Hon. the CI-LkNCELLOR of the EXCHEQUER.
his speech embodies the question—financially,
r
politically, and morally. We thn;!c., however, he
in put e -
himself to a great deal of unnecessaryu
futing the arguments—e-if arguments they ii;.".7 be
called—advanced by Sir CHARLES KNIGHT LEY-
and Mr. CHARLES BARCLAY, the mover and se-
conder of the Soap Duty Amendment. The real ob-
ject of these Hon. Gentlemen, and of those who sup-
ported them, was not to effect a reluctioe.of the- Duty
on Soap, but to prevent a reduction of the Newspaper
Stamp Duty. They had not the hardihood to come
forward, and manfully oppose the motion on principle ;
they dreaded the consequences ; and, therefore, they
had recourse to the tortuous shuffling expedient of
humbugging the fanners, while they themselves knew
that their amendments, if carried, would only benefit
the commercial and trading classes. In moving his
promised amendment, the Hon. Member for North-
hamptonshire was candid enough to tell the House,
that if he did not vote for cheap Soap instead of cheap
Newspapers, he could not ask the famers for their votes
at the General Election, as they would point out
their daughters and wives who could not procure a
clean garment. At this candid admission the House
was convulsed with laughter—and well it might.
Never was there offered a stronger illustration of the
want of political knowledge among the agriculturists.
If the Hon. Baronet's constituents be so addle-headed
as to suppose that the reduction of a farthing in the
price of a pound of soft Soap would cleanse
the persons of their wives and daughters, all
we shall say is, that they are in deplorable want of
cheap Newspapers. But the delusion was so gross,
that even the Hon. Seconder of the amendment
refuel to countenance it. The supposition that such
a reduction on the Soap Duty would benefit the landed
interest was, even in his opinion, so absurd, that he
believed no rational being could be led astray by it.
The agriculturists are certainly most shamefully dealt
with by those who set themselves up as the guar-
dians of their interests. Their name is dragged for-
ward, and their interests paraded, on all questions
where a faction is opposed to the will of the country.
► Under the convenient plea of defending them, the
progress of the most useful measures of Reform is
terrupted ; and yet—as was the case last night—when
the question how far their interests are endangered,
eomes to be pressed so closely as to elicit an answer,
their patrons cannot discover any connection between
their affairs and the business before Parliament. The