The Sun.
London, England, 1836-05-06 00:00:00

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LONDON,
FRIDAY EVENING, MAY 6, MI6.

We had intended to revert to the misrepresentations
of the Morning Journals, which are now doing their
utmost to defeat the ...eduction of the Stamp Duty on
Newspapers altogether; hut we find the subject so well
discussed in the Nsa nin Advertiser, that we cannot
do better than
adopt its article :-
- " We Have already adverted more than once to the
conduct pursued by certain of our 'Morning Conteinp..-
raylics with. regard to the intended reduction of the
stamp duty on newspapers, and to their venemous mis-
representations of the feelings and conduct of -the
Chancellor of the Exchequer thereupon ; and we trust
that we have been so far successful in the matter as
to convince our readers that the proposed reduction is
as large and liberal the proceedings upon the- ocea.
si'"" have been V.ghly honourable, in every respect, to
the Chancell':,r of the Exchequer. We return to the
subjee!., with ineffable disgust—not at the conduct of
tlu!.'se who complain of us for having advocated a penny
postage duty on newspapers, which we trust, we can
and will get, instead of a total abolition, which the
Government cannot carry—but at that of those, who,
having not only been present at repeated general meet-
ings of metropolitan newspaper proprietors, but at con-
ferences with the Chancellor of the Exchequer, as re-
presentatives of their own interests, as members of
the Committee appointed at a general meeting of the
London newspaper press, to watch his proceedings re-
specting it, and to confer with him upon its welfare,
who now turn round in a body, and declare, not only
in their petitions to the Lords and Commons, but
in their daily publications, that they had nothing to
do with the proceedings of the general body of the

press. Will any one of the complaining journals dare
to deny that, at the first meeting of the body, a Com-
mittee of some six or seven gentlemen w appointed
to confer, from time to time, with the Chancellor of
the Exchequer, upon various points connected with
the interests of the press, and to act according to the
instructions which they might receive ? Will the
Times deny that it had not a representative at the last
general meeting that was held ? Will the Post affirm
anything to the contrary ? Or the Herald or the Stan-
dard? Nay, %fill the first and second of thcse
named papers dare to say that their representa-
tives were nut repeatedly present .at inter-
views with the Chancellor of the Exchequer ?
They dare not; .rwd yet, because the Bill which
's about to he introduced by Mr. Spring Rice, does
not enable them to pass through the Pcst-ofilee double
the quantity of newspaper at the same rate of postage
which would be charged ripen another of only one-half
their dimensions, they take upon themselves to declare
that they were not cognizant of the proceedings—that
they had nothing to do with them—and that although
they hail committed their interests to a specially selec-
ted and appointed Committee, they were not repre-
sented. A more foul or false assertion was never uttered.
If the complaining journals did not choose that their
representatives should attend every meeting with the
Chancellor of the Exchequer, why the fault was theirs,
not that of the Chancellor of the Exchequer—or of
the Committee. They might have been present,
had they wished--but present or absent, not only
were their claims not forgotten,' hut those of the
provincial press, which the Committee had no right
to take under their wing, most successfully carried to
a satisfactory result I Instead of 1,066 superficial
inches, originally and unfortunately selected by the
Chancellor of the Exchequer as the extent of a single
sheet Newspaper,-1,530 were granted—more than
the papers in question had any reason to expect ; and
I the result of which, instead of subjecting them to a
twopenny stamp postage duty upon their double sheets
—or, in other worth, their " public nuisances"—will
enable them to publish at a three-halfpenny duty I So
much for the veracity and candour of these parties—
so much for their gratitude to gentlemen not in the
slightest degree interested in the matter, but who
being delegated by their colleagues to watch over the
interests of the Metropolitan Press generally, felt it to
be their duty to advocate theirs as well as their own.
Another complaint is made against the Chancellor
of the Exchequer, upon the subject of copyright
in Newspaper articles—namely, that he has not,
along with what is termed his " gagging," his " strin-
gent," his "superficial Bill," given to the daily and
weekly press the benefit of a copyright protection I
Now what are the facts ? Why, first, that the Chan-
cellor of the Exchequer was himself the first to pro-
pose such a measure, and that too in the hearing of
some of the complaining parties, and to call upon the
representatives of the press to furnish him with the
materials of a Bill for their protectionin the second,
that at a general meeting of the proprietors and
conductors of the London press, it was resolved
that it would be unadvisable at the present moment
to bring the matter under the consideration of
the Legislature—and, finally, that when the Com-
mittee waited on the Chancellor of the Exchequer
he expressed his extreme regret that he should,
in consequence of the resolution, be compelled to
defer his Bill upon the subject until another ses-
sion. Such are the facts of the case. We regret being
under the necessity of bringing them before our readers.
It is unpleasant—nay, under the circumstances, it is
disgusting—to us to do so ; but having been appointed
at a general meeting of our colleagues to represent,
along with others, the interests of the metropolitan
press, we feel as much bound to do justice to our own
integrity in the matter, as we are to the conduct of the
Chancellor of the Exchequer—a conduct, allow us to
add, manly, straightforward, and candid, and which
elicited the warmest approbation not only of the 'Whig,
but of the Radical, and the complaining members of
the Tory press. An able, straightforward, and truth-
telling article, extracted from The Sun, will he found
in another column, and we commend it to the atten-
tion of all truth4Oving men. We wonder not at the
warmth of our Contemporary (one of the Committee)
—the insult offered by the journals in question is all
but personal."

We shall just add a sentence or two more. The
abuse of the journals in question is worthy of their sel-
fishness, but we trust that the CHANCELLOR of the
EXCHEQUER will be firm to his purpose, and not be
deterred from doing justice to the public by the
wilful misrepresentations of his calumniators. If
the Times and Herald enlarge their size to the dimen-
sions of 1,530 square inches, they will never have
occasion to resort to double sheets, unless they Wish
to throw dust in the eyes of the public. Double
sheets, after all, are of very recent origin, and were a
manoeuvre of the Times to crush rival journals, par-
ticularly the Herald. Double sheets, as they have
been lately managed, are not only a fraud upon the
Post-office, hut upon the general advertiser, whose
advertisements are held back for two or three days to
enable the papers in question to make what they term a
" grand display" in a double sheet, when they appear
in an ocean of heavy matter, where their utility is
completely sacrificed! The whole affair is a tissue
of cant and humbug, and the parties know it. By
and bye, the public will know it too.

Our readers are aware that a most virulent persecu•
tion has been carried on against Dr. HAMPDEN since
his appointment by Lord MELBOURNE to the office of
Regius Professor of Divinity at Oxford. The hypo-
critical pretence for this outrage against charity and
decency is the old story of heresy. Dr. HAMPDEN,
say these modern monks, is not sound in the faith,
and we must left up our voices against him. We must,
conscience-pricked as we are, do all that we can to
render our brother uncomfortable as a private indivi-
dual, and to destroy his usefulness as a public teacher.
With this trulyevangelical purpose in view, they some
time ago got up a University Meeting at Oxford, to
condemn certain passages in a work published by Dr.
liiimpDEN several years ago, in which they smelt he-
resy, or rather, out of which they thought they could,
by means of -the Theological screw, extract matter
of accusation against the author. By the firmness
and good sense of the Proctors,who interposed their veto,
the members of the University were then saved from a
public exposure of their unprincipled folly. They
were not allowed to do more than shcw their teeth, as
those ill-tempered curs2do which 'go about the streets
with muzzles, snarling and snapping, but nevertheless
inoccuous., Unfortunately, however, for the credit of
Oxford, other Proctors have come into office, and have
taken off the muzzles. The angry pack had a grand
field-day yesterday, and if we may believe the report
of their proceedings given in the Tory Journals,
worried Dr. HAMPDEN in grand style.
The enemies of the Church have cause to rejoice,
its friends to be deeply grieved, at the course pursued
by so many of the Clergy on this occasion. The real
motives are so apparent—they shine so clearly through
the thin veil thrown over them—that he who runs may
read. The fact is notorious that Dr. HANIPDEN is
proscribed for his political, not his religious, opi-
nions. There are, we believe, some Oxford men who
would have no objection to see a heretic roasted; but
they are but few compared to the ()Teat mass who look
upon religious opinions only as they bear upon political
interests. As long as a man holds the doctrines of pas-
sive obedience, the supremacy of the Church, the exclu-
sion of Dissenters from the benefits of the Constitution,
his speculative opinions on theological subjects will never
be, called in question. But woe to the unfortunate
sight against whom the charge of being a Reformer
can be brought, particularly if he has written a book.
Then we soon see what the ingenuity Of Protestant
inquisitors can do in detecting latent error, and to
what an extent Protestant consciences can be stretched
in punishing it.
It is three or four years since Dr. HAMPDEN pqb-