The Sun.
London, England, 1836-05-11 00:00:00

P-111,IT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS

Strange as it may appear, the fact is, we•believe,
that the Chancellor of the Exchequer has abandoned
the idea of introducing, in connection with his Bill for

the consolidation of the different S:amp Acts, a mea-
sure to protect the copyright of those journals which
incur the expense of procurins- the earliest intelii,7ence,
against piracy. Thus it %sill be in the power of any
parcel of needy, unprincipled adventurers, who may
speculate in journalism, tinder the reduced duty, to
filch from the newspapers which are conducted with
energy and capital the original articles and intelligence
that have been procured at great expense, and by
publishing, as they can easily do, within a short time after
the Morning Papers have gone to press, a large sheet
containing selections of all that is valuable or interest-
ing in them, profit by the labour, skill, capital, and
talent employed by others, and rob the fair trader of
his reward as effectually as by breaking open
his counting-house and rifling • his desk. The
why and wherefore of this change in the
Chancellor of the Exchequer's, opinion we do not
understand ; nor can we fathom the motive for a pro-
ceeding so fraught with injustice. Perhaps the Hight
Honourable Gentleman may be able to explain satis-
factorily to the House of Commons, and to the coun-
try, his conduct in reference to this matter. There is
another point which we believe Mr. Bice has also con-
ceded, and that, too, to the clamour of his own re-
vilers, and the rancorous assailants of the Administra-
tion. We allude to the die. This a point which
deeply concerns the public, as well as all those news-
paper proprietors who do not cheat advertisers by a
fictitious show of circulation. Advertisers will very
naturally employ those journals for the publication' of
their wants and sales, which appear to circulate most
extensively. Is it not due to this large class of per-
sons to protect them against a fraud which we know,
and which the Chancellor of the Exchequer must
know, to be constantly practised—a fraud by which
advertisers are cheated out of the value they ex•
peet for their money ? The fraud we allude to
is this :—A paper-maker supplies provincial jour-
nals with stamped paper. He sends, for instance,
100 reams of paper to the Stamp-office, and gets it
stamped in the name of a London newspaper, which,
knowing that returo of newspaper stamps are some-
times ordered by PariLment, he wishes to serve by
swelling its apparent circulation. This paper, stamped
under these circumstances, is taken out of the office
and distributed among, it may be, half-a-dozen jour-
nals, having no sort of connection, either fiscal or po-
litical, with the establishment in whose name it has
been stamped. Parliament orders a return of the mit-
ber of stamps issued to all and each of the newspapers
published in Great Britain, and when this document
is made public, the establishment in whose name the
one hundred reams have been stamped, gets the
credit of publishing 50,000 sheets, not one of
which it ever printed. The advertiser is in utter
ignorance of the process by which this trick is
practised—he does not even suspect that he
is the victim of a cheat, when he fancies that
the nominal circulation of the paper thus un-
fairly puffed up is real and bona fide. Thus a double
fraud is committed: the favoured London paper ob-
tains money under a false pretence, and the advertiser
does not obtain the value for which he contracts.
Surely this is not a system to which the Chancellor of
the Exchequer should be a party, or which the House
of Commons will sanction, especially when the remedy
s simple, effective, and not calculated to injure the
private interest of any Newspaper proprietor who
means to deal fairly by the public. Let each News-
paper-office supply its own die, having the name of
the paper engraven on the rim, and then an end will
be put to the fraud of which we complain. But there
is another reason, which may possibly have more
weight with the Finance Minister, why the proposi-
tion respecting the die ought to be adopted. It is the
only effectual bar to frauds upon the revenue arising
from the duty on advertisements. At present the re-
medy the Stamp Department has against Newspaper
Proprietors, who do not pay the advertisement duty, is
nominally twofold ; the amount of the security (which
is limited) may be estreated, and the Stamp-office may
refuse to issue stamped paper when the Newspaper
gets into an arrear of more than a month's duty on
advertisements. The first may often be insufficient—
the second is inoperative. A Newspaper Proprietor
chooses not to pay the advertising duty for one, two,
or three years, or at all. Well, his bail is sued, and
the amount of the security is recovered. But this does
not cover a moiety of the debt due to the Commis-
sioners of Stamps ; and they resolve not to issue any
more stamps to the defaulter. He laughs at them.
They may threaten, but cannot act. The paper-maker
steps in to the aid of his customer, takes out as many
stamps as be requires, in the name of some paper
that stands clear at the Stamp-office, and the default-
ing
journalist continues to publish in defiance of the
Commisgioners of Stamps, who cannot a second
time pounce upon the sureties. This is no fancy
sketch—we speak of a case that has actually occurred.
And yet Mr. Rice refuses to correct the abuse—to pre-
vent a repetition of the fraud upon the revenue, by
adopting the easiest and most efficient remedy may
be answered that the Chancellor of the Exchequer's
Bill contains a clause to prevent the fraud upon the
public, the revenue, and the fair dealer, by imposing a
penalty upon the sale or purchase of stamps in the man-
nor already described. The object of the penalty is to
prevent fraud, or it is not. If it is intended to prevent
fraud, it will fail of its purpose, for the measure does
not supply a means by which the guilty parties can be
discovered. Mr. Rice will punish offenders, but he
will not prevent crime. if he can catch a delinquent
lie will mulct him ; but he will not adopt the plan which
is most likely to prevent the commission of crime,
and most certain to lead to detection. Adopt
the proposition of the die, and no journalist can pos-
sibly escape detection, should he, in contravention of
the law, publish on stamped paper fraudulently ob-
tained. Indeed, no such fraud could then, by any
possibility, be committed ; and the security against de-
falcation in the advertising duty would be rendered
complete. In fact the Chancellor of the Exchequer
completely stultifies himself by making it penal in one
journal to sell stamps taken out in its own name to
any other journal, and yet refusing to adopt the only
effectual means to prevent the offence. This refusal
is utterly unintelligible, and cannot be reconciled to
any prhiciple of common sense. We should like to
know undet what influence the Right Hon. Gentle-
man rejects this proposition—who have been his men-
tors on this occasion ? The manner in which the
counsel was given must have been peculiarly attractive
to blind the Right Hon. Gentleman to its incon-
sistency.—Morning Chronicle.
Mr. T. Duncombe moved last night for the prlduc-
tion of a copy of the Parliamentary Surveys of Church
,Lands preserved in the Library of Manuscripts at
Lambeth. It was stated_ by the lion. Gentleman,
that the documents bore most imrortantiv on the ques-
tion of the Tithe Bill, and that the House ought to
be in possession of them before it pronounced its deci-
s ion on that measure. In courts of law their
.authen-
ticity was admitted ; they were public property, and
the public ought to have the benefit of the informa-
tion they contained at.this time. It was allowed by
Lord John Russell that the' documents were public
property ; but be saw no reason for the motion, as they
could he inspected where they were. With all sub-
mission to hi. Lordship, this is hardly a fair argu-
ment. Where rig ns of property are contested, parties
will go to the-expense of-making extracts from these
documents, ; but the public sre deeply interested in ob-
taining access to all the information in the documents,
and the printing them, therefore, is a sine qua non to
-their being made generally available. • In fact, there
are strong reasons for believing that large masses of
property belonging to the Church—consequently to the
public—arc wrongfully possessed by private indivi-
duals. We remember to have seen a thick volume in
'folio, printed about a hundred years ago, containing a
minute account of the glebe lands in the diocese of
London ; and we do not believe that one-tenth of these
lands now are in the possession of the Church. If
the clergy have proved unfaithful stewards of the pro-
perty entrusted to them (from the connection between
patrons and incumbents), which sta suspect they have
too often been, we do not see why that property
should be withheld, any more than that which the
trustees of estates left for charitable purposes have

misapplied. The Lreat difficulty in both cases is,
that so many of th 2 aristocratic families in the coun-
try have participated in this spoliation that Par-
liam:rit discountenances all inqu:ry into the sub-
ject. The Attorney-General said they might as
well propose to print Doomsday B.:ok by order of the
House. The best answer to this is, that Dooms lay
Boo!: has been printed by order of the House. Yet
Doomsday
Book, though it contains very curious in-
formation with respect to the state of England at the
per;ol of the Conquest, has no earthly bearin, on
any public interest in the present day. But the .Par-
liamentary surveys have such a bearing ; and it is pre-
cisely because they have such a hearing that the reluct-
ance to have them printed is felt. We arc only asto-
nished that• Mr. T. Duncombe should have received

be support of 40 Members i:: a House of 139 Mem-
bers. When the public generally understand the dues-
:ion, it must be carried ; for in tie preeent day few men
will he found so bold as openly to oppose a motion of
this kind on the real merits of the case. We trust,
therefore, that M. T. Duncombe will not let the matter

sleep.—Morning Chronicle.
'We rejoice most heartily, and so will every loyal
and right-minded man in the United Kingdom, at the
proceedings of the House of Lotds on Monday evon-
mg, whereby their Lordships crushed effectnally the
unprincipled or foolish attempt of the King's Ministers.
to add one more element of mischief to those by which
Ireland has for so many years been harassed, and to
hasten that final consummation by which Protestant

safety, property, and religion, b:d fair to be ruined irre
coverably. The usual quantum of roystering decla
mation, seems to have filled up the accustomed ab
sence of solid argument on the side of the advocates
fur the unamended measure of the Melbourne ( f, pro-
perly speaking, it be still the Melbourne) Government.
It is true that not much novelty can now from either
party be expected, when the subject in and out of doors
has been so thoroughly ransacked. But there is an ob-
stinacy sometimes ingrafted on absurdity which makes
them in their conjoint state worthy of occasional expo-
sure. Lord Holland wondered at " that being called
an exclusive" system of Municipal Reform which
" admitted the whole people, of every class and deno-
mination." We have answered that question an hun-
dred times, by observing, that every class of people are
not admitted to equal powers, for under it the Papists
are admitted to supremacy, and the Protestants to a
state of bondage. Lord Holland again asked whether
"the majority or minority were to govern the country?"
We have already answered, that the " majority" in-
sisted on by sophists like Lord Holland is no more
than a. colourable majority, the abject tool and passive
creature of an oligarchy of Popish priests. To the
question reiterated by the Ministerial parrots,—Lords
Holland and Lansdowne bein-_, of the number—whe-
ther Ireland was to be branded as unfit for the same
legislation as had been applied td other parts of the
kingdom ?—we reply, in the emphatic words of the
Duke of Wellington—" Do your Lordships think
there is no difference between the people of Eng-
land and Ireland ? Is the history of property in that
country forgotten, and likewise the history of reli-
gion, and the state of society thence arising ?" The
childishness of the question put by the sinecurist
Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, deserves no
notice but the master's rod. Then Lord Lansdowne,
the sinecurist President of the Council, was loud in
his plaudits of that Act of George IV. which vested
certain powers of sweeping, paving, &c., in the Si. in-
habitants of certain Irish towns. Assuredly the busi-
ness of cleansing the towns of Ireland is, if well pets
formed, no light 'or easy task. But as for the conse-
quences of that Act of Parliament, when Lord Lans-
downe challenges the world to inform him whether any
popular election under it was ever improperly con-
ducted, if the Noble Lord means anything better than
the mere quibble of confining " improper conduct "
to outrageous violations of the law, we beg to ask him
whether he ever heard of a town called Clonmel,
where, as it appeared in this journal, not many weeks
ago, all the respectable inhabitants, if under any de-
nomination of Protestant, had been arbitrarily re-
jected by the administrative power, and the whole
body of small jurisdictions created by the Act had
been lodged in the hands of low, uneducated, un-
, respected, but noisy and turbulent partisans of
the agitation clique, whose main ambition was to
swagger down, torment, and humiliate the upper class
of the population? This Act of George IV., in-
stead, therefore, of having been applied beneficially,
has been grossly abused, as have privileges of a far
b hio-her order' than any of which it was the vehicle,
and instead of a precedent for the extension of the so-
called " liberal" policy, by which those measures of
the last reign were dictated, they ought one and all to
be taken and cherished for an inexorable warning
against similar legislation for the future. Lord Lans-
downe, borrowing an exquisite hint from the profound
wisdom cf the Marquis of ClanriCarde, thought fit to
taunt the Conservative party with their long indifference
to the evils of " exclusion," when that exclusion was
directed by Protestants against Papists, and with
the suspicious, virtue of their new dislike to the con-
verse of the same principle, when about to be ap-
plied by Papists against Protestants. But there is
nothing inconsistent in this. Those who have hither-
to enjoyed exclusively the privileges of the Irish towns
have exercised those privileges in a spirit of devotion
to the interests of Church and State, of loyalty to
the Crown, and attachment to British connection, while
the present candidates for exclusive power in Corpora-
tions exhibit and boast of their hostility to the State,
their abhorrence of the Reformed Church, and their
determination to separate from Great Britain. The
exclusiveness, therefore, of the old municipalities might
fairly and honestly have been looked upon with indul-
gence by those friends of the Constitution who detest
and dread the novel direction which that same principle
threatens to assume. As for the curious, and, in one
so grave, the grotesque and unbecoming vehemence of
Lord Lansdowne, towards the close of his speech,
where he " protested solemnly" against the implica-
tion of the amended Bill, that the " people of Ire-
land" (bah I—people of Japan) were unfit for ail
the purposes of local Government, and declared, both
for himself and his colleagues, that he and they
" would adhere to the contrary doctrine," it meant,
we suppose, that they would not accept the
Bill as altered by Lord Lyndhurst. Within
this day or two, but not bef.ore, we have been
prepared for some such revolution in the schemes
of his Majesty's Ministers, who became his Ministers
in April, 1835. A word upon this point is sufficient.
If a certain legal proceeding goes forward, Lord Mel-
bourne's career of office is at an end, and by what de-
vice or subterfuge can "mouths be now stopped" in
time to have such critical' proceedings arrested ? If Lord
Melbourne goes—who comes? That is the question.
Lord Lansdowne and others, on condition of remain.
ing Ministers, might gladly have agreed to the terms
of amended Bill. Whereas the Noble Marquis,
ceasing to be Minister, may find it convenient to make
a noise about " justice to the people of Ireland," and
thus turn thEstail to some account, while cooling him-
, self on the Opposition Benches. There is an augury
to be deduced from the uncharacteristic warmth of the
last expressions which fell from the President of the
Council a month ago. He never would have dreamed
9f using them. There is nothing like a flourish of
trumpets, to cover one's retreat.—Times.
It is now quite obvious that Mr. P. Thomson must
give up or modify his Bill for destroying helpless in-
fancy by excessive labour. We are far from meaning
to insinuate that the President of the Board of Trade
has been stimulated to this inhuman sort of legislation
by the least desire to inflict pain upon children, or to
harden the hearts of parents by administering to their
avarice a barbarous temptation, and indulging it at
the expense of their miserable and unprotected off-
spring. We consider the Right Hon. Gentleman a
mere political economist, indifferent to everything in
the world but the " scientific," or the pseudo. scientific,
relations between certain causes and certain conse-
quences—ignorant of all that lies beyond the precincts
of that specious theory of which " produ'etion" is at
once the subject and the idol—of that exclusive, and so
far narrow and mischievous problem, of which the solu-
tion is how to increase to the utmost pitch the materials
and amount of "production." A political economist is an
animal with limited brains, and altogether destitute of
bowels. With moral principles or results he never ven-
tures to trouble h:mself. Duties, affections, virtues,
vices, happiness, afflictions are all the same to him. To