The Sun.
London, England, 1836-01-26 00:00:00

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J..OND ON,
TUESDAY VeENING, JANUARY 26, 1836.

The Lilx•rty of the Press is no longer an abstract
question. It involves rights of the first magnitude,
and embraces interests important and ever-recurring.
It cannot be classed with those convenient theories
about which men may differ in opinion as much as
they think proper without prejudice to society, and
which may, with equal convenience, and pretty nearly
equal results, be brought into operation and abandoned,
as suits the prevailing humour. Whether the Press
ought to he free or restri.aed, may be inferred from the
answers which the common sense of mankind will
prompt them to make to these plain questions :—ls it
morally requis;:ce that those who are bound to perform
certain fixed and defined duties should know in what
these dr.cies consist, and what responsibility is incurred
by ne-glecting their performance ? Is it proper that
men liable to ruin by the infringement of a law should
be freely'permitted to inform themselves both of its
enactment and provisions ? Is a country free in which
an embargo is laid upon thought ? Is it not monstrously
unjust to withhold knowledge from men, and yet punish
them for committing offences which they could only.
have avoided as crimes, subsequent to the acquirement of
such knowledge ? Upon the answers which may be
made to these questions, we rest our claims to an un-
restricted Press. To those who contend that no con-
ditions attach to the passive obedience of the labouring
classesp--to their liability to punishment—we have no•
thing to say. Arguments would be thrown away upon
them, for they could neither comprehend their force,
nor perceive their import.
In a leading paragraph which appeared in The
Sun of Saturday, we recomr.nended to general notice
an article in the 4th Nurr:oer of the Lodon Review,
in which the total repeal of the stamp duty on news-
papers is insisted uri,on as just, politic, and absolutely
necessary. The 'writer takes a straightforward, com-
mon-sense view of the question ; and to four-fifths of
the measu'it which he recommends to the Govern-
ment, we are disposed to give our amplest sanction.
We think with him, that the stamp and advertise-
ment duties ought to be abolished—that the
paper duty ought to be reduced--and that facilities
ought to be provided for the circulation of printed
papers and pamphlets by post, at a trifling postage
charge, to be collected in the same way as the
postage on letters. But were the Government to
be of opinion that so .much could not be conve-
niently granted at first, we are' persuaded that the
country would accept with thankfulness a measure for
the abolition of the Stamp Duty only. The effect
of such a measure on the finances of the country,
could not be felt for an instant. A country that
has raised and lowered her taxes
,to the amount of
millions at a time, could not suffer the slightest in-
jury from a positive defalcation in the Revenue to the
amount of the paltry sum of about 400,0001. for a single
year; especially as Parliament could easily find an
ample substitute against the recurrence of such an evil.
But no such defalcation could, by any possibility, take
place. Supposing the tax on paper not abolished, the
increased consumption of that article, consequent upon