The Sun.
London, England, 1851-07-26 00:00:00

SATURDAY EVENING,

W SPAPER STAMPS.
REPORT.

The Select Committee appointed to inquire into
the present state and operation of the law relative
to newspaper stamps, also into the law and regula-
tions relative to the transmission of newspapers and
other publications by post, and to report their
opinion thereupon to the House, and who were also
empowered to report the minutes of evidence taken
before them to the House, have considered the
matters to them referred, and have agreed to the
following report :
"In conformity with the object for which your Colli-
mate was appointed, they have examined witnesses corn-
potent to give information upon the state of the law
affecting newspaper stamps, and the operation of that law
upon the newspaper press and the public welfare.
"Your Committee have further taken evidence re-
specting the transmission of newspapers and other
printed matter by the Post-office.
" Upon the interpretation which the Board of Inland
Revenue put upon the law, and the practice which has
been pursued by that department, your Committee have
examined the solicitor and the assistant secretary of the
board. Among the witnesses practically cognizant of
the details involved in the publication of newspapers
your Committee have examined the manager of the
Times, one of the editors of the Daily News, and other
gentlemen connected with the metropolitan and the pro-
vincial press; and upon the policy of imposing a direct
tax on the diffusion of a knowledge of current events
through newspapers they have examined several gentle-
men who have given attention to the subject.
" The duty on newspapers is imposed by the Act 6
and 7 William IV., c. 76, and is as follows:
" For every sheet or other piece of paper whereon any
newspaper shall be printed, Id.
"A further additional duty of id. and Id. is imposed
in case the paper exceeds certain sizes specified in the
Act.

" These additional duties are practically not incurred.
" On supplements not exceeding a certain size, id.
" These duties are declared to be payable ou—
" 1. Any paper containing public news. intelligence
or occurrences printed in any part of the United King-
dom, to be dispersed and made public.
" 2. Also, any paper printed weekly or oftner, or at
intervals not exceeding 26 days, containing only, or prin-
cipally, advertisements. "
3. Also, any paper containing any public news, in-
telligence or occurrences, or any remarks or observations
thereon, printed for sale, and published periodically, or
in parts or numbers, not exceeding 26 days between the
publication of any two such papers, parts, or numbers,
when any of the said papers, parts, or numbers respec-
tively, shall not exceed two sheets of the dimensions
specified, or shall be published for sale for a less price
than 6d., exclusive of the duty by the Act imposed.
" The net produce of these duties, in the year 1850,
was 350,4181.; and, on an average of the years 1848,
1849, and 1850, amounted to 350,5451. per annum.
" It appears from the evidence of Mr. Keogh and Mr.
Timms, that in the opinion of the Board of Inland Re-
venue there are three classes of publications legally
liable to the newspaper stamp :-1. Any paper contain-
ing public news, without reference to price, size, interval
of publication, or to its being published more than once.
2. Any paper printed at less intervals than twenty-six
days, containing only or principally advertisements. 3.
Any paper containing remarks on public news printed at
less intervals than twenty-six days, where the price is
less than 6d., or the size less than two sheets.
" With regard to publications of the first class, your
Committee would remark upon the difficulty which must
necessarily exist in determining what the taxable article
news' is, and whether any or how much of it may be
contained iu an unstamped publication ; and, there-
fore, they were not surprised to find that the
officers of the Board of Inland Revenue were
unable to define the character of the intelligence
which may legally be published on unstamped paper,
or that the practice of the board had not been uniform
as to the kind of publications upon which they had felt
themselves bound from time to time to enforce the stamp.
In proof of the difficulty of defining the meaning of the
term news, your Committee would point to the evi-
dence of the solicitor of the Board of Inland Revenue,
who states that the Queen's speech is news,' and he
thinks that any ono who printed the Queen's speech on
a piece of unstamped paper would be liable to a penalty
of 201., but ho doubts whether the Chancellor of the Ex-
chequer's speech is news; and in the case of the Queen's
speech being printed on unstamped paper, he says that
it is clone almost immediately after every speech is de-
livered, but when we have notice of that we write and
tell the parties; that they have infringed the law; if we
had a copy of it, so that we could bring the offence home
to the party, we should prosecute him.' Further, the
Board of Inland Revenue, as it appears from the evidence
of their secretary, recognise a difference hard to be un-
derstood between public and private news, and draw a
distinction unknown to the law between public and class
news. Respecting private news, the secretary states that
a paper containing nothing but records of proceedings
in private families, and calumnious insinuations as to
the conduct of individuals, is not liable to the stamp;
and as to class news, it is understood that a paper ad-
dressed to one particular subject—for instance, architec-
ture or law, &c., and giving news bearing on that par-
ticular subject only, or on persons connected with it, is
not considered a newspaper; thus the Legal Observer
publishes without a stamp an account of a meeting of
lawyers upon any subject, as class news; but if it had
published an account of a meeting of clergymen, then
the secretary would not have had the slightest doubt'
as to its liability to the stamp duty, as it would then be
a report of a meeting of persons not connected with the
class subjects.
"It appears that the Board of Inland Revenue have
not usually interfered with class publications confined to
particular objects in consequence of the insertion therein
of some trifling paragraphs of public news; yet there
are exceptions to this rule, for in the case of an un-
stamped class monthly publication, called the Norwich
Reformer, where only one-sixteenth of the contents
came under the description of news, the solicitor to the
board thought it necessary to intimate to the publishers
that they were infringing the law.
" On the second class of publications your Committee
have not much information before them. It appears,
however, that the circulation of these papers must be re-
stricted by the stamp, and the facilities to the public of
advertising thereby considerably lessened. This is es-
pecially true in regard to the cases of advertising sheets
which are given away, where the point at which expen-
diture and receipts balance each other, and beyond which
no circulation can take place without absolute loss, is
sooner arrived at where each copy is compelled to bear
the stamp than if it were free from that tax.

" As Co the third class of publications which are held
by the Board to be liable to the stamp, your Committee
would observe, that if it is difficult to make clear the
meaning of the term news,' the difficulty is greatly in-
creased in attempting to define remarks upon news, and
in drawing the distinction between remarks upon news
and news itself, a distintion necessary to be made, be-
cause the former may, under certain conditions, be pub-
lished without a stamp, while the latter is always liable
to the duty. The object for which the third class of
publications was rendered liable to the provisions of
the Newspaper Act appears to have been to subject to
restrictions small and cheap publications issued at fre-
quent intervals, not considered as newspapers, but merely
containing essays on political subjects; the solicitor to
the Board of Inland Revenue states that there has been
very little practice at nil' in reference to this class of
publications, because the publications that have come
under the notice of the board have generally contained
public news, and therefore they have coma under the
first definition of newspapers. Parties have attempted
to excuse themselves by stating that their paper is not a
newspaper within the third definition; but our reply to
that is, It is a newspaper within the first definition,
because it contains publie news, intelligence, and occur-
rences.'

" It appears to your Committee that, with respect to
comments on news in cheap publications, the law has
been allowed to some extent to sleep. One witness,
extensively engaged in publishing periodicals of various
kinds, pointed out the difficulty of keeping within the
law about commenting on events; and it is notorious that
a great number of publications, issued at intervals of
less than 26 days, and at prices less than 6d., by phi-
lanthropic, religious, political, and other societies, are
published without a stamp, and contain comments and
observations upon public events.
"It appears to your Committee, that if the law im-
posing a stamp on public intelligence and on observation
thereon were carried out, nearly all periodical matter,
and a large portion of occasional printed matter, would
be subjected to the stamp duty; white if it be understood
that the law is not to be fully observed, much unequal
competition must continuo to arise between different
publishers, and the Board of Inland Revenue will con-
tinuelo be placed in the undesirable position of having
to decide upon what periodicals the law is to be en-
forced, and in what cases its provisions may be dispensed
with.
" A want of uniformity in the practice of the board,
even as to the sort of publications on which they appear
to intend to enforce the law, is shown by the evidence.
As an instance that might bo cited, the Committee
would point to the case of the Wakefield Examiner, a
provincial paper, where a prosecution was in ,tituted
against, and a penalty of 101., being rather more than
the duty incurred, inflicted upon the publisher for re-
printing separately, on unstamped paper, the report of
a trial which had previously appeared in his own
stamped newspaper, while it appears that in the metro-
polis and elsewhere speeches in Parliament and accounts
of public meetings are issued without stamps in a similar
manner.

" With regard to the operation of the stamp on the es-
tablished newspapers, it is of course obvious that by in-
creasing their cost it limits the field of their circulation;
and moreover it has been shown that the penny stamp on
each copy of a newspaper generally raises the price to the
public beyond the mere addition of that sum. The effect
of the Newspaper Act in restricting the superficial extent
of letter-press in newspapers, and affixing an additional
stamp on supplements to newspapers, is to make it neces-
sary for the proprietors of the Times, as stated by its ma-
nager, in order to avoid loss, not only to reject advertise.
ments, but to prevent the circulation of that paper from
exceeding certain limits. The manager of the Times also
states that 'if there were no considerations but that of
supplying the public demand for that paper, it would
probably double its circulation within two years.'
"Some opinions are expressed, that the proprietors of
existing newspapers have an interest
of the stamp, and would be injured by its abolition. Were
these views correct they could not be considered to furnish
a good ground for retaining the stamp if the public inte-
rests required its repeal; but your Committee find little
evidence in support of those opinions, and they point to
the testimony of the manager of the Times, who states 'his
conviction, that if the stamp duty be taken off, the com-
mercial advantages to the Times would be enormous.'
" It is stated to your Committee by the editor of the
Scotsman that the penny stamp a favourable sr-,