The Sun.
London, England, 1851-12-09 00:00:00

51'1.1i..1 'f' or tiro la ÜBLIC i 0 U' ' f.
; CII:IO.NICLE.—We arc always ~l;iii of,fey op. s. --"iQ-,
Iportunity of removing u owe:rove—se e• . r 4111:e ''' en ' i
of eersontality. 13 r - 1 ''"" ' ''. "ot u. rawer is upon the present state-,0
ti. t "
of L,,,, eier trede, we have,
of course, freely - -1-
et ELi;ieti , • icv,3%,
owe:lees of the nettles of Bereley end Perteir s,• and \'°'''''''''
the other monsters of the, great podecerchy ; hut to
1 us they are mere nsernas, end we;o'nly use tnem be-
cause they teippeo to repre:ent and i mleely the fects
of which we complain, and because it is inconvenient
to describe living systems under algebraic symbols.
Still, it is welt to remember that it is against a syatcm,
rather than against individuals, that we are fighting.
And this consideration at once disposes of the ad cap-
tandem argument—which it surprised us to see urged
by a sensible correspondent—that the good use which
certain brewers are said to make of their money ie
some justification fur their exorbitant gains. OUT
' complaint is, that the trade is in an unhealthy, unjust
state—that the public pay more for thir beer than
they ought to pay—and that they cannot, as matt( ra
stand, help themselves, because, by a combination of
' ' it:fiances, partly caused by legislation, end partly by
an accidental peculiarity of this particular bihireets,
consumers cannot avail themselves of that legitimate
corrective of competition which the natural remedial
energies of commerce would otherwise supply. This
is the fact; hence arise the brewers' extortionate
Iprofits ; and it is a lamentably weak answer to say—
" Yes, but how charitable they are ; lock at the
schools they support, and the churches and chapels
which they build"--as the ugh it were not a prin-
ciple both of religion and of common honesty to
prefer mercy to sacrifice, and ordinary justice
to extraordinary almsdecds. Almsgiving, as
a private virtue is no set•eff againtat the absence of
sotneeo2fnts the, thatbee
because present
fair dealing and honesty in a whole trade. And this
leads us to the plea which is urged by other cum-
sptadrm'e trade c a
a nn
system s tproperly
c al
l t.extortion,.he
it is an unimpeachable tnexim of political economy
that a tradesman is '
Justified in charging whatever
price he can get. But so far from robatitre this
r.ep b
doctrine, we have expressl.ydnaitted it—only we say
that it has' a correlative.
but
to doubt a tradesman may
charge what he can gee;
what he can to reduce the sloe consumer may also do
presupposes the other. Under ordinary The one liberty
2nary circumstances
these things regulate themselves
brings the matter to a natural level,; of which
competition
which neither
buyer nor seller can complain. But oif
in any given case, that competition ' it so happens,
possible—which is our argument in's I)htletiCally inn-
beer trade—it is of no use to " reiterate a case of the
viz., that tradesmen may ask for their goPuriyii"iple;
ever they please. The maxim may be
ver stwh uat-
but it dues not apply. It is true when itrecr
cl.e—
its natural complement, viz., the poasibilityvofs
competition ; that is, it is true sub modo_i, ,
true when the tradesman acts upon it at his
peril. But there is no peril to the brewer ; for
his charges are not in the face of competition, and his
business is virtually, though not formally, a protected
one. The cases of merchants, artists, labourers,
literary persons, are not parallel—simply because, in
all these instances, either competition is possible, or
there is the presence of those imponderable elements,
genius and the like, to which, as competition is iM-
poi,ible, the ordinary measure of value does not apply.
Admitting, then, that the privilege to make what
" what one can of one's own" is both morally and
economically defensible, we reply that it is so only as
regards ordinary productions where the trade is open,
and extraordinary ones where, as in the case of a poem
or a picture, rivalry is out of the question. Barclay
and Perkins or their advocates must be prepared to
show, either that, as a fact, anybody with capital,
can, under the licensing system, safely compete with
them ; or else that their beer, like the "
Paradise
Lost," has qualities which are not to be represented
by the usual standard of value. Again, it is said that
the brewers are the beat judges whether they ought
to sell at fixed, or at fluctuating prices. Possibly ; we
say nothing about the brewers' powers of judgment
but we take leave to observe that the public is the
beat judge whether it will buy at fixed or
fluctuating prices. Beer and bread are the two
chief commodities in universal use of which it
can be said that the amount, and therefore the
value, of their raw material is contingent on the
accidents of the seasons ; and when it is asked why
the principles which regulate the trade in the one
should be totally and diametrically opposite to those
which are applied to the other—why the selling price
of manufactured wheat should follow one rule, and
the price of manufactured barley obey a flatly con-
trary one—it is uo answer to say that the brewers
are the best judges. Fur their own interest they no
doubt are ; but w hat we want is, to get the consumer
to look to his interest; and we may safely assure
ourselves that—his attention once fairly roused—he
will require good evidence before believing that he is
benefited by an abnormal, exceptional, anomalous,
and utterly unbusiuesslike mode of trading. having
said thus much in answer to one of our (Titles, "A
Constant Subscriber"—who at least writes like a
gentleman and a politician—we turn to "A Brewer,"
whose letter will no found in another column. We
could not desire to have our view of brewery econo-
mics better illustrated than by what "A Brewer"
himself suggests—the analogy of our own business.
It is quite true, as he states, that paper is cheaper
than it was, owing partly to improvements in the
manufacture, and partly to the fiscal reductions of
1836 ; but it is also true that we give the public
twice as much paper, and twice as much news, for
their money, as we did in those days when the daily
journal was only a single sheet. That is to say—
in language which may perhaps be more in-
telligible to our correspondent—we have doubled
the dimensions of our barrel ; and when
the public is very thirsty, or our wort doubly
attractive, we broach gratis a supplementary cask.
But perhaps some inquisitive reader may rejoin,
" How about the stamp ? The duty on newspapers
has been reduced from 4.1. to ld. ; but you have only
reduced your price from 7d. to 5d." We only wish
the brewers could answer our queries half as wen as
we can meet this. In the first place, the fact is that,
of this 3d. difference, a considerable portion was only
nominal; for, under the old system, the Stamp-office
always allowed a discount of 20 per cent.—thus re-
ducing the actual duty to "rather under e:;-d." (see
M'Culluch). Such was the price whieh, prior to
1836, we paid for one part of our raw material, viz.,
the licence to publish. In that year, this tax of
" rather under 21d." was reduced to Id.—thereby
relieving the newspaper business to the extent of
"rather under" 91d.; and forthwith all the daily
papers came down from 7d. to sd.—that is to say, we
gave the public 2d., and kept to ourselves the indi-
visible bonus of " rather under" one farthing. But
let the reader consider what we have to do with this
accidental extra profit of" rather under" one farthing.
Think of the enormous additional expenses in our
manufacture since 1836. We need but name the
gradual, and now definitive and absolute, adoption of
the double sheet—the increased outlay on foreign
correspondence in the different capitals of Europe—
the necessity of meeting the public demand for a
vastly larger amount and a better quality of original
writing—and the increased and increasing cost of
news itself; occasioned by railway expenses and tele-
graphic dispatches. What, then, is the result ? Will
the emphatic "Brewer" stand to his challenge ? Ilere
are our books—here is our proof of larger measures
and better beer. We have shown both how the price
of our chief raw material, viz., news, and our other
expenses, have of late years advanced. Everybody
present
can compare the daily newspaper of the -
day
and its predecessor in 1636 ? Can the
porter of 1536
and the porter of 1851 hear a similar investigation
?
Will " A Brewer" show in his trade, item by 't
as we have shown in ours, how he hastreatedlcrhe
public when his raw material has been cheapened'
The very thing which we want the brewers tod wt'
have ourselves done. We have the public,o
either in reduced price or in increasedgivel more
than the fullest benefitof ._ measure, has
every reduction that
been made in the cost price of our commodity.
One of the brewe '
rs advocates told us something
about his clients losing ls. on every barrel of beer
they sell. In exchange for this impudent fable,
we will give them the demonstrable fact, that, so
very narrow is a newspaper's margin of profit—so
very close•hauled is our sailing—that a supplement
would involve a positive loss on every copy sold,
were not its cost defrayed
by
of advertisements. The
our ordinary paper,
cost price of every copy _
t and this, too, indepen-
i. e. without a supplemen . .
expense of printing—is
indepen-
dently of the
Paper ••• ..• ..
Stamp . • .• ..
Agency of newsman ...

.. lid.
.. 1;

Total ... •.• •..
—leaving us just one penny three farthings out of
our fivepence, wherewith to pay all the expenses of
management,
.reporting, expressing, telegraphs, lite-
rary composition, domestic and foreign correspond-
ence, rates, and taxes—not forgetting the tax levied
by the Twelve Tyrants on our beer. It is only
necessary to add that the experiment of lowering the
price of a daily newspaper has been tried by others
as well as ourselves—and that, in every instance,
experience proved it to be utterly impracticable.
We suspect that " A Brewer " will get small thanks
from his friends for his unlucky reference to the trade
of Rewspaper producing. At any rate, the public
may judge whether our preaching
and practice areso very discordant ; and we may safely challenge the
brewers of London to make out such a
me-
tropolis financial
statement as that which the daily press ofthe
e
is able to produce.

THE NEW PAUSSIAN LOAN.—Advices from Berlin
mention that the new Prussian loan for a sum equal to
about 2,250,0001., was expected to be brought out forthwith.
It is undeislood that the stock will bear 4i per cent. in-
terest, and be issued at 991, with the certainty of not being
paid off for five years. The Sechandlung Commercial So-
ciety will take halfthe amount, and the other half will be for
the public,