The Sun.
London, England, 1833-02-04 00:00:00

EMANCIPATION OF THE JEWS.

The Committee of the " Association for obtaining for
British Jews the civil rights and privileges now enjoyed by
other persons not being of the Established Church," inform
their Christian countrymen that a renewed application is
about to be made to Parliament for a removal of the civil
disabilities affecting such natural born subjects of the
United Kingdom as profess the Jewish religion, anti th it
petitions in support of this application, addressed to the
Lords and Commons, and intended to be signed by Chris-
tians, of all denominations, have been prepared, and now
lie for signature at the undermentioned places. The Com-
mittee entertain no doubt, that their fellow subjects of all
classes will he anxious, by affixing their names to the peti-
tions, to make known to the Legislature their opinion that,
at a time when persons holding the Jewish faith enjoy a
perfect equality of political privileges, with all other
class,, of relief, in France, Holland, Belgium, Denmark,
Wurtemberg, the United States, aud, by recent Acta, in
three colonies of Great Britain itself, namely, Jamaica,
Barbadoes, and Canada—England ought not to sanction
.n invidious distinction by continuing to exclude her
Jewish subjects from rights and franchises which are
shared by their fellow citizens here, and by their co-
religionists in so many parts of the world.
The petitions lie for signature at the King's Head,
Poultry ; the Free Masons' Tavern ; the Crown and
Anchor Tavern, Strand ; No. 67, Piccadilly ; No. 371,
Oxford-street ; the Ape Newspaper Office, Catherine
street, Strand ; and Bell's Weekly Messenger Office,
urrey.street, Strand.

BRUSSELS PAPERS.

HOLLAND AND BELGIUM.

BRUSSELS, JAN. 30.—8 y a despatch from the Minister
of War, dated the 28th inst., General Niellon received
officially the confirmation given by the King to the mea-
sures appointing his successor in the command of the Sixth
Divison, and placing him on the retired list. The General
is to receive the pay of an officer of his rank, on the re-
tired list, from Ist Feb.
JAN. 30.—An Austrian Cabinet messenger passed
through Brussels yesterday morning, on his way from
Vienna to London, with despatches.
As we have stated before, several corps of our army
which had hitherto been encamped or cantoned near the
Dutch frontiers are going into positions near to the centre
of the country, or even to serve as garrisons OR our southern
frontier. Only some journals are wrong in inferring from
.his placing part of our army on the peace establishment
that there is less appearance of war. For this measure,
which is not even equivalent to a partial disarming, serves
only to diminish in a small degree the expenses of the
Treasury, by taking from our troops for the moment all
right to field rations, as well as to indemnities due to troops
on the war establishment. The same thing was done last
winter.— Courrier Beige.
JAN. 31.—We learn very positively that on the 26th
,f3anuary orders were despatched from the Hague to open
'he Scheldt for the ships of all nations except those of
France and England. No mention is made of Belgium.—
Independant.
The Beige says—" Our Government has entered into
negotiations with the French Government for the regula-
tion of the expenses occasioned by the intervention in 1831.
The Belgian Minister of War has asked the Chambers
'qtr a vote of credit, by way of advance, but it is not yet
certain that France will consent to bear the expenses of
the assistance which it has afforded us."

FEIS. 1.-The official part of the Moniteur contains
the Royal Ordinance by which the King revokes his De-
cree of the 23d of October, 1831, by which the city of
Antwerp was declared in a state of siege.
The Government received yesterday a courier, coming
trom Vienna by way of Berlin, who brought despatches
from Viscount Ch. Vilain XIII., Baron de Loe, and
General Mer. The Handelsblad contains the notice
hat the Dutch Government has sent orders to the Officer
commanding his Majesty's naval force in the Scheldt to
tllotv ships of all nations to enter or to leave the river, to
or from Antwerp, till arrangements are made settling the
terms upon which their passage will be permitted. The
English, French, and Belgian fl igs are excepted from this
measure, and remain till further orders subject to the
iecond article of the Royal Decree of the .26th Nov., 1532.
Brussels Papers, Feb. 2.

GERMAN PAPERS.

TURKEY.

(From the Artsb.:lW Observer of Jan. 24.)
CoNsTANTINOPLE, JAN. B.—Since the defeat of the
Turkish airily near Koniah no important news has been
received from Asia :Minor. Nothing, therefore, is known
any movement in advance that Ibrahim Pacha may have
made. However, on the 2d of January, a grand meeting
of the Council, at which the Sultan presided in person,
was held at the Palace of the Seraskier Chosrerd Pacha.
The question of war and peace was discussed in it, and it
was unanimously resolved that upon acceptable conditions
the Fitfia should be revoked which was issued last year
tgainst Mehemet Ali.—(This is the decree of the Mufti
xcommunicating Mehemet and his son Ibrahim.) As
the first condition, it is required that the Pacha of Egypt
.hall make a submission to his lawful Sovereign ; the in-
vestiture of the Pachalick of Syria, which is the object of
Mehemet's wishes, may be the consequence. Halil Paella,
•ormerly Capitan Pacha, is commissioned to convey to
he Viceroy the resolutions that have been taken. He has
already embarked for Alea.andria, accompanied by the

Cabinet Secretary of the Reis Effen Ii and several high
functionaries of the Porte.

The Russian Lieutenant-General Muravieff has sailed
for Alexandria, and despatches from the Court of Austria
have also been sent thither by a ship of war. It is not
doubted that these steps will be powerfully seconded at
Alexandria by the English Government.
These applications, made directly to Mehemet Ali, have
been communicated to his eon Ibrahim. Turkish Corn-
missieners are gone for this purpose to the Egyptian head-
quarters, accompanied by Colonel Duhamei, an officer in
the suite of General Muravieff. There is, therefore, every
reason to presume that an armistice will be shortly con•
eluded.

The news of these events has caused general satisfaction
in the capital. The public tranquillity, which has not
been for a moment disturbed, is consolidated by increased
confidence in the future. Every body attends to his busi-
ness, and there is no appearance of alarm. The speedy
return of the fleet, which is still anchored in the Darda-
nelles, was expected at Constantinople. The capital of
the Ottoman empire has now the appearance of the most
perfect peace.
VIENNA, JAN. 22.—Five per Cent. Metalliques, 88
7-16; Bank Stock, I,l47.—Allyemeine Zeitung.

STAMP DUTY ON NEWSPAPERS.

(From the Globe.)

We do not know on what authority the statements
have been put forth of the intentions of the Ministers to
remove what the " Movement" call the taxes on know-
ledge, nor do we know what the intentions of the Minis-
ters are; but we take the liberty to warn them, that of
all the subjects which have attracted any attention, no one
has been so little discussed by those who are most compe-
tent to give a correct opinion on its effects, and We Will
briefly explain why.
The gentlemen of the Movement, when this cry against I
the stamp duty on newspapers was first raised, asserted
that the effect of the stamp duty was to give the existih4
papers a monopoly. This assertion, the degree of truth
involved in which we shall examine, has prevented most
o f the persons connected with the daily papers from say-
ing anything on the subject, as a matter in which they
would be accused of being biassed and interested. In the
Times or the Herald scarcely anything has appeared,
we believe, on the question, and this Paper, which has the
largest circulation of the Evening Papers, has never more
than incidentally alluded to the subject. This may have
been culpable, and we think it was, but it is the fact;—
and we believe, also, that all the proprietors of the papers
we have mentioned, and of many others of the best esta•
]dished papers, have from the same motives abstained
from making any representation to the Government, or
the members of the Government, on the subject (though
this is merely our belief), while we have no doubt, on the
other hand, that the quacks and projectors have inces-
santly besieged the Government, as the pledge-monger'
besieged candidates with their representations.
We ask the Ministers, then, thus publicly, have they
consulted men of experience whose success best entitles
them to be heard ? We tell them now—what, we believe,
has never been told them before, publicly or privately—
that their former measure, rashly proposed and causelessly
abandoned on the same question, involved particular
papers in a large expenditure, which in a mercantile sense
was utterly useless, on the faith of their announcement.
So far as this paper is concerned, they might just as well
for the proprietors, and better of course for the Treasury,
have imposed a tax on it of 1,2001. or 1,3001. a year, as
have proposed and then abandoned their first measure for
the relief of newspapers. We tell them of this for the
first and last time, not to complain of what is past, but to
show that we have some right to call on them, fur their
own sakes (for their characters cannot but suffer by futile
projects), not to take any rash steps in a matter with
which they have shown themselves very imperfectly att..
quainted.
We tell them also, and we care not how our motives
may be misconstrued in the assertion, that if there be
any one measure, after the vote by ballot and universal
suffrage, which is more likely than another at this moment
to precipitate a revolution, we believe it to be the re-
moval of the stamp duties on newspapers and papers of
political discussion.
The stamp duty on newspapers has been called a tax on
knowledge—and it is a tax on knowledge in the same
sense as the excise on gin is a tax on food. Gin, no doubt,
is in one sense food. Gin would keep a man alive for a
time who had no other sustenance. Gin, combined with
other articles of food, may be even salut try. In the same
sense, political writing addressed to men who have had the
means of acquiring other knowledge, excites and improves
their intellect. But the great mass of the population,
especially the agricultural population, have had little means
of acquiring that previous knowledge which makes the
violence of political writing innoxious, and under the
cheap knowledge system they are to be fed with intellec-
tual gin, and gin alone, and we are to find as the result a
composed and sober people.
The last Ministry, with the best intentions, passed a
measure which has established beer-houses by thousands
and tens of thousands throughout the country—frequently
in the places most removed fom the casual inspection of
Magistrates, where the half-employed labourers of the
southern counties congregate to improve their minds by
converse and to spend the parish money. Into every one
of these houses the removal of the stamp duties would
send periodical political essays suited to the tastes of the
customers. The readers, or rather listeners (for the ma-
jority of the people cannot read, but would listen to
readers), would learn, as Cubbett has taught his disciples,
how gross is the tyranny of vestries and overseers ; that
an attempt to limit the allowance of the poor out of the
land is a trampling on their natural rights ; and that the
effects of rick burning have been visible in the improve-
ment of labourers. Assertions of this kind may not be
injurious when addressed to the purchasers of expen-
sive publications ; but can sane statesmen, who look to
the state of the mass of the population of a considerable
part of this country (a population unfortunately left desti
lute of other knowledge) become instrumental in furnish-
ing it with the most fiery stimulants of its discontent ?
The gentlemen of the Movement say this will furnish
the rich with a strong motive to instruct the poor—and of
course the poor will get knowledge when there is a motive
to furnish it to them—and when they are well fed and well
taught they will weigh at their just value these incentives
to mischief, This is true; but in the proposed plan, as
in many other parts of the revolutionary commonwealth,
the end forgets the beginning. The incentive to mischief
is to come in the year 1833—the knowledge ten years
hence. The farmers may, indeed, teach the poor their
moral duties by the light of their burning stacks; but we
doubt much whether the best preparatory step for filling
the people gradually with solid instruction, is to plunge
them at once into a fury of revolutionary intoxication.
Let penny, or halfpenny, or farthing political publica-
tions (and they may be printed profitably, in large num-
bers, for the smallest coin mentioned) be spread through-
out the southern counties; let them be at tfully directed,
as they will be, to the passions of the agricultural labour-
ers ; let a year or half a year of distress intervene, and it
matters nut a straw what rise the Ministers intend or
think of.

Some persons, who, with an inconceivable ignorance
(as we humbly think) of all its bearings, have set them-
selves up as oracles on the subject, have represented that
the cheap publications now do the mischief because the
stamped newspapers cannot circulate among the same
classes. The whole of this supposition is a masa of errors.
Toe so-called cheap publications are now only cheap by
comparison, like smuggled brandy—for they are only the
speculation of a few desperate persons, who live, or hope
to live, by defrauding the revenue; and the circulation,
exceedingly limited eveey where, and easily suppressed
altogether, is confined to towns. To render the trade free
from tax, would reduce the price of periodical political
essays to a fourth or an eighth of the lowest present price.
But a gro,ser error still is to suppose that the most pros-
perous newspapers would maintain their present character
or comparative influence. The newspapers and stamped
political writings which now flourish are those which suit
the taste of the sevenpenny buyers; they represent, per-
haps, the taste of the middle classes ; they are enabled,
by the support of these classes, to expend money for in-
telligence—the intelligence causes them to be read by
those who probably do not always approve their politics,
but who become insensibly influenced by their doctrines.
The political writings of the new era, to be popular, must
appeal to the majority of the penny or halfpenny buyers ;
they must appeal, not to the opinions of the middle, but
to the passions of the lowest classes ; and the most pros-
perous, and, on the average of years, the most influential
of newspapers, will be those which are the most inge-
nious anti artful in appealing to these passions. They will
be read by persons above the lowest, because their corn-
tnercial prosperity will give them many advantages; and,
instead of the opinions of the middle class indirectly sway-
ing the lowest, the excited fury of the numerical majority
will extend to many of the classes above it.

To those newspapers that will follow the tile, such a
willbe protitabe—the consumption will increase,
be deteriorated—and in this mere commer-
cialifthe
we do not believe the change will be injurious
change
sense,
article
to merely commercial journalists. But we cannot but
think, that in a country already in a movement which pa-

t: iota must find rapid enough to enable them to guide it be.
neficially, it will be a change unwarrantably hazardous.
Let the tax on newspapers, or whatever other taxes are
derived from printed works, be applied really to instruct
the people—to relieve them from that miserable ignorance
in which the special commissions showed they were
plunged—gradual instruction by primary schools, and the
labours of a clergy rendered more efficient—the removal of
anomalies and abuses, and (let us hope) the relief of dis.
tress may make the efforts of incendiaties at some future
,urie harmless and not unamusing. But in the meantime
the change proposed fills with apprehension—not for this
or that party—not for the existence of this or that Mi-
nistry, hit for the existence of any Government able to
preserve property and the public peace.