The Sun.
London, England, 1835-07-20 00:00:00

TAXES ON N4WSPAPERS.

On Saturday, a meeting was held at the Crown and Anchor
Tavern, for the purpose of petitioning ford total repeal of the
stamp duties on newspapers. Long before the proceedings
commenced, the great hall, which contains 2,000 persons, was
, full in every part.
Among othetsgetAiieil on the platform we observed Mr.
O'Connell, M. I , Mr. Grote, M. P., Mr. Hume, M. P., Dr.
Bowrllig, M. P., Mr. Roebuck, M. Sir W. Molesworth,
:it P., Mr. Wallace, M. P., Colonel Evans) M. P. Mr. Tulk,
M. P., Mr. Wakley, M.P., Dr. Birkbetk, the ReVi J. M.
Fox, Dr. Epps, &c.
Lord BROUGHAM arrived at half-past two o'clock, anti was
greeted with loud cheers. Havi_Li; taiten the chair, he pro-
cecdnd to say—Gentlinen : In opening the business of this
meeting, I bag to return my thanks to my fells,* Citizens for
the distinguished honour they have confet.i bn me on this im-
portant occasion, in asking mew! take the chair. I received your
requisition signed by Pi 'names, being the names of some of the
most respeetstiiis inhabitants, merchants. trader, end others of
various professions in the cities of London and 'Westminster,
and I hesitated not for a moment to obey the call.—( Cheers.)
I shall not detain you long now, as I shall have occasion here-
after, before the meeting closes, to address a few observations
to you; but you are all well AVON that the subject which
brings us together is one in which the public have, whatever
some interested parties may say, long felt a deep and general,
and of late au universal interest.—(Cheers.) I am sure no
words of mine, in opening the business of the day, can be
wanting to explain what it is which brings us here; but I
shall make way for those who are about to propose for your
acceptance certain resolutions, which, if adopted, and it ap-
pears to me they are framed in the spirit of perfect modera-
tion, combined with accuracy of principle, becoming the firm-
ness of language in which you should speak ; and if those re-
solutions receive your sanction, let them be adopted by this
vast assembly to-day, and I feel confident that they will be
productive of the happiest results to our great cause—( Hear,
hear)--because, I venture to say that they will produce public
improvement, correct manners, sound principles, and politi-
cal improvement—( Cheers)—and of every species of advance-
ment
and important progress which most interests the people
to assist, and which it befits those who are anxious for the
public good to make.--(Great cheering.) Again I acknow-
ledge my sense of the honour conferred on me, and my in-
tention now to make way for those who are to address you,
and at the head of whom stands one of the soundest friends of
all improvement—the most valued and tried friend to the great
cause, whom I have ever known—and with whom I am always
happy to co-operate, and whom I have known more than a
third part of a century—l mean Dr. Birkbeek. Such a man
as this, who never mixed up with party politics, shows by his
presence that our design is far removed above all the vulgar
contests of faction.--( Cheers.) But though, as well as me,
he is a friend to knowledge, and therefore an enemy to all
taxes on knowledge, nevertheless there are others by whom I
am surrounded, who are not insensible to the primary impor-
tance of one species of knowledge upon which the taxes, per-
haps, press the most heavily and cruelly—l mean political
knowledge.—(Loud cheering.) I mention these things
merely that it may not be supposed I am one of those foolish
people who are willing that the people should learn what-
ever they please, except that which it most befits them to
know—their political rights and their duties as citizens.—
( Hear.) I place the two words together, because I have
found, by experience, that the better men know their rights,
' the better they will do their duty.—(Cheers.) 'With these
few preliminary observations, I take my leave of you for the
present, and I hope in the course of this meeting, (and I am
sure of it) all violence both of language and opinion will be
avoided, because they are not wanted where men are in the
right, and feel it, and know it.—(Hear.) I am confident
your discretion and good conduct here this day will prevent
our motives from being misrepresented and misconstrued by
those watchful and dextrous agents of various kinds by whom
we are surrounded.—(Cheers.)
Dr. BIRKBRCK, in moving the first resolution, observed
that he had been all his life the friend of the diffusion of use-
ful knowledge, and had exerted himself, so far as lay in his
power, to remove every obstacle to its general dissemination
among the people. He appeared before them that day for
the purpose of proposing the most comprehensive and gene-
ral of the resolutions to be submitted to the meeting. He
fully coincided in every word of it ; and he was satisfied the
respectable assemblage before him would also do so ; and
he should, therefore, with little emphasis or preparation,
after reading the resolution, submit it to them. The resolu-
tion was as follows :

" That the prosperity of every community is dependant upon
the knowledge diffused among its members ; that newspapers
have been justly deemed the great instrument of civilisation,
and therefore the stamp duties tend to destroy the effects of
that instrument, and perpetuate the evils of moral and political
ignorance."—( Cheers.)
Never was a proposition submitted to the adoption of any
public body of greater importance, and he believed there
could not be the slightest opposition to it in the numerous
and respectable meeting before Loud cheers.) He
would only observe, that so far as the question had been
tried, mankind had nothing to fear but from ignorance ; and
that truth, of whatever description, whether moral, political,
or popular, had never, in the slightest degree, injured mankind.
Whenever they had suffered, it was because they were imper-
fectly informed. He conceived that the newspaper was a great
instrument of civilization ; but if it was multiplied it would
become much greater. Instead of being merely a newspaper,
it would become a literary paper—a science paper; and if pro-
duced upon terms such as would place it within the reach of
all, they would find that instead of being filled with useless
discussions and false information, the appetite of the public
would be such that the conductors of these papers would supply
a very different material.--( Hear.) It had been alleged that
the repeal of these taxes would interfere with vested rights ;
but this he (Dr. B.) denied, and he believed that those con-
nected with newspapers at present would speedily find that so
far from injuring their property, it would marvellously increase
it. He trusted, therefore, that this absurd prejudice on the
part of the newspaper proprietors (who were the least in his con-
sideration) would be at an end, for it was certain that no Go-
vernment nor no people could be injured by the extension of
knowledge, of whatever kind. With these observations, and
trusting that he would shortly see the day when knowledge
would be diffused with that freedom which the demands of the
people required, he begged to submit the resolution to the
consideration of the meeting.--(Loud cheers.)
Mr. HUME rose to second the resolution, amid loud and long-
continued cheering. He had attended the Meeting to assist
in the important object for which the Committee had called
them together. It afforded him great pleasure to support the
excellent resolution which Dr. Birkbeck had proposed, and
and that pleasure was only exceeded by the delight which he
felt on seeing so great an assemblage met together for so laud-
able a purpose as demanding their rights, and the restoration
of those privileges and advantages to which they were entitled,
and which had so long been withheld. Despotism and igno-
rance were so closely allied that those who wished well to their
country would dolall they could to separate them.—( Cheers.)
Why should men be placed in the situation of not knowing
what their rights were, and of knowing the proper mode of
demanding those rights.—( Loud cheering.) Those who
wished for the continuance of such a state of things were only
anxious for the benefit of the few, and not the interest of the
many.—(Cheers.—The institutions of the country at the pre-
sent moment in principle were excellent, but they had been
subverted for the interest only of a few.--(Cheers.) The
country was now awaking from its slumber, and was on the
high road to its regeneration, and if perseverance was con-
tinued, it would be effected. Of taxes he would say nothing;
all present knew very well that they had enough of them._
( Laughter, and cries of " Too much.") If the people of Eng-
land had. not been beasts of burthen, instead of reasoning men,
they never would have allowed such a state of things to exist.
They had met this day for the purpose of attaining such a dif-
fusion of knowledge as was calculated to improve and enlighten
man's reason and to raise him above the brute creation, and by
so doing to enable him not only to estimate his rights, but also
properly to discharge the duties those rights imposed. It was
with that view that he and others had advocated the policy and
justice of removing the taxes on knowledge. It was monstrous
to see a country descended from Great Britain surpass her in
the means of information and the general diffusion of know-
ledge amongst its community. He need scarcely say that he
alluded to America, the smallest town, in which had more
newspapers in circulation than had the metropolis of this great
empire. The people of this country had long been kept in
ignorance, in order that an oligarchy and corrupt Court might
rule over and oppress them, and it was now time for them to
stand forward and say " We have duties imposed upon us and
rights to exercise, let us now have the best information, and by
it be the better enabled to exercise those rights and perform
those duties as citizens in such a manner as will be best cal-
culated to improve the social state of the community to which
we belong." But to return to the state of things in this re-
spect which even now prevailed in America. His Hon. Friend
the Member for Greenock ( Mr. Wallace) had produced before
the House of Commons the newspaper which he (Mr. Hume)
now held in his hand.—[The Hon. Gentleman here produced
and exhibited to the muting an unusually large newspaper,
and thus proceeded :]—Here was a sheet double the size even
of a double Times—( Cries of " Do not mention the Times
here,") which was published daily in America. On a ques-
tion of this kind, one fact was worth a thousand arguments.
This large newspaper was published daily at the price of 1-d.
or at an expense of 10 dols. or 455. per annum, with liberty
to the subscriber to insert an advertisement daily throughout
the year free of expense. Instead of Gs. or 7s. being re-
quired, as in this country, for a single advertisement, in Ame-
rica it would be published for 50 cents, or half a dollar—
( Cheers)—and a newspaper would be sent by post to any part
of the state in which it was published, comprising in this in-
stance no less than 3,000 miles, at the small expense of one
farthing. Compared with this sheet, the productions of Print-
ing-house-square were as nothing, for it contained no less than
1,371 advertisements. (At this moment the noise and con-
fusion outside announced the approach of Mr. O'Connell, who
took his seat upon the platform amidst loud cheers.) Mr.
Ilume proceeded. lie was delighted to witness the reception
which his Hon. and Learned Friend had that day met, for
he was satisfied a very little time longer would remove those
prejudices from the minds of the people which had been at-
tempted to be raised against their true friends, who had been
bold in asserting truth, fearless in enforcing rights, and deter-
mined in their exertions to maintain them. His excellent
friend, Daniel O'Connell, had done all this, and as such at-
tempts which would ever fail were made to blacken and de-
tract from the services he had rendered his country. Ho
apologized for detaining the meeting so long upon a resolu-
tion which could not be objected to, and which he now begged
in conclusion most cordially to recommend to the adoption of
the meeting.
The Rev. Mr. Fox then stood forward to -propose the
second Resolution—" TUat, in the opinion of the present
meeting, if any portion cf this tax be retained, a very nu-