The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1838-05-01 00:00:00

TUESDAY MORNING, MAY 1, 1838.

nr. The Publication of the STANDARD commenced this morn-

ing at 5 o'clock.

KINGSTON, JAMAICA.—We have received Kingston
papers arrived in Liverpool this day, per Charlotte from
Jamaica, up to the 12th March, inclusive. They do not
contain any matters of importance or interest.

POSTOFFICE REFORM.—We have in another column
given a brief report of the meeting held on Friday last
in favour of Postoffice Reform. As we expected, we find
that men of all shades of political opinion cordially con-
cue in their views on this important subject. Against
such a general concurrence of public opinion it will be
in vain for Government or the Postoffice authorities to
contend much longer. A sweeping reform of the whole
system must speedily take place, and we do not suppose
that much difficulty will be found in providing a scheme
which, while it is of equal benefit to the revenue, will be
productive of incalculable good to the community at
large.

Among the greatest of the evils which an equalization
of the rates of postage will contribute to remove is, un-
doubtedly, the flagrant and almost universal evasion of
the impost to which the present high rates of postage
have given rise. We confess that we have been not a
little astonished at the extent to which evasion has been
carried. From the evidence produced before the Post-
office Committee we learn that it is a general practice to
send letters by the various carriers between one town
and another, as well as by the steam-packets which ply
between one part of the kingdom and another, and that
i❑ numbers far exceeding those conveyed by the mails.

Of C(.11-Ne,
' rkitnt:ss stated tltat be knew mercantile and nanufaotur-
ing houses which sent circulars in a clandestine manner
to the number of 30, 40, and 50 daily throughout the
year. From this it must be obvious that the revenue
suffers an incalculable loss by the habitual evasion of the
postage. It is equally evident that, if the rate' of post-
age were reduced to one penny, no temptation woad
offer to induce parties to avoid the impost. It would be
impossible to procure the delivery of letters for less than
a penny, whilst the greater certainty of safe delivery by
the Postoffice would cause every one to give preference
to that medium, rather than trust a common carrier.
With respect to the plan for carrying on the business
of the Postoffice under an improved system it is not ne-
cessary for us to say much. The public are already in
possession of Mr. Rowland Hill's plan, which appears to
us, under certain modifications, to be the most feasible
that has been yet suggested. Its simplicity- is its chief
recommendation. According to his plan all letters will
be, in fact, postpaid before they are put into the Post-
office at all. The distinctive mark upon the paper will
frank it to any distance. The tedious procesS of stamp-'
ing and marking letters will be avoided, and the time oe--
' cupied in delivery evil' be considerably abridged, as the.
carriers will not be under the necessity of waiting for"
payment, as they do at present, in nine cases out of ten.
As, however, the present revenue from the Postoffice
can only be sustained by an increase to the extent or
six or seven times the present number of letters, it
must follow that a proportionate augmentation of clerks,
sorters, &c. must take place in the various departments"
of .the Postoffice. Nor must we forget that the convey-
ance of the mails will be somewhat more expensive than
atvpresent. But the increased expenditure, we are con-
fident, will be found•to be much less than might, at first.
sight, be apprehended. Much time, is at present con-
sumed in stamping the letters, as,well as in marking the
postage. The saving which Mr. Rowland Hill's plan
would effect in the time of the. Postoffice clerks would
almost of itself suffice for the extra labour of sorting.
Then as to the increased cost of conveyance, it is a well
known fact that by far the larger share of expense is at
present caused by the great number of newspapers which
pass through the Postoffice, and that the proportion in-
curred on account of the unfranked letters is, in reality,
little more than a tenth of the whole. It is, therefore,
obvious that an immense increase in the number of. let-
ters would cause very little difference in the expence of
transit.

The question of Postoffice Reform is one of urgent'
necessity. There cannot, therefore, be any cause why
the Chancellor of the Exchequer should hesitate about
the introduction of Mr. Rowland Hill's plan, not as a
temporary experiment, but as a practical and permanent
substitute for the present system. We think that the
evidence brought before the committee proves to demon-
stration the futility of apprehending any decrease in the
revenue, especially as that evidence is so distinctly cor-
roborated by the eminent mercantile men who have at
various public meetings given utterance to their opinions
on the subject.

We are glad to find that the press generally advocates
this important reform. It is much better, surely, to deal
with such practical grievances, with a view to their re-
moval, than to be tinkering our unrivalled constitution,
and deluding the public, 'as our radical contemporarie,
are wont to do, with profitless speculations on universal
suffrage and vote by ballot.

NEWSPAPER STAMPY.—A parliamentary return has
just been published, showing the number of newspaper
stamps issued during the year prior to the reduction or
the stamp duty, and for the year and six month since the
reduction took place. the return (which we subjoin)
also gives the number of newspapers published and the
amount of duty paid for stamps, in the years ending Sep-
tember 15, 1836 and 1837, and the half-year ending
March 15, 1838, distinguishing the number of stamps
issued to, and the amount of duty paid by, the London,
English provincial, Irish, and Scottish newspapers re-
spectively. The following are the details:—

YEAR ENDING SEPT. 15, 1836.
11,0.- of newspapers. Stnaps.issd. Ana;. duty.
London Newspapers.... 71 19,241,640 256,556 0 D.
English Provincial ditto 194 8,535,396 113,804 16 0
Scotch ditto 54 2,654,438 35,392 JO 2
Irish ditto 78 5,144,382 37,525 2 0

397 35,576,050 443,278 8 2'
YEAR ENDING SEPT. 15, 1837.
No. of newspapers. Stnaps. issd. Atnt. duty.
£. s. D.
London Newspapers.... 83 29,172,797 121,553 6 5
English Provincial ditto 237 14,996,113 62,483 16 1
Scotch V ditto 65 4,12.3.330 17,180 10 10
Irish ditto 71 5,203,967 16,263 311

458 53,4,27
HALF-YRAII ENDING MARCH 9615,0
1838217,480 1.7 3.
No. of newspapers. Stinps.issd. Amtduty.
London Newspapers.... 86 14,438,550 60,160 13 0
English Provincial ditto 223 7.366,842 30,695 3 6
Scotch ditto 66 2,216,400 9,235 0 0
Irish ditto 62 2,620,187 8,197 8 5

437 26,641,979 108,288 4 IL
The above table presents some curious results. It was
confidently predicted, when the question was agitated in
Parliament, that the loss sustained by the reduction of

the stamp duty would be more than compensated for by
the increase which would take place in the circulation of
newspapers. We recollect that this was a favourite ar-
gument in the mouths of the cheap knowledge patriots.
What has been the result ? The reduction of the stamp
duty came into operation on the 15th of September,
1836. During the last year of the old regime, the total
number of newspapers in Great Britain and Ireland was
397. The revenue arising from this source amounted to
£443,278 for the year. In the following year, ending
Sept. 15, 1837, being the figs year after the reduction
took place, the increase in the number of journals was,
London, 14; English Provincial, 43; Scottish, 11 :—an
increase of about a-fifth in each class. Instead of an in-
crease in the Irish journals, we find that they were ac-
tually diminished by eleven. The diminution in the re-
venue was more than one half, the year's duty amounting
only to £217,480.
On the 15th of Marsh last we find that the London
journals were increased by 1 ; the English Provincial
diminished by 14 ; the Scottish increased by 1 ; and the.
Irish still further diminished by 9 ; making a total de-
crease for Ireland, since the reduction of the duty, of 16
journals, or nearly one-fifth of the whole. This great
diminution may be accounted for in various ways. In
the first place, it should be remembered that while the'
reduction of the duty in England and Scotland was from,
threepence one-fifth of a penny, the reduction in Ireland'
was only about lid., the duty on Irish newspapers hav-
ing been formerly 2d, and being now Id. The effect of
the reduction was, therefore, to equalise the price of
English and Irish newspapers, and, in consequence, to.
introduce a far greater number of English newspapers
into Ireland than in previous years, under the old sys
tem. This substitution of English for Irish papers must:

have very materially affected the circulation of the lat—
ter. Hence we find that, while the increase in therturn,
her of stamps issued to the English and Scottish papers,
for the year ending September 15, 1837, was--London,,
9,931,157; English Provincial, 6,460,717 ;, Scottish,
1,468,892; the increase in the circulation of the Irish
papers was only 59,585.

The total increase in the number of journals under the
new measure is 40, a much smaller proportion than the
advocates of the reduction included in their calculations-
On the increase of the circulation we find the following.
sensible remarks in the Scottish Guardian :
" The increase in the support of existing journals does not
amount to anything like what was expected to be the result of
the reduction. Including the stamps issued to the new journals
which have been continued, and the mushroom journals which
have been suppressed, the whole stamps issued in 1837 were
53,-120,207, being only 17,920,151 more than in 1836; and the
returns for the first half of the current year indicate a consider-
able falling-off in this number. It was anticipated from the
reduction of the stamp-duty that the number of newspapers
would be greatly increasad; in Ireland they are on the decrease,
i
and the addition to the number in England and Scotland s
perfectly trivial compared to the expectations entertained of the
effects of the measure. It was anticipated that the increase of
circulation should be trebled at least; it is not nearly doubled
it was anticipated that the deficiency in the revenue would Jll
some measure be compensated by the increased circulation 0
the journals; the deficiency is enormous, and the Chancellor of
the Exchequer has published the fact at this particular season