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Untitled Article
class paper . The Inland Revenue office permit the Athenaeum , the Builder , the Lancet , the Law Times , but not the Potteries Free Press . Literature , architecture , medicine , and law , are licensed , but not the poor man ' s politics . I raise no objection on the fact that the aforementioned journals are permitted : I rather rejoice at it . My argument is , that the operative ' s class journal
should be permitted also . The Athenaeum ( always the generous , disinterested , and able advocate of a free , popular press ) thinks that a distinction exists between " news" and " public news . " ! But literary , architectural , and medical occurrences are " public news , " else why are they made "public , " else why do the " public" buy the record , and why does every intelligent public man crave ; the information P " The advocates of
non-taxation" have not raised the question of exclusion—the Commissioners of Inland Revenue have done that , by menacing and proceeding against humble papers for publishing public news without themselves furnishing any parliamentary definition warranting their exclusive interference . The public themselves demand to know whether our press is free so long as it is at the mercy of the decisions of an irresponsible and lawless board sitting at Somerset House .
First , take the point of revenue , and then the point of class definition . The Athenceum , Builder , &c , are taken by many persons instead of newspapers . Persons not caring much about politics , find in the discursive columns of the literary , legal , architectural , and medical journals that which satisfies them . Thus the . Revenue lose their penny stamps , though these classes of persons are ten times better able to pay it than the poor potters of South Staffordshire . Moreover , these persons whom the Inland Revenue might tax did once pay , and could now pay , the tax , while the poor potters never did pay it and never can . The Inland : [ Revenue office could extract
the penny stamp from these classical , and scientific , and professional readers , and not deprive them of any knowledge . This , partial , capricious Office , however , leaves them and pursues the humble and comparatively indigent potters , who are thereby shut out from any knowledge , and kept in ignorance—and the StampOffice" wilfully and knowingly" do this—Mr . Phinri , M . P ., professionally defends it—the existing newspaper pross ( supposed to be tbe friends of the people ) think it right—and an educational Government
permit it . The potters cannot buy a sixpenny paper , nor a threepenny one , nor a twopenny one — they can only buy a penny one . They have no more money to spend in this way ; and Lord John [ Russell , a great constitutional statesman , who makes speeches to Leeds Mechanics' Institution , and Mr . Gladstone , of Oxford University , say the potters shall not have a pennyworth of"
political knowledge—the Inland [ Revenue officers shall prosecute all vendors so long as poor potters cannot pay sixpence . Thus talks a loading Mini . ster of the Crown , and the select representative of a renowned University , to the poor , indigent , knowledge craving operative ; and thus the working classes are taught to roverenco tho magnanimity of learning , woalth , govormnont , and collegiate institutions .
Now , tho Potteries Free Press is a class paper , and so arc , and so must bo , all penny papers . Tho paper which ia read by all classes ( the only proper newspaper ) must contain something lor all clauses ; and no penny paper can do that . Tho threepenny papers cannot do it . It costs more money to set up and sustain a Threepenny stamped paper than a Sixpenny one . One of three things you must have to establish a
threepenny organ — a largo connexion — a highly - popular name , or inexhaustible- funds ; and with nil three conditions , the result in a threepenny paper below the standard of excellence and fuiiiosa of tho higher priced papers . . 'No workman even takes a threepenny paper who can afford a sixpenny one-. The threepenny paper being lower iii tone and fulness than the sixpenny one , the penny paper is more incomplete still . Tim character of tho information it must give will be
peculiar ^ -in fact , class news . That which tho pcnn ^ WmnrJkfrai ^ is not that which the six-]) erift \^ pteWgr » - ^ na-A «( ltieh the gentleman , the ppW ^^ iV- ' ^ ya ^ J ^ t ^^ Erlkdosrnan require-. True , ^ fftn ^ J ^^ ^ f ^ f ^ 0 \ mf ^ it contain something to £ * ^^ j ^ 'fc ^^ ^ ^ ]! cr r * ar noWB l m P » but '' ^^^ Mj ^ hm ^ p ^ i ^^ / m ^ lt > rlion to its class-matter tNj ^ MjP ^ j ^ S ^^ ^ wW ^ yH in tho At hen a inn or ¦ ^ " ^ Effl ^^ fc ^ jl ^^ p / oiHiriil contents of those
journals . Thus , the true class character of operative papers is imposed by the imperative law of their class wants . Court and Parliamentary proceedings I take tobe the purest , and the Athenceumof the 26 th ult . allows them to be the most taxable , departments of political news . Yet the portion of this supremely taxable news a penny journalist would take , would form but a small item in his paper . When the Solicitor of the Board of Inland [ Revenue some time ago declared that the Budget-speech
of the Chancellor of the Exchequer was not news , a , nd the Queen ' s speech was , I published in the Measoner the next Queen ' s speech that was delivered , and tho Stamp Office did not prosecute me ( nor do I desire them to ); but mark the result , —the publication of that speech nearly cost me half my subscribers , who could not imagine how they had incurred such a reprisal . With all respect to Her Majesty , be it said , no unstamped paper could exist if it dealt freely in [ Royal orations .
No one has a higher respect than myself for the House of Commons . I never sympathize with those who underrate its utility , its deliberative sagacity , or its general personal integrity , but really though my own revcrenee for it is such , as to entitle me to a perpetual seat—in the Strangers' Gallery , I could not venture to publish its speeches in any popular periodical unless they
should become a trifle more lively and somewhat more relevant to working men ' s interests . Thus the news which is intrinsically political and taxable , is so little in demand by the readers of an unstamped press , and would be given in such infinitesimal quantities that it would form but the exception to the class matter , just as happens in the journal now exempted by the Board of Inland [ Revenue .
The fact is , since the last acts of Parliament were passed against the popular newspaper press , the article " news" has expanded immensely beyond the Parliamentary definition ; and the Board of Inland [ Revenue itself has been silently compelled to ignore the act . Up to 1836 political news was the staple news—now , literary news , scientific news , architectural news , medical news , fine arts news , legal news , educational news , critical news , social news , temperance news , trade news , commercial news , religious news , colonial news , " diggings" news , mining
news , railway share news , racing news , yachting news , and twenty other kinds of news have sprung into distinct and class prominence . Each class more or Ies 3 paid the stamp-tax indirectly through the newspapers in 1836 , but since then the Commissioners of the Board of Inland Revenue have been obliged insensibly to relax their hold on all these departments of news—they have invented an immense definition called " class" news , and licensed them all under that head—except wokking-class news . They do permit " tho fair trader to be defrauded , " they do permit the stamped newspaper proprietary to have their interests " invaded" by all the
associations and professional classes in the land , able to pay the tax—they exempt the clergyman , they exempt the professor , they exempt the physician , they exempt the lawyer ,, they exempt the artist , they exempt the architect ; each of theso gentlemen may have his class newspaper—tho Inland . Revenue officers only hunt up tho potters of South Staffordshire , or tho indigent operatives of our largo towns . As Mr . Washington Wilkn n ; iid at tho lato working-class meeting at tho National Hall , at the founding of the " l < Yee-Press Union , " the " Government pass by the rich man ' s flocks and herds , and seize upon the poor man ' s single lamb . "
Political news , which the Parliament had in view to tax , ia now only a fragment of that news which the Stamp OfKco " licences , and if the stamp be retained at all , it ought to become not a professed tax on news , but on price , and ought to be confined l , o tlio fivepenny and sixpenny papers , whose respectability it might thereby secure . The taxes on knowledge have no effect now but thatof preventing tho diffusion of knowledge and lowering the tone of the on tiro press , by withholding the purifying element of intellectual competition .
Hero I close my argument . Tho fiscal question is at the bottom of the trial between the Government and the People . Neither the spirit of the law—nor the letter of tho law—nor the imaginary intentions of bygone legislatures nor indefinable distinctions between news and public
news , constitute the root of the Inland [ Revenue proceedings . It is probable that neither the Government nor the Commissioners are unfriendly to a popular press . Their practical enquiries are—Does the revenue suffer—has the existing stamped newspaper interest a right to complain if we allow unstamped penny newspapers ? Those who look below the surface , will see that the Potteries Free Press was no infringement of the [ Revenue , and the Stamp Office ought to knowit . That humble paper , under present fiscal
restrictions , cannot exist at all—no working man ' s newspaper can without extraneous aid . The present writer collected the largest subscription to sustain the aforesaid Free Press . All the ingenuity in the potteries cannot make it pay , for sufficient subscribers cannot be got under existing legal difficulties . If postal transmission at one penny per copy were granted to the unstamped press to-morrow , the working-class could not use it . The extra penny would raise the price too high . The working-man , therefore , waits the permission of Parliament to have printed for him such class news as he wants ,
he waits the repeal of the excise duty on paper which will enable him to be served cheaper , and he waits the creation of new machinery by vendors for the prompter transmission of his paper —till then his penny newspaper is impossible , and the late assertion made by the Inland [ Revenue Office , and reiterated by Mr . Henry , at Bowstreet , that the operatives' penny paper defrauds the [ Revenue , or is an injustice to the stamped press , is false in fact , is a crime against knowledge , and a reproach to the Commissioners who make it , to the Magistrate who believes it , and the Government who enforce it .
As one allied to the working-classes , not by hypothesis but in fact , I thank you , Sir , Mr . Cobden , Mr . Scholefield , of Birmingham , and all your Parliamentary colleagues friendly to the freedom of the working man ' s press , for the efforts you are making in the face of misrepresentations , unpleasant to bear and troublesome to refute , for the sake of the many who can only repay you in bai-ren thanks . I nave , Sir , the honour to be , Your obedient servant ,
Geo . Jacob Holyoake Woburn-builtlings , Huston-square , London , April 8 th , 1853 .
Untitled Article
"A STRANGER" IN PARLIAMENT . When , on Thursday afternoon , on my way to my favourite public amusement , I was walking in the spring sun through the St . James ' s Park , and heard tho small guns about there firing away , in great rejoicing in honour of the happy event in the adjoining Palace , where , in consequence of all that firing , a new and limited pair of lungs must have been at that moment getting into rapid play , I was mentally summing up , for historical purposes , what in Parliament had been the business of tho week so far , and what it was likely to be . I remembered , in tho first place , that Lord
John Russell , volunteer and untieleted pilot to weather the calm , had on Monday placed "before the country an elaborate statement of the gross ignorance , chaotic in assize intelligence , of tho musses of tho people , and tho consequent necessity of a large measure of education . I remembered , in tho second place , that tho greater portion of-the evening of Tuesday had been occupied in discussions upon the admitted corruption of the British electoral body , and tho consequent perplexity Parliament will be placed in when , having- declared every seat void , its only alternative is either to issue an " as you were , " in tho shape of new writs , or , by
consenting to commissions , to prepare- for an inevitable measure of univerail disfranchiHement . I remembered , in tho third place , that tho Wednesday sitting of the House of Commons had been monopolised by a discussion of the best legislative means of chocking tho increasing British custom of brutally beating wives . I remembered , iu the fourth place , the notico Sir Benjamin Hall hud given of his intention to introduce a discussion which , in ofleet , was io decide whether the last of the 1 ' ercies , recently First Lord of
the Admiralty , had or had not Bold " tho service" political purposes , and further , whether his friend and Secretary , also one of tho English chivulric cIiishcs , had not , in regard to the transaction , wilfully told the inquiring Senate a—falsehood . Lastly , 1 called to mind that the House of Lords , that tuimo evening , was to agitato tho question of Indian Government , and to inquire whether it wiu truo Unit the capitalist classes really do , us alleged , vend tho interests of 150 , 000 , 000 of conquered and plundered people for tho jjroutor or less interest on tho invested principal for the buying
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352 THE READER . j ^ TtmgAY ^
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), April 9, 1853, page 352, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1981/page/16/
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