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Untitled Article
burden of taxation . The Reform Bill , by which Ministers have nobly redeemed their pledges , and earned the hearty support of all good men , will give them that . The House will not be identified with the public , but the public will be , or at least may be , the strongest party in it . Barnabas , And ultimately ? Ebion Adamson . Their intelligence will be extended , and their prejudices corrected . The Bill might have been called , A Bill for Amending the National Character .
Barnabas . But will not elections still be scenes of disorder ? Will not votes still be influenced by corrupt motives ?
Ebion Adamson . No doubt . For a while they will be bad enough ; and we shall probably be driven to the ballot at last . But the influence which sustained itself upon the ignorance and degradation of the people will sink under the defeat it has experienced . On the hustings , in the House , and through the press , men of talent and principle will have stronger motives and larger opportunities for conveying sound instruction to the public mind . The taxes on knowledge , as they have been very properly called , must be promptly and totally repealed .
Elhanan . As they ought to be . The press , like every thing else in this country , is a monopoly . Capitalists speculate in opinions . They watch the market . They send forth the arguments for which there is a demand , and which will bring the largest returns . Ebion Adamson .
The newspaper press , you mean . Ministers must double their proposed reduction of the stamp duty , at least . We may then hope to rival the French papers . They surpass us shamefully now .
Caleb . The wonderful power of our periodical press might certainly be turned to better account .
Ebion Adamson . It must . Scarcely any moral or even intellectual use has yet been made by us of this great machinery . Political and commercial intelligence , and mere amusement , are the chief objects aimed at . All professions , all sects , all parties , ought to have , not only their quarterly or monthly , but their
weekly or daily organ . Every man who has discoveries to communicate , or principles to inculcate , ought to have facilities for doing so , without being liable to a tax which acts as a prohibition on all who cannot risk hundreds or thousands of pounds . Caleb . A scheme for a Morning Paper knocked up the other day because not more than from fifteen to twenty thousand pounds was subscribed ; and that was not capital enough to make the experiment .
Barnabas . Monstrous ! But do the different bodies of religionists wish for newspapers of their own ? Ebion Adamson . At least in one way ; just as the Church wished for schools when it was
Untitled Article
Ebion Adamson and his Friends . 2 J 5
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), April 2, 1831, page 275, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2596/page/59/
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