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    Untitled Article

    Out of the Cabinet Lord Howick is also for the abolition . The Marquis of Lansdown , and Lord Palmerston belong to the party

    of the resistance ; hut it is well known , that the opposition from any of the ministers was so faint , that a person in the position of the Chancellor of the Exchequer , expressing a strong opinion that the stamp duty ought not to be retained , would have decided the question for the people . Is it not incredible that this power should have fallen , even for an instant , into the

    hands of any one man , and that man one anxious to identify himself with the liberal party , and yet , that it should not have been instantly employed to secure , for ever , the most essential of all the rights of freemen ? Yet such is the fact . Mr . Spring * Rice had the power of giving to England a free press , and withheld it .

    The reasons upon which the Chancellor of the Exchequer professes to have acted , are set forth in a pamphlet which , we are informed , is the joint production of Mr . Mudie , and Mr . Charles Knight , the publisher . The first argument urged by these gentlemen is the following . " It is better to have compa-#

    ratively few national journals , than an immense multitude of merely local newspapers . " This might be granted ; but it is better still to have both . There is , however , a large class of persons for whom it is more important that there should be newspapers containing mere local information , than journals filled with intelligence of a general kind . We refer to the more ignorant class , the inhabitants of small villages ; who , if ever they begin to read , must read something which they can understand , and nothing but the politics of their own neighbourhood will excite , at first , any definite interest in

    their minds . The advantage of having no stamp would be , that there might he penny newspapers of this character , paying all expenses with a moderate circulation ; but it is quite preposterous to suppose that such journals would impede the circulation of newspapers of a higher character , which would be bought for the 111-ost part by a totally different class of readers . The fact is , the more local journals are read , the more what are termed national journals * will also be read , and for a very simple reason ;—little things lead to great . Agricultural labourers , who begin to read about the affairs of their own parish , bye and bye will take an interest in

    • It is asserted that ministers arei scarcel y strong enough to carry even a reduction of tlm stainj > duty ; and that some compromise with the enemies of the press is , therefore , necessary . Thin is a mero delusion . Those avIio would vote uguiust the abolition would also vote against the reduction of the stamp . If the one can l > e carried , so mi < jfht the other . . Xotliint ^ is to he feared from the Lords . The Bill ^ oes to them as a money Bill affecting ^ ererul taxes to the amount of 6 , 000 , 000 / . Strictly speak ini >\ there ar <» no natitmal jouruate . Two thirds of the space , ( upon un average ) , of London newspapers is filled with local intelligence of no interest to persons not resident in the metropolis .

    Untitled Article

    260 Moral Interest * of the Productive Classes .

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), April 2, 1836, page 260, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2656/page/68/