If the "taxes on knowledge" mean the stamp duty, the paper duty, and the
advertisement duty, they seem to me to be unnecessarily confounded, and
unfairly too.
I have already declined to sign a petition for the removal of the stamp
duty on newspapers. I think the reduced duty is some protection to the
public against the rash and hasty launching of blackguard newspapers. I
think the newspapers are made extremely accessible to the poor man at
present, and that he would not derive the least benefit from the
abolition of the stamp. It is not at all clear to me, supposing he wants
_The Times_ a penny cheaper, that he would get it a penny cheaper if the
tax were taken off. If he supposes he would get in competition two or
three new journals as good to choose from, he is mistaken; not knowing
the immense resources and the gradually perfective machinery necessary
to the production of such a journal. It appears to me to be a fair tax
enough, very little in the way of individuals, not embarrassing to the
public in its mode of being levied, and requiring some small
consideration and pauses from the American kind of newspaper projectors.
Further, a committee has reported in favour of the repeal, and the
subject may be held to need no present launching.
The repeal of the paper duty would benefit the producers of periodicals
immensely. It would make a very large difference to me, in the case of
such a journal as "Household Words." But the gain to the public would be
very small. It would not make the difference of enabling me, for
example, to reduce the price of "Household Words," by its fractional
effect upon a copy, or to increase the quantity of matter. I might, in
putting the difference into my pocket, improve the quality of the paper
a little, but not one man in a thousand would notice it. It _might_
(though I am not sure even of this) remove the difficulties in the way
of a deserving periodical with a small sale. Charles Knight holds that
it would. But the case, on the whole, appeared to me so slight, when I
went to Downing Street with a deputation on the subject, that I said (in
addressing the Chancellor of the Exchequer) I could not honestly
maintain it for a moment as against the soap duty, or any other pressing
on the mass of the poor.
The advertisement duty has this preposterous anomaly, that a footman in
want of a place pays as much in the way of tax for the expression of his
want, as Professor Holloway pays for the whole list of his miraculous
cures.
But I think, at this time especially, there is so much to be considered
in the necessity the country will be under of having money, and the
necessity of justice it is always under, to consider the physical and
moral wants of the poor man's home, as to justify a man in saying: "I
must wait a little, all taxes are more or less objectionable, and so no
doubt are these, but we must have some; and I have not made up my mind
that all these things that are mixed up together _are_ taxes on
knowledge in reality."
Kate and Georgy unite with me in kindest and heartiest love to dear Mrs.
Macready. We are always with you in spirit, and always talking about
you. I am obliged to conclude very hastily, being beset to-day with
business engagements. Saw the lecture and was delighted; thought the
idea admirable. Again, loves upon loves to dear Mrs. Macready and to
Miss Macready also, and Kate and all the house. I saw ---- play (O
Heaven!) "Macbeth," the other night, in three hours and fifty minutes,
which is quick, I think.
Ever and always affectionately.
[Sidenote: Mr. J. Crofton Croker.]