To all appearance, the abolition of the taxes on the spread of
knowledge through the press is only a matter of time. The principal of
these taxes is the Excise-duty on paper, which, as we have repeatedly
urged, acts most detrimentally on the issue of a cheap class of
publications. The duty next in importance is that which is charged on
advertisements. Our belief is, that a relief from this taxation would
be a prodigious advantage to all departments of trade and commerce, as
well as to various social interests. That the sum of eighteenpence
should be exacted by the state from every person--a poor housemaid,
for example--on advertising for a situation, is, to say the least of
it, inexpressibly shabby. The stamp-duty of one penny on each
newspaper is reckoned to be the third of these taxes on knowledge.
There can be no doubt that this duty is a tax, as applied to those
newspapers which circulate in a locality without going through the
post-office; but, as matters stand, we are inclined to think that much
the larger proportion of newspapers, metropolitan and provincial,
actually are posted, either by the publishers, or by parties sending
their copies to be read at second-hand. It is not quite clear that the
remission of the stamp-duty would be an entire gain; for a postage of
a penny in sending to second, third, and fourth readers--each fresh
hand requiring to adhibit a fresh postage label--might come to a very
much more severe tax than the existing stamp. Much, however, can be
said on both sides; and we desire to let each party state its own
case.
The _British Quarterly Review_, in an able article on the Newspaper
Stamp and its proposed abolition, argues for that measure on one
particular ground--namely, its certain result in allowing of the
existence of small local papers. The writer says: 'Take the _Leeds
Mercury_, the _Manchester Guardian_, or the _Manchester Examiner_, for
example--all first-class papers, of the largest size allowed by law,
and all giving four-page supplements once a week. In spite of their
immense size, there is not one of these journals which can give a
faithful weekly record of all that is worthy of note in the forty or
fifty towns and villages by which they are surrounded, and through
which these papers circulate. An attempt, indeed, is made to give as
many "Town-Council Meetings," "Board of Guardian Proceedings,"
"Temperance Demonstrations," and "Meetings of Rate-payers"--with a due
mixture of change-ringings, friendly anniversaries, elections of
church-wardens, elections of town-councillors, elections of guardians,
offences, accidents, and crimes--as can be crammed, by rapid
abridgment, into a certain number of columns. But after all has been
done in this way that the most skilful and industrious editor, aided
by the most indefatigable sub-editor, can accomplish, or that any
reasonable newspaper reader in any of the smaller towns could possibly
require, there still remains a great number of equally important
events, which are necessarily left unnoticed altogether by the mammoth
journal, for sheer want of space, or given in a form so much abridged
as to render them of little or no value. The people of Oldham are
perhaps waiting with intense anxiety for a long and amusing account of
the "Extraordinary Scene" at the last meeting of the board of poor-law
guardians; or those of Ashton are looking forward with equal interest
to Saturday's paper, for a report of the animated debate in the
town-council on the proposed increase of two policemen for that
borough; or perhaps the news-agents of Rochdale, in anticipation of a
brisk demand, have ordered twice the usual number of papers because of
a church-rate contest, in which the vicar has been beaten by an
overwhelming majority. But the columns of the _Manchester Guardian_,
though nearly double what they were twenty years ago, are not made of
India rubber; and therefore, much as the editor may wish to give all
due latitude to Ashton, Bolton, Bury, Middleton, Oldham, Rochdale,
Stockport, or Wigan news, he is generally forced, by the pressure of
advertisements, or some other equally potent cause, to compress
everything within the narrowest limits. Whatever interest a piece of
district news may possess in its own locality, it must not be allowed
to encroach upon the space belonging to "the general reader," who buys
nine-tenths of every newspaper, and who does not care a farthing for
Rochdale or Ashton news, unless when it happens to be a very horrid
murder, or an exceedingly destructive fire. Were the stamp-duty
abolished, the large town papers would be relieved from all the
drudgery and annoyance attendant upon this department of editorial
work. There would no longer be any necessity for devoting six or eight
closely-printed columns of the paper to local news, which are not read
by one-twentieth part of those who purchase it. Each small town in
Lancashire and Yorkshire, as well as elsewhere, would have its penny
or twopenny newspaper, in which local news, local politics, and local
talent, would have fair play; while large papers, like the _Manchester
Guardian_ or the _Leeds Mercury_, would be greatly improved by the
change. They would be enabled to substitute good readable matter,
literary or political, of which there is always abundance, for the
very dull stuff which they are now obliged to give under the head of
"District News." By this improvement in character, and by the
reduction of price, in such papers as we have named, from 5d. to
3-1/2d., their circulation would be greatly increased, in spite of the
number of penny and twopenny papers which would then supply the demand
for news among that numerous portion of the working-classes who cannot
afford such a luxury at present.'
Such is a fair statement of certain advantages to be derived from the
abolition of the penny stamp, and the substitution of the penny label.
The advocates of the stamp-duty allege that, while the foregoing line
of argument may be perfectly valid, something, on the contrary, is due
to the advantage of having well-supported metropolitan newspapers as
centres of intelligence. These newspapers, say some of their
publishers, are put to vast expense for early news, foreign and
domestic; such news they at present permit every one freely to copy;
but, if a host of small country papers are to spring up, piracy of
this kind will no longer be tolerated. As newspapers go pretty much on
the principle of giving and taking in the way of intelligence, any
tendency to prosecute on the ground of piracy would, in all
probability, soon cure itself; and, therefore, we would not greatly
rely on this as a reason for maintaining an exclusiveness in the
business of newspaper publication. A more serious argument against the
creation of a host of cheap local papers, is the probable
dissemination of much petty scandal, and matter of a partially
libellous or offensive character; at the least, much bad writing.
Supposing, however, that there is a chance of literature being thus to
a certain extent deteriorated, it will not do to oppose an
improvement, if it be such, from fears of this nature. Should the
matter treated of in small local papers be sometimes of an
objectionable character, the public taste will surely go far towards
its correction; and why should not each provincial town have an
opportunity of educating writers up to the proper degree of literary
accomplishment? It is undeniable, that small towns stand in pressing
need of local channels for advertisements, and here, we think, is
their strongest ground. How much more important, in a town of 5000
inhabitants, that the principal mercer should have his fresh arrival
of goods advertised in a paper which circulates 500 copies in that
town, than in some county-town journal which sends to it only some
thirty or forty copies! A sale of growing crops must, in like manner,
be much more effectually advertised in a paper which circulates
largely in a small district, than in one which is diffused sparsely
over a large one. All this, indeed, is amply proved by the tendency
which has been shewn of late years, in Scotland at least, to set up
unstamped monthly local papers containing advertisements, and by the
comparative success which these journals have met with.
Among the arguments for such arrangements as would promote the sale of
newspapers, we see little or no stress laid upon the _educational_,
which to us appears as the very strongest of all. The interest felt in
the occurrences of the passing day is one of the most vigorous of all
intellectual appetences. Give a man ready access to a journal in which
this taste can be gratified, and his intellectual progress is certain.
The utterly uneducated, seeing the pleasure which his fellows derive
from the paper, will desire to learn to read, that he may enjoy the
like pleasure. The man just able to read will be drawn on to reflect
and judge, and in time he will desire intellectual food from books
also. The cheap newspaper thus becomes a most powerful instrument for
nursing the popular mind; and, if we consider how essential it is,
where there are free institutions, that the bulk of the people should
be enlightened, we must see what a great public end is to be served by
this simple means. A place in the apparatus is, we think, rightly
claimed by the small local newspaper, as a kind of A B C, or _first
form_, where the young and untutored mind may be entered by way of
preparation for higher studies.