CHAPTER XVIII.

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THE GREAT EXHIBITION OF 1851-ITS EFFECTS UPON THE NEWSPAPERS CHARLES KNIGHT'S PROJECT-THE STAMP AND ADVERTISEMENT DUTIES—A COMMITTEE OF THE HOUSE OF COMMONS APPOINTED TO CONSIDER THEM-ITS REPORTMILNER GIBSON, COBDEN, HUME, AND EWART-A SERIES OF RESOLUTIONS PROPOSED THE ADVERTISEMENT DUTY CONDEMNED A NEW QUESTION RAISED THE QUESTION TRIED- -SEPARATE RETURNS OF STAMPS ORDERED GIANT GROWTH OF THE TIMES -THE RUSSIAN WAR-THE TIMES IN THE FIELD-WILLIAM HOWARD RUSSELL-THE MORNING HERALD -MR. WOODS -LORD RAGLAN AND THE PRESS-HIS PRIVATE LETTER TO THE DUKE OF NEWCASTLE-THE DUKE'S CIRCULAR THE ARMY SAVED BY THE PRESSUNSTAMPED WAR PAPERS OF 1852-THE STAMP DUTY AGAIN ATTACKEDTOTTERING TO A FALL-SIR EDWARD BULWER LYTTON, BART.-DUFFY AND MIALL-HENRY DRUMMOND'S REMARKABLE SPEECH-THE NEWSPAPER STAMP NO LONGER COMPULSORY-PROVISIONS OF THE NEW ACT-EFFECTS OF THE ABOLITION-RELATIVE STANDING OF THE WIDEST CIRCULATED PAPERSNEWSPAPERS IN CAMBRIAN-COMPARATIVE SCALES OF CHARGES FOR ADVERTISEMENTS ENORMOUS AMOUNTS ANNUALLY SPENT IN THEM.

THE opening of the Great Exhibition of the Industry of all Nations afforded plenty of material for a time for the London and provincial newswriters. Monster supplements and extra numbers were issued to keep pace with the curiosity of the public, who wanted to know all about the goingson of the huge glass beehive, as well as a detailed account of its contents. The absorbing interest attaching to the subject raised the circulation of every newspaper for the time it lasted: but, from the very nature of its plan, of course the Illustrated London News-which could convey to the mind's eye of country cousin all that her London correspondent had been seeing in the week-derived the greatest benefit.

The time was seized by Charles Knight, the publisher of the "Penny Magazine" and the "Penny Cyclopædia," to put to the test a novel experiment in newspaper production. By taking off its outer sheet and substituting another, his paper could be transformed from a London to a country paper. The internal sheets were to contain all the general news, so arranged that the country printer need only to add a sheet outside with his local title, news, and advertisements, and he produced a first class paper. The new journal came out under the title of Charles Knight's Weekly Newspaper, but it proved a failure.

The subject of the Stamp and Advertisement Duties had now again begun to be ventilated in the House of Commons. It was proved that the Advertisement Duty hung like a millstone around the neck of the Press and clogged the wheels of commercial enterprise: for while, the duty being at three shillings, there had only been seven or eight hundred thousand published annually, now, with the duty at eighteenpence, there were 2,334,593. The revenue, too, derived from this source, which, before 1833, was £170,000 per annum, was now £157,000: so that the revenue had only lost a thirteenth part whilst the duty had been reduced one-half. And it was so rapidly recovering from the shock, that there could be little doubt of its not only getting back to its former amount, but even exceeding it in a few years.

The final campaign was now approaching which was to remove the last badge from the Press, and to shiver to pieces the die which the Government of Queen Anne had moulded for stamping it. On the 21st of March, 1850, Lord Brougham and Earl Fitzwilliam had presented petitions, numerously signed, in favour of the repeal of both the Stamp and Advertisement Duties: and, on the 7th of May, Mr. Ewart had moved, and Mr. Gibson seconded, a resolution, that "It is expedient that the Advertisement Duty be repealed." This, however, was negatived by 208

votes against 39. The time was not yet come, but it was coming fast, and new and vigorous champions were heralding its approach and preparing the way for the final triumph. There were Mr. Milner Gibson, with his stout backer, Mr. Ewart, the member for Walsall; and Cobden and Bright, with a dislike to duties in general, ever ready to oppose this one in particular and to answer the call of Milner Gibson.

The Press was agitating the question, and the Timesthen itself paying £66,000 a-year for stamps-seemed willing to risk the competition, and hailed the prospective advent of a free and cheap press.

At length, on the 7th of April, 1851, Mr. Gibson got a Committee appointed by the House, and ordered to consider the subject, with ample power for calling witnesses and taking evidence, upon which we find the names of the abolition party predominant. This Committee sat seventeen days, and examined twenty-three witnesses: amongst whom were Mr. Mowbray Morris, the manager of the Times; Mr. F. Knight Hunt, the sub-editor of the Daily News; Mr. Michael James Whitty, the editor and proprietor of the Liverpool Journal; Mr. Alexander Russel, the editor of the Scotsman; Mr. T. Keogh, the Assistant Secretary, and Mr. Timm, the Solicitor, to the Board of Inland Revenue; Mr. Rowland Hill, &c. The decision at which this Committee arrived was favourable to the repeal, and the closing paragraph of their Report sums up the ground on which they came to it:-"In conclusion, your Committee considers it their duty to direct attention to the objections and abuses incident to the present system of newspaper stamps, arising from the difficulty of defining and determining the meaning of the term 'news:' to the inequalities which exist in the Newspaper Stamp Act, and the anomalies and evasions that it occasions in postal arrangements: to the unfair competition to which stamped newspapers are exposed with unstamped publica

tions to the limitation imposed by the stamp upon the circulation of the best newspapers: and to the impediments which it throws in the way of the diffusion of useful knowledge, regarding current and recent events, among the poorer classes, and which species of knowledge, relating to subjects which most obviously interest them, calls out the intelligence by awakening the curiosity of those classes. Apart from fiscal considerations, they do not consider that news is, of itself, a desirable object of taxation."*

In his evidence before the Committee, Mr. Knight Hunt broached the subject of the copyright of news. He suggested that the newspaper proprietor, who kept up a large staff of correspondents all over the world, and, by the aid of special trains, special steamers, and special messengers, at enormous expense and with the greatest pains and enterprise expressed the news they had to relate, and by day and night worked it up for his readers' information, should have some vested right in that news, and have it secured to him as his property for at least a certain number of hours. He did not claim copyright for police reports, or mere ordinary news, but only for that brought from afar at a fabulous cost, but which could be stolen by a penny paper, and given to the public in two hours after its publication, the original proprietor being thus deprived of the just and honest reward of his enterprise. But this was merely incidental.

Truth to tell, the Stamp Duties were getting into a sad state of confusion again; and it was hard to tell-for lawyers and judges disagreed-what was a newspaper, according to law.

By way of supplement to his "Household Words," Mr. Dickens had been publishing, unmolested, a monthly "Narrative" or summary of public events. At length,

Reports of Committees, Session 1851, vol. xvii.

the Commissioners of Stamps, guided by their legal advisers, demanded that this publication should be stamped as a newspaper. The demand was resisted by Messrs. Bradbury and Evans, the publishers, and, in November, 1851, the question was brought to an issue in the Court of Exchequer, when three of the judges ruled that the "Narrative" was not liable to the stamp duty, whilst one was of opinion that it was. The Attorney-General and SolicitorGeneral, and the leading Counsel of the Board of Inland Revenue, also protested that the paper should be stamped. This uncertain state of the law was made a subject of conversation in the House of Commons on the 22d of April, 1852, in the course of a motion for the repeal of the paper duties, made by Mr. Milner Gibson, and seconded by Mr. Ewart; and, ultimately, a motion was founded on it, on the 12th of May, that the newspaper stamp duty should be abolished. The Chancellor of the Exchequer opposed it purely upon financial grounds, as not to be spared in the state of revenue at the time; and the motion was lost by 199 votes to 100.* A subsequent motion that the tax upon advertisements should be repealed was also negatived by 181 votes to 116.

The simple way of cutting the Gordian knot being rejected, the next Chancellor of the Exchequer, Mr. Disraeli, got leave, on the 6th of December, 1852, to bring in a Bill which should exclude, beyond a possibility of doubt or dispute, all monthly periodicals from the pressure of the Stamp Act; but the ministry of Lord Derby falling shortly afterwards, the Bill fell to the ground.

On the 14th of March, 1853, Gibson, Hume, and Cobden again urged the repeal of the Stamp Act upon the new Government, but, getting no pledge or even promise of it, Mr. Gibson, on the 14th of April, moved three separate * Hansard's Parliamentary Debates," vol. cxx. (Third Series), pp.

983-1028.

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