§ On the motion of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, the Stamp Duties on Newspapers Bill was read a third time.
§ On the motion of the right hon. Gentleman, the clause relative to distinctive dies was read a first and second time.
§ On the question, that the clause stand part of the Bill,
§ Mr. Wakleydid not rise to oppose this clause, but he objected to any further progress being made with the Bill to-night. The definitions in the Schedules made this Act, which pretended to liberalise the press, worse than any existing law on the subject. If this Bill passed into a law, no remarks or observations on political events in any publication could be made, without subjecting the parties concerned in such publication to heavy penalties. He entreated, therefore, the right hon. Gentleman to let this Bill stand over till to-morrow; or he should oppose the motion.
§ The Chancellor of the Exchequercould not understand how the hon. Member for Finsbury could support the statement which he had just made, that this Bill would, if it passed, render the newspaper law worse than it was at present. Under the existing Jaw, any remarks or observations made on any matters relating to the Church or State, brought the publication in which they appeared within the definition of a newspaper. Now, he had left out those words, and he could not see that this omission made this Act worse than the existing law. It was for the hon. Member to prove that it did, if he meant to justify the opposition he was offering to the Bill, the passing of which, he would observe, it was very important should take place as soon as possible.
§ Mr. Aglionbysaid, that undoubtedly the Bill before the House was a considerable improvement in the existing law; but what he complained of was, that the word "newspaper" was defined to extend to any publication containing any public news, intelligence or occurrences, or any remark or observation thereon. He admitted that the right hon. Gentleman had excluded the words "relating to Church or State," but he had, in common with other hon. Members, certainly misunderstood the right hon. Gentleman on the last occasion when this question was discussed. He did not understand that the right hon. Gentleman intended to fix such limits.
§ The Chancellor of the Exchequerthought, that if they allowed remarks on passing events, it would be hard to say how they could put remarks into a shape that would not be an account of what had taken place, and therefore, unless these words were retained, it would be impossible to have any definition at all.
§ Mr. Walterhad thought it his duty, having some practical knowledge on the subject, to offer his opinion on this measure on its first introduction to the House; but he forbore afterwards to press his opinions, as so many Gentlemen seemed to consider themselves more competent, and better informed on the subject than himself. In this last stage, however, he could not help giving a final glance at the Bill. He thought that the chief motive which had been assigned for so large a reduction of the duty, namely, that there was a class of people who would not pay any duty, a weak and un states man like one. He thought, also, the proposed restriction on 562 the size of so singular a nature, that there must have been some other motive than that which was professed; for the only argument adduced in favour of imposing a double duty on the enlarged sheet was, that there was a kind of double postage; whereas but few, comparatively, of the morning newspapers were sent by the post; and how, consistently with common sense, could a postage be imposed upon those papers which never saw the post? However, considerable concessions had since been made on this head, which did but more clearly prove that there was no necessity for any enactment on that part, of the question. But other gentlemen besides the Government had considered themselves qualified to improve our laws affecting the liberty of the press. One point he supposed might be taken as settled, which was, that every newspaper was to have its separate die. That, of course, would be advantageous to the higher newspapers; it would serve to blazon their superiority: but why did they do this? Let the newspapers do it themselves if they chose; but why should the Government attempt to damp and paralyse the efforts of humbler candidates for public patronage? They might depend upon it, that this disingenuous invention—for it was only such—would disappoint the expectations of those who had planned it. What greater right had they to ascertain and make public the number of customers that a newspaper possessed, than the number of customers that a banker or trader possessed? Another Gentleman wanted to ascertain the number which each paper printed, in order that he might know in which he should advertise. A truly important subject to be sure, to employ the whole force of Government! Would it not be as rational, if he called upon the Government to ascertain the custom of every tailor in London, in order that he might know where he should be best able to procure a coat that would best exhibit the graces of his person? A third Gentleman went further still, for he asserted the journals to be public property, and therefore that the public had a right to know all about them. But though last, not least, came forward a Gentleman who, professing to know a great deal more, really knew a great deal less, than any of the omniscients to whom he had alluded; and this Gentleman proposed to register all the proprietors. He (Mr. Walter) should have thought this the suggestion of some 563 attorney, in order that, if there were forty proprietors, he might be able to bring his forty actions. Now the Tory legislators, as they had been called, Mr. Pitt and Lord Castlereagh, for example, were thought to act with severity enough towards the press, but all their acts and doctrines were liberality itself when compared with those of the liberal Gentlemen of that House. They would have an inquisition. If they wanted to get at every body that could by possibility contribute towards slandering their fair fame, why had they not proposed a registration of the paper-makers, and the type-founders, and the ink-makers? for without the aid of all these, what they might be pleased to call a libel could not be published. If they wished to keep the press respectable, let them not interfere with its internal regulations at all. The liberty of the press had been fancifully called "the air we breathe;" it was the original object of this measure, he had no doubt, to have inflicted on it a terrible asthma. With these clauses, it might perhaps pant and wheeze through another session or two of that liberal Parliament, which had given it its death-blow, but that would be all. And then, what would be obtained by this ridiculous gimcrackery of the dies? Why, he would tell them what: the Gentlemen on the Treasury benches would learn for certain, what some of them would not like to know—that the greatest journals were the greatest journals still; and that the principles which they advocate, must, therefore, be the most prevalent in the country which patronised them. He had looked over the debates of the last period, when the rights of the press came under discussion, and he would conclude with reading a passage from a speech of Sir J. Mackintosh, as confirmatory of his opinion;—"A high sense of honour, a strong feeling of personal independence, and a reliance on an un impeached and unimpeachable character, were the best securities which could be taken from the editor or the proprietor of a newspaper. If these were once broken down by any restriction of the Legislature, the public journals would be thrown into the hands of men, either of desperate poverty, or of des-p rate fanaticism, or of desperate ambition, who would willingly brave all the penal statutes which could be enacted against them."
§ Dr. Bowringobserved, it had been represented to him, how truly he could not 564 say, that by the alteration in the original arrangement of the right hon. Gentleman, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, one of the most valuable morning news papers published in the metropolis would be excluded from the benefits of the Act, as it would not come within the maximum fixed by the right hon. Gentleman. The paper, to which he alluded, was the Morning Chronicle
§ The Chancellor of the Exchequersaid, the learned Doctor was quite mistaken, that he (the Chancellor of the Exchequer) had taken the largest size newspaper as his maximum, and the only alteration that had been made in regard to the size of the newspaper was, that he had allowed the admeasurement to be taken from the printing contained in the paper, in place of its being taken from the size of the paper itself, which was subject to great variation.
§ Mr. Ewartwas apprehensive, that by the words to which his hon. Friend the Member for Cockermouth (Mr. Aglionby) had alluded, many useful publications containing "remarks and observations" upon public occurrences would be rendered liable to duty, and thereby effectually stopped. He meant such publications as the "Companion to the Newspaper" for instance—one of the most valuable and useful that was published; he considered that such publications were calculated to improve and enlighten the people, and that they ought rather to be encouraged than put down.
§ The Chancellor of the Exchequerassured the hon. Member that such publications would not be rendered liable to duty by this Bill.
§ Mr. Wakleysaid, he should not object to the bringing up of this clause, but when the question was put that the Bill do pass, he should either move the adjournment of the House, or take some other means to obtain a postponement of the Bill.
§ Clause agreed to, and ordered to stand part of the Bill.
§ The Chancellor of the Exchequerproposed a formal amendment on Clause 10.
§ Mr. Waltersaid, that instead of the Bill being that which it was professed to be, a strictly financial measure, it was of the most oppressive kind. He particularly alluded to the provisions of Clause 10, to which he begged to call the attention of the House. It had been only proposed by Mr. Pitt, that two proprietors of a newspaper should be registered, but by this clause the 565 right hon. Gentleman, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, provided that all the proprietors, even though they amounted in number to 100, should be registered, and not only registered, but that each newspaper should make a return of its proprietors every half year. The clause had been introduced after 12 o'clock at night, and nobody knew any thing about it until last Saturday. It was a most oppressive clause, and though it might pass this House, he sincerely trusted it would never pass the other House of Parliament. He should move the entire omission of the clause from the Bill.
§ The Chancellor of the Exchequersaid, that although he had seen the observations with which the hon. Member for Berkshire had just concluded in print this morning, as he had often seen them before, yet he must say, that the hon. Member's address to the Commons of England, that a measure which might pass their House would not be likely to pass elsewhere, was neither Parliamentary nor consonant (whatever might be the practice out-of-doors) with the usage and practice within the walls of Parliament. The supposition that a Money Bill, in relief of the subject and for the repeal of taxation, was not likely to pass elsewhere, was a new doctrine, which with all the experience the hon. Gentleman opposite might have of the particular subject-matter under discussion, or of the law itself, he would find it difficult to reconcile to Parliamentary practice. But with respect to this clause and another, he begged to say that they had not been introduced or brought forward by him. On the contrary, he had stated from the first, that he would not introduce into the Bill any clause that was not a revenue clause, and therefore when this clause, and that which established a distinctive die, was proposed, he had said, that whether they might be right or wrong, he did not want either of them for the protection of his Majesty's revenue. The hon. Gentleman was in error when he stated that the House had been taken by surprise with regard to those clauses. The hon. Gentleman forgot that they were discussed two days in Committee, and the propriety of their introduction into the Bill fully agitated, and on that discussion, so far from any difference of opinion arising upon them, there was not a single Member who took a share in the discussion, that did not express himself as being favourable to the introduction of this clause. And on what ground did they so express themselves? Why, they said they felt that there ought to be a responsibility in the conduct 566 of newspapers, and that those who took on themselves the privilege or duty of giving that species of information which a newspaper usually contained, had no right to abstain from giving their names, or to hide and cloak themselves from responsibility. On this ground the clause had been proposed and introduced into the Bill, and not with a view of either protecting the revenue, or of curbing the liberty of the press. Those Gentlemen who spoke their opinions through the medium of the press, ought not to object to make themselves known to the public, because on the principle of the constitution itself, when power was given, it ought to be accompanied by responsibility, more or less, for the exercise of that power. It was stated, and stated justly, by those who had proposed this clause, that at a time when propositions were made for establishing newspapers by joint-stock companies, it was important that some responsibility should be affixed to the machine, whether put in motion by Whigs, Tories, or Radicals. Such was the object of the clause—a clause which could not detract from the character of a paper by requiring the name of the commentators on the events of the day to be given to the public; and he must add, that if ever there was a clause not of the creation of the Minister, not asked for by him, but which the House had taken upon itself, after discussion, deliberation, and without division, that clause was the present.
§ Mr. Walterobserved, that when the clause was introduced last Tuesday night, it was at the late hour he had stated. Nobody had expected that the Bill would have been proceeded with on that night, and the clause having been admitted by the right hon. Gentleman, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, he held him responsible for it.
§ The House divided on the clause:—Ayes 58; Noes 15;—Majority 43.
| List of the AYES. | |
| Aglionby, H. A. | Etwall, R. |
| Baines, E. | Ewart, W. |
| Baldwin, Dr. | Fergusson, rt. hon. R. |
| Bernal, R. C. | |
| Blamire, W. | Fitzgibbon, hon. Col. |
| Bowring, Dr. | Gordon, R. |
| Brotherton, J. | Hall, B. |
| Buckingham, J. S. | Hastie, A. |
| Bulwer, H. L. | Hawes, B. |
| Callaghan, D. | Hay, Sir A. L. |
| Chalmers, P. | Hobhouse, right, hon. Sir J. |
| D'Eyncourt, rt. hon. C. T. | |
| Horsman, E. | |
| Divett, E. | Howard, P. H. |
| Elphinstone, H. | Hutt, W. |
| Labouchere, rt. hn. H. | Steuart, R. |
| Lefevre, C. S. | Strutt, E. |
| Lennox, Lord G. | Stuart, Lord Dudley |
| Lennox, Lord A. | Thomson, right. hon. C. P. |
| Maule, hon. F. | |
| Murray, rt. hon. J. A. | Thompson, Col. |
| O'Connell, J. | Thornley, T. |
| O'Connell, M. | Tooke, W. |
| Palmerston, Ld. Visc. | Townley, R. G. |
| Philips, M. | Tulk, C. A. |
| Ponsonby, hon. W. | Wakley, T. |
| Potter, R. | Wallace, R. |
| Price, Sir R. | Warburton, H. |
| Rice, rt. hon. T. S | Williams, W. |
| Robinson, G. R. | |
| Rolfe, Sir R. M. | TELLERS. |
| Ruthven, E. | Mr. Baring |
| Stanley, E. J. | Sir G. Grey. |
| List of the NOES. | |
| Borthwick, P. | Knightley, Sir C. |
| Buller, Sir J. Y. | Lincoln, Earl of |
| Clerk, Sir G. | Perceval, Colonel |
| Ferguson, G. | Praed, W. M. |
| Forester, hon. G. | Pringle, A, |
| Gladstone, W. E. | Trevor, A. |
| Gordon, hon. W. | TELLERS. |
| Graham, rt. hon. Sir J. | Mr. Walter |
| Hale, R. B. | Colonel Sibthorp |
§ On the motion that the Bill do pass,
§ Mr. Wakleyprotested against the Bill, and complained that he had not been fairly dealt with by the right hon. Gentleman, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, inasmuch as he had promised to repeal all the objectionable provisions of the existing laws, especially the 16th and 55th George 3rd, and yet this Bill was silent in this respect. He should oppose the motion that the Bill do pass, by all the means the practice of Parliament would allow him.
§ The Chancellor of the Exchequerhad throughout this matter endeavoured to meet the question fairly, and he owned it was matter of surprise to him, that after the discussions which had taken place, any new objection should be started. It was now too late to move any modification or alteration, and all that the hon. Member could do would either be to adopt or reject the Bill. He was desirous to send the Bill elsewhere, notwithstanding the remarks which had been made by the hon. Member for Berkshire, and pressed as he had been to proceed with this Bill by persons out of doors, he should on every ground adhere to his motion that the Bill do now pass.
§ Mr. Wakleywas determined to take the sense of the House upon that motion.
§ The House divided on the question that the Bill do now pass:—Ayes 55; Noes 7:—Majority 48.
| List of the AYES. | |
| Aglionby, H. A. | Lennox, Lord George |
| Baines, E. | Lennox, Lord Arthur |
| Baldwin, Dr. | Lowther, Lord Visct. |
| Blamire, W. | Mackenzie, S. |
| Bowring, Dr. | Morpeth, Lord Visct. |
| Brotherton, J. | Murray, rt. hon. J. A. |
| Buckingham, J. S. | O'Loghlin, M. |
| Chalmers, P. | Palmerston, Ld. Visc. |
| Cowper, hon. W. F. | Parker, J. |
| D'Eyncourt, rt. hon. C. T. | Philips, Mark |
| Potter, R. | |
| Divett, E. | Price, Sir R. |
| Elphinstone, H. | Rice, rt. hon. T. S. |
| Etwall, R. | Robinson, G. R. |
| Ewart, W. | Rolfe, Sir R. M. |
| Ferguson, G. | Ruthven, E. |
| Fergusson, right hon. R. C. | Stanley, E. J. |
| Steuart, Robert | |
| Fitzgibbon, hon. Col. | Strutt, E. |
| Gordon, R. | Stuart, Lord Dudley |
| Grey, Sir G. | Thomson, right. hon. C. P. |
| Hall, B. | |
| Hastie, A. | Thornly, T. |
| Hawes, B. | Townley, R. G. |
| Hobhouse, right. hon. Sir J. | Tulk, C. A. |
| Wallace R. | |
| Horsman, E. | Warburton, H. |
| Howard, P. H. | Williams, William |
| Hutt, W. | TELLERS. |
| Labouchere, rt. hn. H. | Mr. Baring. |
| Lefevre, C. S. | Maule, hon. Fox. |
| List of the NOES. | |
| Borthwick, P. | Thompson, Colonel |
| Buller, Sir J. Y. | Trevor, A. |
| Knightley, Sir C. | TELLERS. |
| Lincoln, Earl of | Mr. Wakley |
| Perceval, Colonel | Mr. Walter. |
§ Bill passed.