hout further charge:--

"_Impolicy of Imposing a Postage on Newspapers._--The duties now
substantially repealed produced, in 1853, [L]412,220 nett, no
inconsiderable sum in a period of war. In point of fact, however, they
could hardly be called duties, and ought rather to have been regarded as
a payment for the trouble and expense attending the conveyance and
distribution of newspapers by post. But supposing such to be the case,
it was argued that the duty should be so limited, that is, that it
should only be imposed on papers carried by the post. Matters of this
sort are not, however, to be decided by mere logical considerations. The
effect of the new plan is to confine, in a greater or less degree,
according to circumstances, the circulation of newspapers to the
districts within which they are published; and this certainly is not a
desirable object.... Under the new plan the charge for conveyance, or it
may be postage, being added to the price of the metropolitan journals,
they will be dearer than the local papers, and people in many, or rather
perhaps in the majority of instances, will be disposed to prefer the
low-priced though inferior journal published at their door, to the
superior but higher priced journal of the capital.... On the whole,
therefore, we anticipate little or no advantage from the new plan. But
we are, at the same time, ready to admit that no system of this sort can
be safely judged _a priori_; and that the results of experience may
differ very widely from those of theory."--J. R. McCulloch, _Commercial
Dictionary_, London, 1856, p. 893.

[288] "We are living under a disguised censorship of the Press. I use
the word advisedly; and I find that generally where there is an avowed
censorship of the Press there are no taxes on knowledge; no stamp duty
and generally no paper duty. From the time when the stamp duty was first
imposed in the reign of Queen Anne, the number of newspapers has been
very much diminished by the stamp. For instance, Steele's _Spectator_
was nearly if not quite ruined by it; and from that time to this the
amount of revenue has never been so large as to be a serious subject of
consideration."--Evidence of Collet Dobson Collet, _Report from the
Select Committee on Newspaper Stamps_, 18th July 1851, p. 113.

[289] Mr. Roebuck, 20th June 1836; _Parl. Debates_ (_Commons_), vol.
xxxiv. col. 653.

[290] Treasury Minute, No. 21,355, 28th November 1838: "It appears that
these papers, t