the duty on hard
and soft soap should be reduced. The reduction of such duty would, he
argued, by aiding cleanliness, promote the health and comfort of the
people, while the lowering of newspaper stamps would do nothing of the
kind, but would tend rather to introduce a cheap and profligate press,
"one of the greatest curses which could be inflicted on humanity." He
contended, moreover, that it was absurd to argue that the poor were
debarred from reading the public prints, when in a coffee shop, for
three-halfpence, they could obtain a cup of coffee and a sight of every
newspaper published in London. Mr. Barclay, one of the members for
Surrey, thought it impossible for any reasonable being to hesitate
between the relative virtues of newspapers and soap; and as for the
Chancellor of the Exchequer, he could not believe for one moment that if
left to his own unaided judgment he would hesitate to give his
preference to the latter. The Chancellor nevertheless avowed in the
plainest terms his preference for newspapers, and his conviction of the
advisability of an immediate reduction in the stamp duty; the result,
after the lapse of less than forty years, has conclusively proved the
wisdom of the measure which he succeeded in carrying.

CURIOUS ARGUMENTS OF THE NEWSPAPER PROPRIETORS.

Newspaper proprietorship was then a monopoly; and the argument by which
the rich proprietor, the representative of the third class of opponents,
sought to maintain his monopoly cannot fail to amuse the newspaper
reader of to-day. The monopoliser who, to maintain the character of his
paper and to supply the public with the best and earliest information,
incurred the expense of procuring parliamentary reports, obtaining
foreign intelligence, anticipating the arrival of the post by expresses,
and by having correspondents in every quarter of the world where matters
of interest were going forward, said, that should the measure pass, he
must thenceforth either be content to lower the tone of the public press
by not giving the same amount of accurate intelligence, or must carry on
the contest with those who went to no expense at all. "The result would
be not only the ruin of the property of the newspaper proprietors and
the destruction of their property, but it would be something much more
fatal to the general interests of the country, for the editors of the
present respectable papers would not be able to compete with these
predatory publications, a