Note 281 — II THE RATE FOR NEWSPAPERS
Reading edition
"Many of these publications circulated to the amount of several thousand copies weekly; their sale, in several instances, was larger than the sale of some among the most popular legitimate papers; their influence over large bodies of the working classes was much greater."—E. Lytton Bulwer, 14th June 1832; Ibid., vol. xiii. col. 623.
"You have laws imposing severe penalties upon those who are guilty of breaches of these laws; but it has been found impossible to stop the sale of those cheap and obnoxious publications by fiscal laws; and the success with which they are broken, the sympathy excited in favour of the offenders, and the assistance which they receive, only give encouragement to pursue the same course. I have been informed that, within the last fortnight or three weeks, between forty and fifty persons have been taken before the police magistrates, and convicted for selling these publications."—Mr. O'Connell, 14th June 1832; Ibid., vol. xiii. col. 637.
"As long as the Tories were in power Lord Liverpool, or even Canning, could consistently advocate the restriction of political discussion. But the fact that the Whigs had now held office since 1830, and that the tax remained undiminished, was only to be explained by their rooted disbelief in every principle which they professed to hold.
"Year after year Place had brought the question forward. Every year the Chancellor of the Exchequer declared himself in favour of repeal in principle, and every year the Government, for reasons which they dared not avow, continued the tax. Meanwhile the Commissioners of Stamps so used their power of prosecution as to set up a peculiarly odious form of censorship. The Penny Magazine, for instance, was allowed to circulate unstamped, while the Poor Man's Guardian was prosecuted."—Graham Wallas, The Life of Francis Place, London, 1898, p. 336.