298. Bulwer CHAPTER XXVI SOCIAL REFORMS IN ENGLAND Section 83. Freedom of Discussion and Religious Although censorship of the press was abolished in EngLytton's plea land as early as 1695, the government, on occasions of newspapers serious popular agitation, passed special measures de for cheap in England (much condensed) signed to control the newspapers. Even when there was no direct governmental interference with publications, the establishment of cheap and popular newspapers was seriously hampered by the combined action of a stamp duty, an impost on advertisements, and a tax on paper. About the same time that the agitation for the first Reform Bill was being carried forward, a movement was started for the purpose of urging Parliament to repeal these obnoxious "taxes on knowledge." Political reformers who wanted a cheap means of spreading their doctrines, and educational reformers who wanted cheaper means for the diffusion of knowledge, joined in this agitation. In 1832 Bulwer Lytton, the celebrated novelist, made a powerful argument in Parliament against these taxes, and in favor of a free press. He should proceed at once [the speaker said] to call the attention of the House to certain facts which would tend to show why it was our duty and our policy to diffuse cheap instruction amongst the people, and he should then show in what manner that instruction was, by the existing taxes, checked and obstructed. From an analysis, carefully made, of the cases of those persons who were committed for acts of incendiarism, etc., in 1830 and the beginning of 1831, it appeared that in Berkshire, of 138 prisoners only twenty-five could write, and only thirty-seven could read; at Abingdon, of thirty prisoners six only could read and write; at Aylesbury, of seventy-nine prisoners only thirty could read and write; of fifty prisoners tried at Lewes one individual only Icould read well! The same connection between crime and ignorance existed in France. In 1830 it appeared that in the French Courts of Assize there were 4519 entirely ignorant of reading and writing, and only 129 had received a superior education. the best means for If, then, it was true, as the facts he had stated seemed to Newspapers him sufficient to prove, that there was an inseparable connection between crime and ignorance, it followed as a necessary popular consequence, that it was their duty to remove all the shackles education on the diffusion of knowledge. He thought it would be scarcely necessary for him to contend that newspapers were among the readiest and most effectual instruments of diffusing that instruction. newspapers And now mark the interdict laid on the newspapers: the The heavy present taxes upon newspapers consisted, first, of a duty of taxes on 3d. per pound weight on the paper, or about a farthing a sheet; second, of a duty, nominally 4d., but subject to a discount of twenty per cent; and third, a tax of 3. 6d. upon every advertisement. The whole duties, with the price of printing and the news agency, amounted to 5d. for every sevenpenny copy of a London paper. Now let them glance rapidly at some of the consequences Cheep of the high prices at which newspapers sold. In the first place, owing to that price, the instruction they contained did not words to ve travel extensively among the poor; in the second place, as pernicionis only the higher and the middling orders could afford, in general, the luxury of these periodicals, so it was chiefly to the tastes and interests of those wealthier orders that these journals addressed themselves. The poorer people are driven almost inevitably to those legitimate, those dangerous productions, Removal of -tamp duty vould reduce price of papers to wopence Cheap papers would be -ought, not ented Newspapers States cheaper in price and adapted almost exclusively to themselves. It was thus that the real political education of the people was thrown into the hands of the wildest and sometimes the most pernicious teachers, some of whom struck at the root of all property, talked of the injustice of paying rents, insisted upon a unanimous seizure of all the lands in the kingdom, declared that there was no moral guilt in any violation of law, and even advocated assassination itself. Thus, then it was clear that the stamp duty did not prevent the circulation of the most dangerous doctrines. His proposition was not at present to touch the paper duty; it was a tax which, in the present state of the revenue, might be fairly spared, and which, though a grievance, did not fall nearly so heavily on the public as the two taxes he would abolish; the first of these was the stamp duty, the second the advertisement duty. Take away the stamp duty and the 7d. paper would fall at once to 32d.; but he was inclined to believe, and in this he was borne out by many impartial, practical men on the subject, that, owing to the great increase of sale which the cheapness of the article would produce, the newspapers would be enabled to sell at a much lower rate than 3 d., and would probably settle into the average of 2d. each. To him it seemed equally evident that when newspapers were so cheap as to be within the reach of almost any man, there would be an enormous addition to the present number of readers; that many who hired a paper now would purchase it, in short, when a weekly paper cost only 2d., there would scarcely be, in this great political community, a single man who could read who would not be able and willing to purchase one. But besides these proofs that the cheapness of periodicals n the United will incalculably increase their sale, we have the experience of other countries that it does; in America a newspaper sells on the average for 1d. What is the result? Why, that there is not a town in America with 10,000 inhabitants that has not its daily paper. Compare Boston and Liverpool: Liverpool has 165,175 inhabitants; Boston had, in 1829, 70,000 inhabitants. Liverpool puts forth eight weekly publications; and Boston, with less than half the population, and with about a fourth part of the trade of Liverpool, puts forth eighty weekly From all these facts they had a right to suppose, that if Advantages harshness c the crimina We have made a long and fruitless experiment of the gibbet Ineffectual and the hulks; in 1825 we transported 283 persons, but so vast, so rapid has been our increase in this darling system of law legislation, that three years afterwards (in 1828) we transported as many as 2449. During the last three years our jails have been sufficiently filled; we have seen enough of the effects of human ignorance, we have shed sufficient of human blood. Is it not time to pause? Is it not time to consider whether the printer and his types may not provide better for the peace and honor of a free State than the jails and the hangman? Whether, in one word, cheap Knowledge may not be a better political agent than costly Punishment? At the opening of the nineteenth century the members of the Anglican Church enjoyed a monopoly of practically all the civil and military positions in England, 99. Sydney Smith de hands reli n Ireland condensed) although a limited freedom of worship had been granted to Catholics and Dissenters. Dissenters, however, were allowed to become members of Parliament, but Catholics were excluded from this privilege. This supremacy of the Anglicans was stoutly resisted in England by the Dissenters who had been steadily increasing, especially after the rise of the Methodist movement, and more particularly by the Catholics in Ireland, where an intense Irish patriotism added bitterness to the struggle. Among the many distinguished men who advocated a repeal of the repressive laws against Catholics and Dissenters was the witty man of letters, Rev. Sydney Smith, who advanced the arguments for his belief in an able speech which was widely circulated as a pamphlet shortly before the passage of the Catholic Emancipation Act in 1829. What right have you to continue these rules, Sir, these laws of exclusion? What necessity can you show for it? Is the ious freedom reigning monarch a concealed Catholic? Is his successor an or Catholics open one? Is there a disputed succession? Is there a Catholic pretender? If some of these circumstances are said to have justified the introduction, and others the continuation of these measures, why does not the disappearance of all these circumstances justify the repeal of the restrictions? If you must be unjust, if it is a luxury you cannot live without, reserve your injustice for the weak and not for the strong; persecute the Unitarians, muzzle the Ranters, be unjust to a few thousand Sectaries, not to six millions; galvanize a frog, don't galvanize a tiger. The fruits of reland We preach to our congregations, Sir, that a tree is known. tolerance in by its fruits. By the fruits it produces I will judge your system. What has it done for Ireland? New Zealand is emerging, Otaheite is emerging. Ireland is not emerging; she is still veiled in darkness; her children, safe under no law, live in the very shadow of death. Has your system of exclusion made Ireland rich? Has it made Ireland loyal? Has it made Ireland |