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    Untitled Article

    local objects ; not forgetting his duties to his nearest friends , he will be a Member for the nation .

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    SUNDAY REFORM PETITIONS . We beg again to urge upon the friends of Sunday Reform the instant necessity of an active and well regulated organisation of public opinion in that direction . An intelligent correspondent suggests that the Petition movement should be "bystreet or neighbourhood , or even from house to house . " The last is , in our opinion , the most desirable , because the most authentic and undeniable , expression of a sound , temperate , and well-considered' opinion , which neither intolerance nor disingenuousness can interpret into idle clamour ,

    or unreasoning impulse . The quantity of names appended to a petition , we insist , is of no importance as compared with the quality ; indeed , a superabundance invites the derision of those who remember certain monster petitions of 1848 . We have heard , that on Easter Monday and Tuesday , petitions for opening the Crystal Palace on Sunday were exposed for signature in Greenwich Park , and in other holiday resorts . We do not blame the intention that dictated this form of appeal to the classes who would naturally be most interested in the subject of the petitions : we only criticize the method and the form : the time and the place selected for a demonstration

    which , in order to win acceptance and respect , should bear no mark of levity , and furnish no weapon of attack to serious opponents . We fear that open-air parchments emanating from ^ Greenwich Park and One-Tree Hill will not bear a very critical inspection . It is just possible that the holiday wit of Cockaigne may have vented itself in fancy signatures . Now the honest and sincere opponents of Sunday Reform cannot be more effectually served than by these weak and silly pleasantries . We therefore feel it to be our duty to protest emphatically against Easter Monday petitions as impotent ebullitions , if not suicidal .

    Meanwhile , our Sabbatarian friends are not idle . The misguided clergy are indefatigably visiting from house to house with petitions against opening the Sydenham Palace on Sunday : deluging railways , steamboats , and hotels , with tracts : fulminating from countless pulpits , wheedling where they cannot intimidate , denouncing where they ' cannot convince , coercing where they cannot persuade , menacing with excommunication in this world , and with all the terrors of their world to come . On the other hand , we are glad to report progress in directions where it might least have been expected . We entitled to

    learn from a correspondent our respect , that the question , " whether the Crystal Palace ought to be open on Sundays" has lately been admitted to discussion in a Mental Improvement Society holding its meetings in the vestry of a Dissenter's chapel . In spite of an influential and authoritative opposition , a vote of thanks was awarded by the majority of the Society to the opener of the discussion . Such a vote docs credit to the Society . Full and free discussion , wherever wo can get it . can only promote the success of a cause so identified with common sense , with the interests of true religion , with the sound moral health of the entire community , as that of Sunday Iteforni .

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    THE GOVERNMENT AND TIIK WORKING MAN'S rUKSS . "LETT Hit 1 . To tub " Rioirr Hon . Thomas Mjt . nku GnisoN " , M . P . SrRi—Permit me to address to you , the President of tho " Association for promoting the Repeal of the Taxes on Knowledge , " a brief examination of tho arguments upon which tho Government seems disposed to rely , in justification of its present proceedings against tho unstamped press . The fiscal freedom of the press is essentially a

    Working Man's question . Whether the Taxes on Knowledge be repealed or not , is of little consequence to the rich man . lie can command n newspaper at any price . lie can have one printed for hia own immediate use if lie pleases , and this has sometimes been done . It is true that the ignorance of the lower elasHes conies homo to the upper sooner or later not the operatives' ignorance of books merely , but their compelled ignorance of li ('<» and polities , of the arts and . social opportunities of improving life . Literary ignorance is commonly assumed aa the

    sole ignorance sought to be removed by the advocates of untaxed knowledge , whereas it is social ignorance : —for it is the ignorance not so much of books , as of life and industrial opportunity that constitutes the chief sources of crime , discontent , and danger ; and the privation of cheap and wholesome newspapers fosters this serious law-imposed ignorance . The reflective and experienced auiong the working class know this , " and to them the repeal of the taxes on knowledge is of direct personal importance .

    Thousands of persons are friendly to Cheap Education who are unfriendly to Cheap Newspapers , not seeing that Cheap Newspapers are , in a hard-working , much occupied country like ours , the indispensable precursors of Cheap Schools . By legal rate or Voluntary effort , open a school to-morrow in every street in every town , the children will be slow to seek the benefit which the majority of parents regard with indifference . The child will not desire to escape the bounds of its oivn intuition , because it knows not the value of instruction — and the Father

    neglects to send his child for precisely the same reason . Next to his own Parents the poor student reverences his Tutor-the half-instructed artisan will go without meals in order to buy the last greatwork onChemistryor Political Economy —the indigent scholar pursues nightly studies , grows prematurely old , and sinks into the grave just as the mere sensual man begins to enjoy the fulness of life ; but this devotion , toil , and noble preference , are manifested by those who have once floated on the imperial sea of knowledge , which carries the persevering learner into radiant

    worlds of emulation and power , whence no man ever willingly returned . The man who knows what intelligence is , will give his health and life for it —but the man who does not know what it is , counts it a needle-s possession , if not a social penalty . Such persons neither go to schools nor care for schools—and would not send their children , without some compulsion , if you would teach them for nothing . This indifference is not the fault of the poor , as poor , it is the fault of their condition . The rich would act in the same way

    if they were not under wiser influences and easier circumstances . Reared without knowledge and labouring without leisure , you will never have our population intelligent if you wait till Uoy take the initiative . You must put knowledge m their way . It , must meet them with their wants . It must lie side by side with their rude and humble excitements . Give them freely , copiously , and incessantly , the news they care for , and they will come to acquire an interest m what they do not , now care for at all . Curiosity is the parent

    of Thought . As Mr . Cobnen said at Exeter Hall lately , at one of the Anti-Knowledge Tax Society ' s meeting— " If Hodge wants to know when Farmer Stoat ' s cow died , or when his neighbour Giles killed his pig—let him know it . Neither you nor I take the least interest in these exciting topics , but let him who does have his curiosity gratified . Ho may come some day to look farther , and wo may find lam curious about higher questions , and more ennobling interests . Cheap , plain , and popular working-rto newsto reach the hman

    papers are just the things ploug and the operative—and nothing else can . 1 hey will enlighten the cottage andempty the gmpalace . Overrun the land with cheap newspapers , and Cheap Schools will follow , for the want oi Schools will then be felt . There will be a demand for them . Yes , and this cheap and humblo press will bo a universal lion ' s provider for the dearer and abler press , winch is now comparatively unread by the mass of the people . Wat us the common complaint ? Is it not , that a philosophic and hih-toned paper is too good to

    succeedg that the public do not appreciate it . 1 lie abler a weekly paper ia in Unglaml , the fewer readers il . has , apart from class connexions . It ih continually observed , thai the least , refined journals ( I he pandororH , rather than the teachers ) succeed tho bent with the populace . Nothing can correct this but a "heap News Press , rising its readers

    up in every district , originating own hrin < nng out and developing local faculties , and thuH ^ gencrating and cultivating a wide-spread taste , which , expanding year by year , will never ivst till gratified at , the highest source * and in the most perfect manner . The undeveloped renders of our Im-hI papers Ho in thounands liofrlected over our whole land . This it * noti * dedaiiml ory conjecture , but a statement of facts known to tho writer , who , in a hundred districts , could

    give the names and addresses of numerous wouldbe-readers of our best journals , daily and weekly , if they could be reached in the only way in which they are accessible . As Free-trade has created new Trade—as Haihvays have begotten trafficas Navigation has developed Emigration—so a cheap rustic and operative Press will extend and maintain a dear and scholarly Press , and the day will come when no man will believe that the Press

    of the educated gentleman opposed and stood in some sort of implied , though unexpressed fear , of the press of the untaught working man . There is no reason to suppose our present Government really adverse to the free dissemination of knowledge , but besides their own convictions to satisfy , they have existing interests to consult , and the present Sixpenny Newspapers consider their interests imperilled by some imaginary competition to rise up with the creation of a local Penny Newspaper trade . At this point the Ministers falter : The danger is utterly unfounded— but the Sixpenny interest urge it—the Government believe it , and the people suffer from it .

    Mr . Phinn , the Attorney-general ' s substitute , m stating the case of the Inland Revenue office before Mr . Henry atBow-street , in the late decision given there , took the Potteries Free Press in his hand , and said confidently to the magistrate , — " H this is not a newspaper , ' what is ? " The same remark has , I believe , been made in the House ot Commons , and in many newspaper offices , and in other quarters the same impression prevails , Even the Daily News assumes ( March 18 th ) that should the Po ' iterks Free Press be admitted as a class paper , not liable to the stamp , there is an between the

    end of all distinction journals now licensed by the Inland Revenue office and the stamped newspaper press . Now , deferentially , but emphatically be it said , the Potteries Free Press is not a newspaper according to Inland Revenue office practice . It is essentially a class newspaper , separated by a wide barrier from tne regular newspaper press . The magistrate does not flounder here in an ocean of casuistries . He confronts two unmistakable extremes—the Poor man ' s paper and the Rich man ' s paper—and the distinction between them is as broad as Poverty .

    To him , who having eyes will see , there is , between the penny and stamped newspaper , a wide calf which the poor man can never pass . JN or is this an argument to exempt the Potteries paper . The theory of Inland Revenue decisions exempts all such penny papers . The fact is , no penny newspaper does exist , or can exist in this country , to compete with the regular high-priced newspapers . Repeal every fiscal impost now on tho statutes , and no Penny Newspaper could ue

    produced capable of competing with the Sixpenny journal . _ The Potteries Free Press is indeed a newspaper according to the act of Parliament , and so are all the papers now exempted by the Stamp Office , on the ground of their being class papers . Iho definition of a newspaper guiding Mr . Henry s decision at How-street , is , " any paper containing public news , intelligence , or occurrences , which is printed for sale , and published periodically at intervals not exceeding twenty-six days . otn and 7 th Wm . IV ., « . 70 . There is no escape from this definition and its consequences , in point of Jaw . But tho Inland Revenue ollicials bavo been suilered

    for Heventeen years to interpret Iho newspaper acts at discretion , and they pressed for judgment against Mr . Truelove at How-strcet , on the ground that , according to their custom , the Potteries ( Penny ) tree Press was indistinguishable from tho usual newspaper , and that , it was , as Mr . Henry alleged in his judgment , a wrong to he revenue-paying papers to tax them , and allow the naid Free I ' ress to be published stamp free . I ho fact in , it is no fiscal injustice at all . No penny paper can ( permit me to reiterate ) compote with the revenue-paying regular newspaper press . in

    Try the question in that practical manner which the House of Commons ^ j ^' 1 ^*'"' T . * of nny case . Will any inan able to buy tho Spectator , Jta . W , L << ulcr , JShmu ^ ornnst , Tmxy regular newspaper , buy a Potteries tree 7 C / inhtkai » P JNotone . ThiH ^ W iW iJ edited with marked ability and fjood taste—but it onlv supplies a pennyworth of-nciosjor a penny—• ukI no politician—no man in business—nor any man in bis senses , will put up with owe pennyworth of information when be wants mx . ijosides , the news of a penny paper ih not really newt * , but composed of uocond hand , worn out

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    April 2 , 1853 . ] THE LEADE R . 327

• Citation
  • Leader (1850-1860), April 2, 1853, page 327, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1980/page/15/