The Press. FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 28, 1866.

Press, Volume X, Issue 1215, 28 September 1866, Page 2

The Press. FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 28, 1866.

It appears that the proposal to tax newspapers by way of a penny stamp for their carriage inland, and threepence for the voyage to England, and something besides for the passage of the Isthmus of Panama, is likely to be carried. It is not because newspaper property will suffer that we complain of such a new source of revenue being imposed. "We set that consideration altogether aside, and ask how it will affect the public. If a free Grovernment is to work at all, it must be based on ample information being afforded to the people: this is a necessary condition of the healthy working of free and representative institutions. The great difficulty against which free institutions have to contend in new countries, is the difficulty of disseminating information which shall tend to the creation of a public opinion. Three-fourths of the differences in sentiment and feeling which exist between the several communities of which New Zealand is composed, arise out of the absence of any common vehicles of public information and discussion. Between Otago and Canterbury for example there is, one would think, as near a similarity of objects and identity of interests as between any two populations in the world ; and yet there is anything but a community of feeling. We do not say that this is caused by the absence of any public channels of discussion circulating equally throughout both; but we do say that were there any journals common to both the provinces, it would go a great way to dispel mutual misunderstanding and jealousy. It is then an object of no ordinary importance to give every possible facility to the distribution of the newspapers of each town as far as possible throughout the colony. This has hitherto been done. Newspapers have hitherto been carried free to all parts of the colony; but this now is to be changed, and a penny stamp is to be put on all newspapers sent by post. There can be no doubt that the circulation of the smaller journals will be curtailed, and even the larger newspapers will find their country issues diminished. The tendency of the new system will be to leave the outlying districts more than ever without sufficient intelligence of what is going on in their own country and in the world at large. But the case of the English circulation is considerably worse. All who are acquainted with the conduct of journals in the colonies are aware that very large numbers of the summaries for the English mail are bought up by the colonists to send to their friends in England. Especially is this the case with the poorer classes, who very often rely upon the handwriting on the envelope of a newspaper for conveying to their friends the general information that all is going well with them in their new homes. Many thousands of newspapers are thus sent to England by every mail, only a penny stamp being required. Instead of this, threepence will in future be charged if the .new Postal Act be passed, and in times like the present the postage of threepence will tend to diminish the number of papers sent to England. And yet it ia exceedingly important to the colony that no obstacles should be placed in the way of as many papers as possible being sent. These papers find their way into every part of the mother country, they circulate through the country districts, they are read and spelt over in many a laborer's cottage and by many a bar fire in a way-side inn. They become invested with a sort of peculiar interest, almost with a mystery, as visitants from some strange land far beyond the seas. They speak to the class from whom we seek for our best emigrants, of a country not wild and uncivilised, whose inhabitants have to undergo great sufferings with very precarious means of subsistence, but of active, wealthy, striving communities, where lands and houses are sold and bought, and cattle by the hundreds and sheep by the thousands change hands j where money is wanted to be borrowed and money is offered to be lent; where all kinds of goods known to civilised life are to be procured. The markets are eagerly conned over and prices carefully studied and discussed; and it forms no unimportant element in the interest of the summary that its sheets contain ample records of crime quickly punished by the old familiar machinery of judges and juries and grand juries and magistrates. Those only who have witnessed it can appreciate the interest with which a New Zealand newspaper is read in the country districts in England; and it is impossible to overrate the in-

fluence which the circulation of these journals have in keeping the colony fresh in the minds of the old country, and spreading the most valuable information connected with it far and wide throughout England. If the Government were to buy up a few thousands of all the colonial journals every month and send them home for circulation it would not be money wasted. They are most influential colonising agents; they are potent in the work of emigration. Now all this ia done without the aid of the Government at all. The inhabitants of the colony undertake the task of distributing the colonial journals broadcast throughout England. But in coracs Mr. John Hall into office, and he instantly sees a great scandal, a blot in the system, which is repugnant to the doctrines of the red. tapists. It costs a few hundred pounds to send all these journals to England more than the penny stamps on them produce j and so he says let them be taxed at once. The whole revenue expected to be raised out of the increase in the postage stamps is £7000 a-year. Of this a part, we are not told how much is to come out of the increased postage on letters, so that only a part of the £7000 is due to the new postage on newspapers. Let us call it £5000, though it will probably be not so much. The whole revenues of the colony approach a million, and yet for the sake of this additional £5000, one-half per cent, on the revenues, this mischievous impost is to be imposed—one as obnoxious, as unpopular, and as hurtful as any which could possibly be devised. There would be some excuse in imposing a tax which, however disagreeable, produced some substantial result; but it is hard to conceive more utter fatuity than that which worries the public without benefiting the Government. It reminds one of the celebrated Act which removed all but nominal duties from the New England colonists, but retained the preamble, which asserted the right of Parliament to tax them. The result was the independence of America. And such results not unfrequently spring out of Buch policy, and greatly amaze the active, energetic, and conscientious little men who are itß authors. Mr H all will no doubt say we are writing for our pockets. If we were, there would be nothing to be ashamed of; for if this burden were to fall exclusively upon the newspaper proprietors it would be perfectly natural and reasonable to resist it. But we rest our case on the general policy of the measure. "We say the existing regulations have been founded on a wise and sagacious perception of the advantages to be derived from giving every facility to the wide circulation of newspapers both in the colony and in England, whilst the new plan is a narrow-minded attempt to scrape together every penny of revenue from every quarter, with out any preception of the mischief which may occur in the process. We are confident that the colony will lose in the long run many fold what it will gain by this imposition of postage stamps on newspapers. The schedule has it appears been carried by a majority of one. The Government can carry any thing they like, and opposition is useless. Had it not been so, this bill, like the stamp duties, would have been rejected by large majorities.