Originally published in Fraser's Magazine (James Fraser) vol.4 #21 (Oct 1831).
Some of the animadversions in a former article under this head (see September Number), have, we understand, given grievous offence to more than one of the conductors of the London daily papers. We cry these gentlemen mercy! If, in exposing the secrets of the press, and holding up to honest scorn the apostasies and tergiversations, the mercenary versatility and the flagrant inconsistencies of the proprietors of these journals, we have unconsciously inflicted a wound on the sensitive parts of their literary employés, we protest it was done unintentionally, and feel confident that they must have applied to themselves what was directed against others. For of them we have not as yet spoken. The season for grilling in that department has not yet arrived. We have carefully abstained from mentioning names, or overhauling circumstances which might have produced irritation, chiefly because we had no wish to follow a bad example, and which, it would be as well for them to consider, in the discharge of their editorial duties, is more honoured in the breach than the observance. The conductor of a London newspaper complaining of personalities directed against himself is like a quack, after being compelled to swallow his own pills, complaining of the nausea and pains which he undistinguishingly inflicts on all his patients. We have no wish to offend in this respect, but if we should, they must bear it.
We have spoken of the moral and political influence of the newspapers, without having said all that we intended on this latter head. It has, we apprehend, been pretty clearly and satisfactorily shewn, that the political influence even of the popular journals is extremely limited, and that the nature of the traffic in which they are engaged necessarily compels them to follow rather than lead public opinion. A hosier will manufacture the stocking that sells. It is none of his business to direct the community to wear cotton in preference to worsted, or silk in preference to either. He makes that for which there is the greatest demand, without in the least concerning himself whether one material is more durable or profitable than another, or whether the rotten article that he vends for a shilling be a dearer or a less economical one than that which he offers for half-a-crown. Occasionally, indeed, he may attempt to lead the fashion, by hiring Peter Sharpset, of the Chronicle or the Herald, to puff the superior comfort of a pair of newly-invented braces or an elastic nightcap; but there are a hundred chances to one against his succeeding; just as the Times experiences when it puts forth its thunder to arouse the slumbering patriotism of the city mob, and which appeal is but rarely listened to, and never without the said mob heartily repenting them of the folly. This is the influence of the newspapers.
But as a further proof that this influence is confined within very narrow bounds, it is only necessary to call to mind the paucity in the number of newspapers whose profits are derived from the popularity of their political disquisitions, or the ability with which they discuss subjects of general interest. The Times itself would not stand a week if it were confined to matter of this kind. Its articles on either foreign or domestic policy would not furnish coals and candles for the poor scribe in his suburban attic. No man is now so raw as to seek for information on these points in the newspapers. No man capable of forming an opinion for himself, or to whom other channels of information are open—and these are open nearly to all—would ever allow himself to be influenced by the hasty and muddled arguments propounded by a sleepy philosopher at half-past two in the morning, whose intellect even stimulants have failed to brighten, if they have not, which is more probable, done much to obscure; while in other publications of a graver kind, where talent of a much superior order is displayed, he may find the subject more fully and ably treated, and all the facts more satisfactorily detailed, and more rigidly analysed. No, the time for this has gone by. The newspapers, like a porter at the entrance of Exeter Hall, may point the way which leads to the fanatical assembly, but it is left to others to describe the follies, or expose the fallacies, or hold up to reprobation the factious motives, of the orators who hold forth. The newspapers do nothing more than this. They are like finger-posts placed at cross-roads by trustees, who have an interest in leading the passenger by some particular route; but even the best of them, or those on which the multitude place the greatest dependence, are so loosely fixed, and so liable to be affected by every breath of wind and change of weather, that he who travels is a simpleton if he do not consult more accurate guides, or rather trust to his own judgment.
That the journals exercise this slender influence on public opinion is not surprising, when we consider the rules by which they are conducted. In the first place, they are not the property of the persons who edit or write for them. These gentlemen are, with one or two exceptions, entirely under the control of their employers, and are liable to be dismissed on a short notice. The consequence is, they have either to bend to the speculative and mercenary views of the proprietors, or resign their situations—an alternative which is eluded the more easily, by means of the anonymous and irresponsible character under which they write. Care is taken that the author shall not be held liable for his opinions; he is, in fact, presumed to be unknown. Hence the many facilities for changing sides, or adopting new views, or reviling individuals formerly flattered and caressed, or of following in the wake of the rabble through every bylane of prostitution—to-day with the minister, to-morrow with the opposition—this week an ultra-Tory, and
the next a low Whig and a bellowing Jacobin—just as it may please the proprietory to command. How is it possible, then, for the public, or, at least, the thinking and intelligent portion of the public, to repose any confidence in, or cherish any respect for, the sentiments, no matter how authoritatively promulgated, of men who are thus shackled, and are notoriously nothing more than the tools of empiricism and venality? It is the corruption which proceeds from this source, which renders the metropolitan press a much more powerful engine of evil than of good, and has sunk it in the estimation of every true friend to public liberty. It is now venal, profligate, and dishonest, in the last degree; for which there is no efficient cure but the destruction of the monopoly, the extension of the field of enterprise, and the encouragement of additional talent and more responsible writers.
In illustration of the debasing effect of this versatility and venality, as respects the press itself, let us glance at the career of one of the evening papers, which has for many years been considered a ministerial journal. The present principal proprietors of the paper in question are the same men who were proprietors fifteen years ago. We mention this as an important fact, and of considerable weight in our argument. At the period (1816—17) when the allied troops were in occupation of France, the minister for foreign affairs in this country intercepted a correspondence between the editor of this ministerial paper and an employé of the French government; in which it was stipulated that he, the said editor, with the consent of his co-proprietors, should advocate the immediate or speedy withdrawal of the allied forces, as a measure of sound policy and conciliation, although he, the contracting party in London, knew that such a measure was strongly deprecated by the British government. The negotiations, however, were concluded; some of its stipulations, in the shape of a subsidy, were fulfilled; and the patriotic editor redeemed his pledge, by zealously advocating the withdrawal of the foreign troops. He, however, did not stand alone in this honest enterprise—one of the morning papers, and another evening one, pursued the same course.
The noble secretary, however, had obtained possession of the correspondence, and he forthwith summoned before him his intriguing supporters—the editor and one of the proprietors of the ministerial paper aforesaid. He produced the correspondence with his usual suavity, interdicted all explanation or apology, and coolly intimated, that unless the editor in question were instantly dismissed, and ceased having any interest in, or control over the newspaper, that he, in the name of the government, should withhold the patronage and the exclusive information of Downing Street.
It is unnecessary to say, that the editor was forthwith dismissed.
To him succeeded a gentleman who conducted the affairs of the still ministerial journal with great ability, from the period first mentioned to that which terminated the feeble administration of Lord Goderich. On the accession of Mr. Canning, the interests of the proprietors had induced him to give his support to that shallow and blustering minister. He had been tempted to make a sacrifice of his principles on the altar of expediency and venality, and the consequence was, that when the Wellington administration came into power, he also was dismissed.
The journal in question still clung to its ministerial reputation, thereby conceiving, that what it wanted in talent or character, and whatever it might lose by tergiversation and inconsistency, would be amply compensated by its adherence to the ruling party, and its crawling subserviency at the doors and among the subalterns of the treasury. It had supported Lord Londonderry, and even discarded its conductor in obedience to his lordship's mandate. No sooner was he dead, however, than it spurted its venom on his coffin, and extolled the talents and the principles of Mr. Canning, the living minister, at the expense of him whom it had formerly fawned upon; but who, now that he was in his grave, had no favours to bestow, no power to make him dreaded, and upon whose remains, therefore, it could with impunity heap obloquy and slander. It did all this, and much more than this. It became the champion of Mr. Canning's policy, in open derision of its former sentiments—it followed him to his tomb, and then worshipped Lord Goderich; whom, to evince its fidelity for, it actually kept in office nearly a week after the poor gentleman, with tears in his eyes, had laid his porte-feuille at the feet of the king.
Notwithstanding these acts of glaring apostasy and inconsistency—notwithstanding its subserviency to Lord Londonderry, its dalliance with Mr. Canning, and its post-mortem regard for the ministry of Lord Goderich—it still was ready to turn again, make the amende honorable for past insults, and serve under the banner of Arthur, Duke of Wellington, whom, but the previous year, it had accused of opposing the "lamented" Mr. Canning from factious motives. Times and circumstances, however, had undergone a material and unexpected change; for the noble duke, at the period to which we allude, had been called to the counsels of his sovereign. In the eyes, therefore, of the serviles of the journal in question, he was a very different personage as the duke premier, from the duke who defeated Mr. Canning's corn bill.
But the most disgusting part of the transaction was, that in once more being permitted to delude the public with the assumption of ministerial patronage, under the Wellington administration, it restored to his official situation of editor, after an interregnum of more than ten years, the identical person—"the Tory of the Pitt school," as the servile gentleman called himself—whom it had dismissed under the mandate of Lord Londonderry, for receiving bribes and trafficking with the Bourbon government. He commenced his duties with a long address to the public, in which he stated that he was the man who had gained for the paper in question the renown of former days—that he was the Jupiter who had wielded the thunder during the war with Napoleon and Jacobinism—that he was the Roman Tory, recalled, like a second Cincinnatus, from his turnip field and his plough, to give force to the revival of old English principles, and place the journal over which he presided in the elevated position in which it had stood, when the rights of the crown and the liberties of the people were menaced by Whig and Radical factions, whose common object was revolution and anarchy. God help us! it was a right merry conceit—vastly amusing and ludicrous—to see a frail old lieutenant of the Lumber Troop, with his dexter eye closed up in the wars of Fleet Street and the Strand, with one leg and a half in the grave, and with an intellect like a flickering rush-light in the socket, attempting to redeem the fortunes of a sinking journal, which its own inconsistencies and flunkism had irrevocably damned--trying, poor man! to wash the blackamoor white, and give soundness to that which was as rotten at its core as a city alderman, or one of Burns's choice specimens of corruption, once immortalised in, but now expunged from, his inimitable poem of Tam O'Shanter. It was a sorry sight; and, as might have been foreseen, the project did not succeed. The journal continued to flicker in the ranks of the ministerial papers; but its Cincinnatus was sent back to his farm-yard, to rusticate with his fellow-geese, whom, from motives of unpardonable ambition, he had for a short season abandoned.
But our ministerial journal had now a new opportunity of evincing its subserviency to the Wellington administration. It shortly afterwards placed the appointment of its editor at the disposal of an under secretary; and one was accordingly installed, who, being of the school of Goulburn, was speedily found to be incapable. It then enlisted in its service a gentleman of superior accomplishments, and a popular author; but he was so soon disgusted with the intrigues of the office and the domination of the acting proprietor, that after a novitiate of a few weeks he retired from the situation.
Meanwhile, the administration of the Duke of Wellington had gone to the tomb of all the Capulets. The slippery policy and fatal inconsistency of Sir Robert Peel, the blunders of Goulburn, the rancorous persecutions of Scarlett, the indolence and hauteur of lord Aberdeen, and the still more prejudicial folly of a Tory ministry depending on Whig support, rendered the administration not only unpopular, but utterly helpless in the House of Commons. Then came Lord Grey and the Whigs—the Whigs who supported the Duke in carrying the Catholic Bill, and who were his corps de reserve to keep in proper subjection the high Tories who had for some time menaced his flanks, but who (we mean the Whigs), as soon as they ascertained their own power, turned it against him, and ousted him from his place. Our supple journalist, with an alacrity worthy of his character, felt it as facile to turn again in favour of Lord Grey, as he did in forsaking Lord Goderich to support the hero of Waterloo—as easy to leap from liberalism to radicalism, as from Toryism to Whiggery.
It continued, as was cruelly said by one of its contemporaries, "to embarrass the ministry with its support"—to be, in short, the panegyrist of the Whigs, and the ardent advocate of the Reform Bill. As a matter of course, a convenient scribe was hired for the purpose; and it has persisted, since the month of November last, to burn its glimmering lamp on the same altar with the Times, Herald, and Chronicle—supporting the men whom it had again and again denounced as traitors and Jacobins—advocating principles which it had held up to execration, as calculated to overturn the established institutions of the country, and destroy the monarchy—inculcating opinions which put all its former sentiments and professions, all its pledges and assurances, all its reasonings and inductions, all its facts and animadversions, to the blush—and stamping liar, hypocrite, and slanderer, on every line of every article which either adorned or disgraced its pages for twenty preceding years. Here, then, appears the importance of the fact which we have already noticed, namely, that the men who were the proprietors of the evening paper in question during the Liverpool administration, form the majority of those who compose the present shareholders.
We beg pardon for having occupied the reader's attention with details which we fear are not calculated to place in a very amiable light the motives of human action, or the impelling force of selfishness. Such a specimen of moral and political depravity perhaps never was exhibited. It makes the heart sick, and the bile to rise, and the fingers to tingle, and the whole functions and sensibilities of the body to collapse, from utter loathing and disgust. And yet such men as these—such sordid dealers in base principles—such fleshless automatons—brainless, nerveless, and immovable, except by the strings of the puppet-master in Downing Street—are held up to us as the best public instructors!
We request it to be understood that we have not selected this evening and still ministerial journal as a specimen of the servilism and uselessness of the newspaper press, from any invidious motives. We confess that it stands high—among the faithless, foremost of the bad; but it once stood far otherwise—high among the good—distinguished for talent and influence; and we have a right to assume that its present degradation is a symptom of the desperate expedients to which the newspaper press is now reduced; for we would not have it believed that this fallen journal is the only instance of political apostasy or meretricious inconsistency. Nearly the whole of the London journals are more or less culpable in this respect; while at the same time we have unmingled pleasure in stating that, as regards the Chronicle, the Standard, and perhaps the Globe, the charge does not apply. The Standard is a young paper, but it has adhered to its principles with an uncompromising spirit and a rare fidelity. The Globe, if it ever had any principles, has nevertheless steered that middle course which has enabled it, under all circumstances, to mix its milk with: its water, or, like a whale-ship heavily laden, to leave a sufficient portion of oil in its wake to still the ripples caused by its motion through the waters. The Chronicle, however, is a conspicuous exception to our censures. The independent connexion of its present editor, for which he is indebted to the late Mr. Perry, places him beyond the influence or the control of the proprietors. With the politics of the Chronicle our feelings are far from being congenial: its sentiments are the converse of ours in many respects; but for the consistency of the editor, and his unshrinking independence, we have a regard which we should disgrace Regina were we not thus openly to avow. We expected, in fact, to have seen Dr. Black made a baronet, and we have no doubt the bloody hand was proffered him; but when we observe the names of some who have lately been raised to this distinguished rank, we are not surprised that our worthy friend should have peremptorily declined the honour.
But, be this as it may, it is owing to such shameless and repulsive conduct that the newspaper press of London has fallen so low in public estimation; and having lost all pretensions to character—all that respectability which alone can sustain it among the higher and well-educated classes, it has sunk into the embraces of prostitution, and become the exclusive organ of the mob. We here allude to the papers which have the greatest circulation in the metropolis; for those which still cling to the Tory party, such as the Standard, St. James's Chronicle, and the Morning Post—contending for principles on which the happiness, and peace, and liberty, and dearest interests of the people of England depend—fighting the battles of thankless allies—are chivalrous at their own expense, and martyrs of consistency and integrity in a cause just in itself, and which their talents adorn, but which is for ever lost, unless the party evince far more courage, as well as activity and address, than they have shewn for several years.
But how is it that the newspaper press generally has such a democratical tendency! Simply, as we have before stated, in the first part of this article, that it is their interest to minister to every popular prejudice and every prevailing error. The morning papers, of which most of the evening ones are little better than abridgments or second editions, are in the hands of about fifteen persons, who thus have it in their power, if they were united, to influence public opinion to a very serious extent—who might lower or raise the price of all public securities at their will and pleasure, and share the profits of the joint speculation. It is fortunate, however, that they do not harmonise or act in concert. Their petty jealousies, their occasional bickerings, and the pride and vanity of rivalship, keep them asunder, and render them comparatively harmless. But it is nevertheless to be regretted that so much power, and so much influence, and the means of inflicting so much evil, should be in so few hands; yet the greater evil is, that it must remain in these few hands, and the daily newspaper press must continue a monopoly, to pander to public vice, and be the organ of the constituency of the beer-shops, so long as newspapers are hampered by vexatious laws and oppressed by severe exactions. The stamp upon a newspaper, minus the discount, is about 3¼d., to which adding 1¾d. for paper, makes the price of it before a single type is set (for the stamp duty is invariably paid per advance), just fourpence-halfpenny. It is sold to the newsmen for sixpence—this, in fact, being the price for which the publisher accounts to the proprietor. The profit, therefore, on a single paper, which pays so heavy a tax, and is conducted at so much risk—the unavoidable hazard of damages in civil action, fine, and imprisonment, is precisely three halfpennies! For this paltry profit is the whole world ransacked for news—a sentinel, in the shape of a foreign correspondent, stationed in every capital city of Europe and America—an agent at every seaport and market-town—a spy in every court and camp—an eavesdropper in every public office—a reporter at the elbow of every member of parliament—a reporter at every public feast and funeral—at every meeting of the saints—at every gathering of the common council and the prize-ring—at every fête champêtre and public execution—at every public whipping and charity-sermon—at the first appearance of every thief in the police court, who is watched till he waves his stolen handkerchief as he steps on board the hulks—at every market where women, or oats, or horses, or straw, or coals are sold—at every trial for treason or petty larceny—at the inquest held upon every strumpet who drowns herself, or patriot who cuts his throat—at every commission of lunacy, and at every royal coronation.
For a poor penny-half-penny on each paper is all this done—all these persons employed; and all that passes in the world is wafted on a broad sheet from pole to pole, in spite of plague, cordon sanitaire, or civil war. It must therefore be obvious, that upon the number of papers sold almost entirely depends their success. The number sold must be prodigious to yield a profit adequate to the expenditure necessarily incurred by so many agents, and the difficulties thrown in the way of obtaining foreign intelligence by the rapacity and unwarrantable interposition of the clerks in the foreign department of the post-office. But the numbers sold by any newspaper in London are not equal to the sale of some of the Paris journals. This is caused by the high price of the article in England. Sevenpence, the price which the consumer pays, is enormous, and naturally restricts the circulation. The trade is consequently in few hands; for how few persons are there who can afford to purchase even a single paper per day, this amounting to 4s. 1d. per week, or 10l. 12s. 4d. per annum. From this cause, the newspapers are not only in few hands, but the great consumption of them is confined to club-houses, taverns, reading-rooms, libraries, and those dusky parlours where gin, beer, and tobacco, give an inspiration to the appeals of the Times, and tempt the artisan to dissipate his earnings and forsake his children.
This is a grievance, and a positive evil, in more ways than one, and it was the work of the Tories. They heaped tax upon tax upon the newspapers, with the intention of placing them as far as possible beyond the reach of the operative classes. They accordingly drove these persons into the gin shops, and provided an incentive, or at least an excuse, for the artisan drinking his coffee in a coffee shop instead of with his family, and reading the news of the day in a fetid alehouse instead of by his own fireside. They thus, in their virtuous desire to restrain the influence of the newspapers, actually gave a bounty to the licensed victualler, and made the daily press dependent upon that interest. They furnished an inducement for the working and middle classes to form themselves into what can be considered in no other light than political clubs, concentrating into one focus all the formerly diversified opinions of these parties, creating a union among them which had not previously existed, and giving them a consciousness of strength and influence which they had never before dreamed of. They, in fact, degraded the press and the people at the same time, and have produced far more fearful evils than any of which they stood in awe, or wished to suppress.
One of those evils is, that the press is not only compelled to adapt its sentiments to the majority of its supporters, but that it is quite hopeless to attempt establishing a paper with any chance of success unless it pay court to the same rabble constituency. While, therefore, the present oppressive taxes remain unrepealed, the newspapers must remain the mere heralds of the mob—the monopoly must continue to exist; for no man, no matter how pure may be his principles, or conservative his views, or extensive his information, or rare his talents, could succeed in competition with these monopolists.
But the newspaper press has other difficulties to contend with besides those which bear upon it in the shape of taxation. A newspaper is an article of manufacture. There is no difference between it and a printed cotton or silk handkerchief, except this, that the one article is used in one way, and the other in another way. It is to all intents and purposes a manufacture. We, however, who are a nation of political economists, and the champions of free trade, have never yet considered the importance of encouraging the export of any thing else than rotten cottons, cast-metal cutlery, Newcastle coals, and every modern improvement in machinery. Oh, Hume! Joseph, Doctor, Greek Hume! for this last act of folly you ought to be dissected—pounded—or, as Lord Brougham says, brayed in a mortar! But we beg pardon, courteous reader,—digression is our besetting sin. A newspaper being, then, a manufacture, how do we treat it? It can be carried to Dover postage free. There are seventy thousand British subjects resident in France, and about one hundred and fifty thousand altogether on the continent, all anxious to buy and read London newspapers. Besides these, there are French, German, Dutch, and Russian subjects, who are desirous to see the English papers. It is, therefore, clearly our interest, as a commercial and trading nation, to export an article for which there is a demand. But what do we do? No newspaper can be carried from Dover to Calais, a distance of but a few miles, except by the post-office packets; and the charge of transport for those few miles amounts almost to a prohibition, for it more than doubles the price; and no paper can be sent to Calais or Boulogne, unless this heavy transit of upwards of thirty shillings per quarter be paid per advance to the clerks in the foreign department of the post-office, who have the exclusive privilege of conveying it, in a legal way. If you wish to send a daily paper to any of those towns, to a friend, say for a month only, or for a few weeks, you must first pay this quarter's charge upon the transit across the water, unless you smuggle, by bribing the master or steward of a steam-boat, or send it through an ambassador's bag, or in the portmanteau of a friend. It is the same with foreign papers transmitted to this country; so that the newspapers here not only lose by the restriction on their exports, but they are put to heavy expenses in procuring the foreign journals. The profits go to the clerks in the foreign department of the post-office. These persons have for many years been employed at such low salaries as are scarcely sufficient to maintain a carrier's dog; they are therefore allowed to employ this transit monopoly for their own advantage; and it is calculated, that the ten or twelve clerks so employed, are enabled to net about 400l. a-year each from this tax, which falls exclusively on the newspapers.
Having placed these facts before the eyes of the reader, need we ask if it be surprising that the daily newspapers are in such few hands, or that they court the only class of society by whose patronage they exist? But the advertisements, we shall be told, are a source of profit. And so they are. These, however, depend upon circulation almost entirely. The time has gone by, when booksellers, auctioneers, public companies, &c., used to give their advertisements exclusively to those journals whose party politics or political sentiments they preferred and wished to support. The paper that has the greatest circulation is sure to command the largest share of advertisements, unless it be a paper like the St. James's Chronicle, which has never courted that interest, nor professed being an advertising journal. But placing the profits of this business in the most favourable light, it is clear that it is paralysed by the fiscal restraints of the government. The man who has an estate worth twenty thousand pounds per annum to dispose of, advertises his property in the Times, for which he pays to the king three shillings and sixpence of duty. His advertisement may occupy a column or more, he may pay twenty pounds or more for the insertion, still the duty is only three shillings and sixpence. The poor devil of a turned-off footman, or groom, or washerwoman, or nursery maid, who seeks a place or employment by means of an advertisement in the Times, and which does not occupy more than a few lines, pays three shillings and sixpence duty also. Here there is glaring injustice and oppression. The three shillings and sixpence to this last person is a large sum—it was raised, perhaps, by pawning a coat, or the last shirt or shift. No matter—the wretch must pay it—pay two hundred per cent upon the price of his or her advertisement to the king; while the proprietor who offers his estate for sale in the same way, is only called upon to pay a farthing for every thousand pounds the estate is likely to sell for. To mince words here would be criminal—we call this injustice—it is robbery of the poor—it is a wilful abuse of power—it is a source of profit to the exchequer which is disgraceful and shameful—it is a tax wrung from the poor servant and the incipient pauper part of our population, to assist in paying the dividends of Jews who have already been twice paid, and of sinecurists and pensioners, the majority of whom, like Lady Westmeath or Mrs. Arbuthnot, have no claims whatever on the public bounty. Lord Goderich abolished lotteries from a moral feeling—he would have proved himself a better statesman had he repealed this tax from an honest feeling; for if it were unworthy the character of the British nation to extort revenues from gambling rakes, surely it is more unworthy its character to drain the last sixpence of the poor housemaid seeking a place, which if she should fail to obtain, she must become a burden upon her parish.
It is these enormous and unjust imposts, these unreasonable duties and stamps upon newspapers, which have not only given a monopoly to the daily press, but compelled it to cater for patronage, by pandering to democratic sympathies, in the lowest haunts of society—making it, in short, the organ of rabble opinions, and divesting it of that higher feeling and purer taste which obtain in those circles where a newspaper is not now supposed to possess any influence.
But if it be expedient to correct this error, the question comes, How is it to be corrected? We reply, by the repeal of the stamp and advertisement duties. What! open up the trade? extend the power and influence of the journals? make political opinions as free as the sale of ginger-beer, under no other restraint than that which appertains to a town-crier, or the letter of furnished lodgings? Just so, my Lord Althorp. If you carry your Reform Bill, this measure will be forced upon you. It is better, therefore, to do that voluntarily, which, under the new delegates, is sure to be carried per fus et nefas. The monopoly will be up in arms, it is true; the Times journal has already prevented you from introducing the sham improvement which you proposed in March last—but it must be carried, whether you remain Chancellor of the Exchequer for another twelve months, or sink into your original state, as a leading member of his "Majesty's Opposition." There is no alternative—the country must have a free press, unconstrained by the despotism of the tap-room and coffee-house ascendency. It is true that many of our friends among the Tories will be found opposed to this proposition. But why should they? No change in the system can render them more powerless, or more exposed to the abuse and detraction of the newspapers. They have always had upon their side the talent of the country—the ablest advocates, the most consistent supporters, the most nervous and intelligent writers. Why are they silent in this emergency? Merely because they have no chance, under the restrictive system, in the contest in which the mob are, through the press, supreme. Remove the present shackles, and not only will talent be encouraged, but a new market will be created for information, and the people will have some chance of hearing the arguments on both sides of every important measure—a desidetatum much wanted, and which it is vain to think they can obtain under the present system. Release the press from its manacles, and there will be an end to the exclusive politics of the pot-house. Make papers cheap, and talent will have fair play; the poorest politician will be enabled to hear, and perhaps understand, various opinions; and where truth, and reason, and interest meet in the discussion of a public question, we have no fear of the wildest radical or commonest boor in the land not clinging to that which is most reasonable and convincing.
But while we say this, we see no reason for conceding a bounty to the press, by the free transit of papers all over the empire, while this transmission might be made a fair source of profit. Why should newspapers be carried free? unless it be to favour the distant reader at the expense of the resident in the metropolis. Let them be placed on the footing of every other vehicle of literary or scientific information. Surely it is not politic to drench the provinces with the trashy gossip, and the demoralising reports and details of the London journals. Why should a literary journal be subjected to postage, and the disgusting police reports of the Herald, the dull disquisitions of the Chronicle, and the slanderous invectives of the Times, be carried free? For no other reason on earth, but to compensate these journals, by an extension of their sale, for the heavy taxes imposed upon them in London. We thus mulct the Londoner, and debauch the country reader. We extort a tax from the citizens of the capital; but we expend it in furnishing the inhabitants of the most distant provinces with the obnoxious and pestilential occurrences of the metropolis. We make the citizen of London pay sevenpence for his newspaper; but in order to encourage it, and spread the contagion of its vices to the remotest districts, we carry the said newspaper, postage free, to the Orkney Islands, and the back settlements of Ireland. In short, without deriving any profit, we transmit the calendar of London vices, the details of murder, seduction, and all horrible crimes, into every lonely cottage, and into communities where the very terms applicable to our worst immoralities would never have been known but for the London newspapers.
This is an error and an evil which cannot be too speedily corrected. The means requisite for this purpose are of easy application, and by being enforced, would not only correct that demoralising tendency of the newspapers, but place them either in a condition of being more useful or more harmless. The plan we have to propose is, that on the repeal of the stamp and advertisement duties, or the reduction of them to the rate of one penny per sheet, and sixpence each advertisement, that all newspapers carried by the post shall pay a post-office charge of one penny for the first fifty miles of transit, two pence for a hundred and fifty miles, and three pence when the distance is more than a hundred and fifty miles. If the paper, therefore, were published at threepence halfpenny in London, the cost of it in Manchester, Liverpool, Dublin, Edinburgh, and Glasgow, would be sixpence halfpenny; in Inverness, Cork, and Belfast, the same; but in Windsor, Maidstone, Chelmsford, and Tunbridge Wells, and all towns within fifty miles of London, it would only be fourpence halfpenny; and in Brighton, Dover, Cheltenham, Bristol, Birmingham, &c., fivepence halfpenny. The country papers would be placed under the same regulation; to which we are confident they would not object. It would be unnecessary to place the newspapers under the same strict regulations as letters are subject to. The publisher would have the option of transmitting them by the coaches, if he or his subscribers should prefer doing so; for this privilege would not be embraced to any great extent—the moderate rate of postage, and the certainty and speed of delivery, outweighing all the saving that could be derived from transmitting them in stage-coach parcels.
The advantages of this arrangement would be twofold. First, the postage could be collected without increasing the agents or establishments of the post-office; and secondly, the publishers of papers would be released from the most vexatious part of the law, namely, paying heavy duties sometimes on papers which they do not sell, and compelling them to employ a larger capital, in order to accommodate the newsmen, and meet the necessary advances to the stamp-office. One thing, however, is plain—a change is indispensably necessary. The monopoly must be broken up, or, ere long, the daily and weekly journals will become, one and all, the mere organs of the mob.
The present monopoly confers no benefit, either on the minister, who stands in awe of it—the people, whose passions it labours to excite—or the laborious and ingenious, and often highly accomplished persons, who are employed as leading conductors, or auxiliaries, in the different departments of a newspaper. The profits, where there are profits, are divided among but a few persons; these being speculators—not literary men, but capitalists whose object in such an investment is gain, and nothing but gain. There is scarcely an instance of any individual, known as the editor of a newspaper, and known to the world for his talents as a public writer, who has ever acquired wealth by such a connexion. Some one or two persons may have done so, in the times that are gone by—during the excitement of the late war, for instance, when the journals were more in demand, and the profits accruing from them much more considerable. At present, there are no such fortunate persons. We might poll them all, from him who toils by the midnight lamp, when the world is asleep, and who is obliged to pass a hasty opinion on the most momentous events, or give intelligibility to some obscure document, brought from the centre of Russia by express, and furnished to him, often in garbled scraps, by the translator of the post-office—from him, this fagging philosopher, who works by night, to his contemporary who labours by day—without finding one who has acquired any thing like a moderate fortune, or who is in other than very mediocre circumstances. If the principal conductors of the leading journals be in this situation—and we vouch for the fact—in what condition must those be whose concerns are much less prosperous? Poor and needy all! a class of hand-to-mouth gentlemen—geniuses of the first water, upon five guineas a-week—politicians of rare talents, living in second-floor lodgings—men who can catch your thoughts with a pen gliber than your tongue, but who vegetate in unknown places, maintaining their quality on a pittance which we are ashamed to name, and waging a perpetual war with tailors and a legion of duns. These persons—we say it in perfect sincerity—deserve more from their country: the press can only be made respectable by making its conductors more independent.
And this is one of the objects we have in view, in the changes we have ventured to propose. By reducing the present oppressive duties, we should increase the demand for newspapers—call additional ones into existence—increase the profits derived from them—place them in a more elevated position—and make their conductors infinitely more respectable and independent. In short, by this policy we should hold out encouragement to honesty and consistency in politics, and remove the temptations and the necessities which uniformly make shipwreck of the man of genius. If there were fairer competition, and some chance of compensation, where a moderate capital only was required, there would be less inducement to follow in the wake of popular prejudices; for competition would inspire better sentiments, and correct, in the most efficient manner, popular errors.
But there is one branch of the business of newspapers which is important in the first degree, because the fidelity and impartiality with which it is transacted must contribute to the respectability of the press, and have a powerful influence on society. We allude to the reporting of parliamentary debates. Many plans have been suggested for improving the present system. That it is defective, and requires amendment, none will deny. The fault has its origin in the monopoly we have already deprecated. Neither the editors nor proprietors of newspapers, under the present regulations, have more than a very inefficient control over the reporters in the gallery. If a member of parliament should complain that he has been made to express sentiments which he never uttered, while what he did say is carefully suppressed, the ready excuse is that he was inaudible—or perhaps the excuse is magnified into a charge, and he is openly accused of being ashamed of what he did state, this accusation being founded upon the evidence of the reporters themselves, whose various reports exhibit a most singular uniformity in fixing him with the very words which he denies. The mystery is easily explained. The reporters have their own private predilections and antipathies, and under the influence of these they too frequently indulge in the cruel sarcasm of making some honourable member a vast deal more eloquent than he is in reality—giving him the benefit of a cheer when there is a confused noise or a dead silence; while, on the other hand, as respects other members, they often give to the simplest argument, and the most distinct articulation, an air of ingenious obscurity and unintelligibility which borders upon nonsense. This is according to their sovereign will and pleasure. No editor could take cognisance of this, even if disposed; for he is rarely present in the house himself, and has no other means of judging of the correctness of the report but by comparing one version with another. But the fact is, that the report complained of is a confederative misrepresentation. It is the wilful act of the fraternity, who have an interest in protecting each other against the consequences. A new reporter in the gallery is regularly schooled in the mysteries of his art, as a freshman is on his arrival at one of the universities. He is told whom he is to favour and whom slight—who is a pet, and who a bore—who is worthy of being listened to, and who should be coughed down—who should shine, and who should be extinguished—who should be idolised, and who damned! A glance at the proceedings in the gallery of the House of Commons would convince the most ordinary observer of the truth of this representation. The reporters exercise their own discretion on all these matters. "What the devil are you about?" said one of these gentlemen to a younger brother, not many weeks ago; "don't you know that we never report that fellow?" and suiting the action to the word, he dashed to the floor the implements of stenography which his uninitiated brother had dared to wield in defiance of the decrees of the order. "Slate[1] him at once!" on another occasion, said one of these magnates to the rest of his colleagues in the back seat, when Mr. Hunt was expressing sentiments hostile to the Reform Bill. Every pen, at the word of command, ceased its operations, and the report next morning stated that the honourable member was quite inaudible in the gallery from the cries of "Oh! oh!" and other disagreeable sounds which pervaded the house.
This is conduct which, to say the least of it, is far from being creditable to the press. But we are not surprised at it; nor have the house, considering the hauteur which some of its members assume when speaking of the journals, and the absurd difficulties they throw in the way of correct reporting, any right to complain. They are jealous of their privileges to a very ludicrous extent; and it is not astonishing that those whom they suffer to infringe them for their own advantage, and chiefly from a feeling of vanity, should abusea power conceded under such paltry restrictions. They have the power of shutting their doors when they please against the reporters—when they open them, it is principally to indulge a love of popularity; for, ludicrous and contemptible as it must appear, it is nevertheless true, that several of the most popular debaters in that house more frequently address their arguments to the gentlemen in the gallery—to their patrons of the fourth estate—to the hirelings of the newspapers—than to the speaker's chair. This gives importance and consequence to these persons, who are generally natives of the sister kingdom, eating their way towards fame and the bar in some of the inns of court, and all of whom consider themselves the embryo race of chancellors who are to adorn the woolsack of England. It is true that the beggar who dreams he is a king is the happiest monarch that ever was born; and these gentlemen who look forward to the seals, and look down on the representatives of the people from the highest seat in the House of Commons, are entitled to much commiseration, and may charitably be indulged in their fancies, considering the repulsive drudgery they are called upon to perform, and the impliable and disjointed stuff they are obliged to render into tolerable English. The nuisance is hardly endurable—that which they have to bear, and that which it is their duty to inflict upon the community at large.
Many plans, as we have said before, have been suggested in order to improve the present mode of reporting. We have considered them all, without being in the slightest degree convinced of either their utility or practicability. The press alone can correct its own abuses and errors. The evils of misrepresentation, and of favouritism, and of antipathy, can only be corrected by unlimited competition. The conventional partiality and prejudices of the reporters can only be counteracted by an importation of fresh competitors into the market, whose duties would be more rigidly exacted, and their performance of them more strictly watched. Let the House of Commons open its doors to the public in a more liberal manner, and give the press those facilities which it merits—and the complaints that are so often made would no longer be heard. The incentive to venality would merge in the ardour of rivalship; favouritism would be unknown, because it would cease to be profitable; justice would be done to all impartially; and that paper would necessarily be in most request whose reporters performed their duty most zealously, indefatigably, and independently.
With respect to the subordinate class of reporters, who furnish the offal of the police courts, and make the lowest details of vice, drunkenness, and prostitution, a source of profit, it is desirable that some improvement, of a legislative kind, should be devised. The greater proportion of charges which form the staple of newspaper intelligence relative to the police courts, are necessarily founded on ex-parte statements. In criminal matters, the publication of these charges could not be reasonably objected to, so far as the giving publicity to them goes, unless they should be of a nature which it is better should be withheld from the public than exposed. But in other cases —cases of private quarrels, of domestic jarrings, of family differences, and of tavern squabbles, in which the public can have no interest, and the publication of which merely excites scandal, and encourages demoralisation—it would be extremely expedient that the proceedings of these courts should be a sealed book. Their exposure leads to no good, but rather to much evil. They have this prejudicial effect, that they too frequently deter sensitive persons from seeking redress. The proceedings in these offices, to the disgrace of the country, and the degradation of morals, have been turned into ridicule by the newspapers; and, as subjects of amusement, have been converted into sources of profit. It is desirable that this traffic and abuse should be suppressed. The magistrates should be compelled to hear all cases of this nature with closed doors, and the publication of such private proceedings should be considered a penal offence. In this way the press would be rendered not only less obnoxious, but the nervous victim, robbed during a moment of inebriety or weakness, would have confidence in bringing the offenders to justice.
1. To "slate" a person is a slang phrase in Dublin, which has some affinity to "knock out bis brains."