stigate the question, however much
their suggestion for deferring a vote upon it might look like a pretext
for evading it altogether. But when the Chancellor of the Exchequer
moved the previous question, the motion was lost by a large majority. A
main contention of the advocates of the reduction of rate was that in
many foreign countries--in France, in Belgium, in Switzerland, in the
United States--extremely low rates of postage for newspapers were in
operation, and what was possible in those countries ought to be possible
in England.

Following this vote in the House of Commons the matter was further
considered at the Post Office, and in the next session an Act was passed
providing that any newspaper conforming to certain conditions, the chief
of which were that it should be issued at intervals of not more than
seven days and should consist wholly or in great part of political or
other news or of articles relating thereto or to other current topics,
should be entitled to transmission by post at the rate of 1/2d. per copy
irrespective of weight. The privilege of retransmission was
withdrawn.[302]

The statutory basis of the newspaper post has remained unchanged since
1870, and the provisions of the Act of 1870 were included in the Post
Office Act of 1908, which contains the present authority for the
privilege. There has been some necessary interpretation by the Post
Office of the definition of a newspaper as given in the Act. The chief
points on which difficulty has arisen are (1) as to the amount of
news-matter required in a publication, and (2) as to the character of
the matter which can be accepted as news-matter. The Act provides that
the publication should consist "wholly or in great part of political or
other news or of articles relating thereto, or to other current topics."
This requirement is considered to be satisfied if as much as one-third
of the publication consists of matter accepted as news. The proportion,
when fixed, was based on an examination of the proportion of news-matter
contained in the average newspaper, and represents the actual proportion
then generally met with. There is no provision regarding the proportion
to be maintained between the size of a newspaper within the meaning of
the Act and its supplement, but, under the accepted interpretation of
the statute, a newspaper may contain a supplement of equal size, and
that supplement may consist wholly of advertisements. The result of this
is th