has been long spoken of.
It has been said that it must be 'free as the air we breathe; take it
away, we die.' But, Sir, what is the 'liberty of the Press'? It is the
liberty of a certain number of persons to slander anonymously whomever
they please, against whom you have no redress. It is freedom to the
anonymous libeller."--Mr. Drummond in the House of Commons, 23rd April
1855; ibid., vol. cxxxvii. col. 1680.

[296] "This is not merely a fiscal matter, because, as I have already
stated to the Committee, the existing law respecting the stamp duty upon
newspapers has been brought into a most inconsistent state by a
succession of indulgences which were made for the benefit of a certain
class of newspaper publications. The consequence of these indulgences
is, that the greatest difficulty exists in the administration of the
present law."--Chancellor of the Exchequer in House of Commons, 19th
March 1855; ibid., vol. cxxxvii. col. 802.

[297] "Q. 1852. _Mr. Cobden_: Would the carrying of newspapers be
profitable to the Post Office at the present rates, provided you were
left to adopt your own regulations as to the transmission of newspapers
without the intervention of the Board of Inland Revenue?--In one sense
it would be profitable and in another it would not. If we were to charge
against the newspapers a share of the fixed expenses of the
establishment, then it is very questionable whether it would be
profitable; but if you consider, as we probably should, that the
expenses of the establishment are incurred in respect of the letters,
and only calculate the additional expense which would be thrown upon us
for the transmission of newspapers, then I think we should find them
profitable.

"Q. 1853: Having an immense organization at the Post Office with a
certain amount of fixed charges, with a large amount of postmen
necessarily travelling over the whole of the kingdom, you would find it
profitable to carry newspapers for a penny, in addition to the letter
carrying, would you?--Yes.

"Q. 1854: Therefore, if the newspaper stamp were abolished, and you were
left to regulate the postage at the Post Office, you would deem it
profitable to carry newspapers at a penny each?--Yes, certainly we
should: what I mean is, that the carrying of newspapers would not
increase our expenses to the extent of a penny each.

"Ans. 1912: I was in hopes that we might distribute them at a halfpenny,
if we could have completed a plan in the simp