7 The Struggle for Freedom. 17 1832 and 1834, Mr Grant says that 500 persons were imprisoned for selling unstamped papers, and prosecutions were instituted against 700 of these publications. Gener- ally speaking, the tone of this surreptitious Press was bad, and its scurrilous articles anything but creditable. The reign of William IV. saw the last of those Govern- ment prosecutions for libel — in other words criticism of the administration of the period — which, if attempted now by any Government, or by any member of a Government, would be considered an unwarrantable infringement of freedom of speech. The final prosecutions occurred during the Tory administration of the Duke of Wellington in 1830, and the Whig administration of Earl Grey in 1831. In the closing days of the last reign, and during the Government of Viscount Melbourne, the Stamp Duty was reduced to the more moderate imposition of a penny, a result which may be considered one of the first fruits of the Reformed Parliament. But this was not accomplished without a struggle. In 1832 Sir E. Bulwer Lytton had led an attack on the Stamp Duty in the House of Commons. The Advertisement Duty was lowered in the following year, but it was not till 1836 that the Government pro- posed, and carried into law, the reduction of the Stamp Duty to a penny. This concession did not, however, abate the ardor of those who were contending for the freedom of the Press. Their efforts assumed an organized form in the course of the next fifteen years, and the Association for the Repeal of Taxes on Knowledge came into existence. The first Parliamentary victory was achieved during the administration of the Earl of Aber- deen, when Mr Gladstone was for the first time Chancellor of the Exchequer. An attack was made on the Adver- tisement Duty, when the Chancellor of the Exchequer declared himself unable to do without it, and sought to retain it at 6^/. instead of is. 6d. But by a majority of
