The Struggle for Freedom. 19 tion, when the Government of the day was adding sixteen miUions to the National Debt, it did manage to do without the revenue from stamped newspapers. Encouraged to persevere, financial reformers next attacked the remaining tax on the Press, namely, the Paper Duty. Here triumph was not so readily achieved. The opinion of leading politicians was in sharp conflict. English manufacturers were afraid of foreign competition, and the high-priced journals were against any change which would increase the number of newspapers. In the session of i860, in the House of Commons, the removal of the excise on paper was carried by Mr Gladstone, but by diminishing majorities ; the third reading was passed by only nine votes. When the proposal came before the House of Lords it was rejected by a very decisive majority. With Mr Bright at its head, an active agitation was carried on between the sessions of i860 and 1861. There was much political turmoil, and there was a constitutional struggle between the two Houses. All this is a matter ot history, but it will suffice to say here, that on ist October, 1 86 1, Mr Gladstone removed paper from the list of duti- able articles, and thus liberated the Press from its last fiscal fetter. For nearly thirty years that freedom has been enjoyed, and to-day the newspapers of this country are the cheapest, as they are in many respects the best, in the world. The free Press of England has not been the evil which some great men had apprehended. Cobden, in one of his letters, is very severe on sentimentalists who utter fine expressions but are not to be depended on for political action. He instances the fact that Dickens had refused to sign a petition for the repeal of the taxes on knowledge "on the express ground that he would not promote a deluge of printer's ink in England similar to what he had 2»
