WeRead Powered by ReaderPub
The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. / From the Accession of George III. to the Twenty-Third Year of the Reign of Queen Victoria cover

The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. / From the Accession of George III. to the Twenty-Third Year of the Reign of Queen Victoria

Chapter 895: MOTIONS REGARDING THE STAMP-DUTY AND CHEAP PUBLICATIONS.
By Edward Farr
Open in WeRead

Explore more books like this:

History - BritishHistory - Modern (1750+)History - RoyaltyHistory - Warfare

About This Book

The volume traces British political, parliamentary, and military developments from the accession of George III through the early nineteenth century, chronicling changes of ministry and cabinet, debates over colonial taxation and the American conflict, parliamentary controversies involving figures such as Wilkes and Warren Hastings, questions of Catholic relief and slave-trade abolition, and responses to the French Revolution and Napoleonic wars, including major naval and continental campaigns, the union with Ireland, and domestic legislation on finance, civil liberties, and parliamentary reform.

MOTIONS REGARDING THE STAMP-DUTY AND CHEAP PUBLICATIONS.

During the troubled state of the country in 1819 and 1820, certain legislative measures had been adopted, known by the name of the Six Acts, for the purpose of checking the course of sedition. Some of these had expired by the lapse of time; but one, which subjected cheap periodicals issued for the purposes of agitation to a stamp-duty still remained on the statute-book. On the 31st of May, Mr. Hume brought forward a motion for the repeal of this statute. He had intended, he said, to have made this motion during the preceding session, but he congratulated himself upon the delay, as the changes which had taken place in the government were favourable to the question he now advocated. But Mr. Hume soon found himself mistaken. Mr. Canning and others when in opposition had condemned this statute as a tyrannical and unwarrantable attack against the liberty of the press; but to a man they now resisted the motion, and abused and ridiculed the mover. It was lost by a majority of one hundred and twenty against ten.