(13.): To Samuel Lucas

Anti-social interest of great Producers

“Paris, 1860.—I looked in yesterday at Galignani’s reading-room (where I had not been before) to glance at the papers. They are of course all high-priced, and not one word was said in any one of them, weekly, daily, or provincial, upon the subject in question. This very conspiracy to ignore the question of the paper duty ought to be the most conclusive argument in favour of its repeal. It proves that the high-priced papers have an interest opposed to that of the public. I remember when Lord Althorp was Chancellor of the Exchequer, being one of a deputation of calico-printers urging on the Government the repeal of the excise duty on prints. In the course of the conversation it was remarked that some of the largest printers were opposed to the movement, on which Lord Althorp, with that instinctive good sense which characterized him, observed: ‘That is in my opinion one of the strongest possible arguments in your favour, for it is evident if the great calico-printers are in favour of the tax, that their interest cannot be the public interest.’”