London, March 27. We learn from the best source that 
Bonaparte’s visit to St. James’s Palace'’°—expected on April 
16—will occasion a great counter-demonstration. For the Chartists 
have invited the French refugee Armand Barbeés also to visit 
London on April 16, when he is to be received with a public 
procession and a big meeting. There is, however, some question 
whether his state of health will permit a sea voyage. 

The Bill to abolish the newspaper stamp passed its second 
reading in the House of Commons yesterday. The main articles of 
this Bill are as follows: 1. The compulsory newspaper stamp is 
abolished; 2. Periodicals printed on stamped paper will continue to 
enjoy the privilege of free distribution through the post. A third 
clause concerns the size of printed matter distributed through the 
post, and another decrees that stamped newspapers will have to 
furnish security in case of any action for libel. The old newspaper 
duty system is sufficiently characterised by two facts. The 
publication of a daily paper in London requires a capital of at least 
£50,000 to £60,000. The whole English press, with very few 
exceptions, raises a shameless and disgraceful opposition to the 
new Bill. Is further proof needed that the old system was a 
protective tariff system for the established press and a system 
prohibiting free mental production? Press freedom in England 
up to now has been the exclusive privilege of capital. The few 
weekly journals which represent the interests of the working 
class—daily papers were, of course, out of the question— manage 
to survive thanks to the weekly contributions of the workers, who in 
England are making very different sacrifices for public purposes 

than those on the Continent. The tragicomic, blustering rhetoric 
with which the Leviathan of the English press— The Times—fights 
pro aris et focis,* i. e., for the newspaper monopoly, now modestly 
comparing itself with the Delphic oracle, now affirming that England 
possesses only one single institution worth preserving, namely The 
Times; now claiming absolute rule over world journalism, and, 
without any Treaty of Kuchuk-Kainardji,“” a protectorate over all 
European journalists. 

All this cant” by The Times was properly disposed of in yesterday’s 
sitting of the Lower House by the whimsical Drummond: 

“Nowadays the press was a mercantile speculation, and nothing else.... Why 
Messrs. Walter”, the principal shareholders of The Times, “should not set up a 
manufactory of gossip just as well as Mr. Bright should set up a manufactory of 
calico?... The Times seemed to him to carry on their business [...] better than their 
rivals [...]. The Walter family have always found a convenient man [...]—a seven 
years’ barrister or some one of that stamp, who was ready to take up anything. [...] 
There was Barnes, Alsager, Sterling, Delane, Morris, Lowe and Dasent. [...] These 
gentlemen were all of different opinions. Now, the foolish papers who did not 
understand the matter, like The Morning Chronicle, for instance, took up with some 

particular party. One was a Peelite ~~; another a Derbyite, etc. When the Peelite party 
was thriving the paper throve too, but when the Peelites went down, down went the 
paper. It was quite clear these were not men of business. The thing was to get a set of 
gentlemen of different opinions”—-and The Times is a master of this—‘‘and to set 
them writing. Of course, you could accuse no one man of inconsistency; he might 
always have held the same opinions; and so individually these were most consistent, 
while, collectively, nothing in the world could be more inconsistent. It seemed to him 
that the very perfection of journalism was—individual honesty, and collective 
profligacy, political and literary. There was [...] a great advantage in this, and The 
Times newspaper always put him very much in mind of one ves his farmers. When 
he suggested draining a bit of bog the farmer [...] replied, ‘No, no! don’t drain it. 
In wet weather there’s something for the cow, and if there’s nothing for the 
cow there’s something for the pig, and if there’s nothing for the pig, there’s some- 
thing for the goose.’ [...] As to the bribery of newspapers there was positive proof 
respecting The Times of which Napoleon said, ‘You have sent me The Times,—that 
infamous Times, the journal of the Bourbons’-—and it was stated in a work by 
Mr. O’Meara‘ that the Bourbons paid The Times 6,000 f. [...] a month. He had 
found the receipt for the money, signed by the editor. Mr. O’Meara also stated that 
before he was exiled to Elba Napoleon received several offers [...] from the editors 
of newspapers, and among them offers from The Times, to write for them. Napoleon 
declined to accept the offers made to him, but afterwards regretted the course 
he took.” 

duty, published in The Times, No. 22011, March 26, 1855.— Ed. 
Drummond made this speech in the House of Commons on March 26, 1855. 
The Times, No. 22012, March 27, 1855.— Ed. 

In this context we merely observe that in 1815 The Times urged 
that Napoleon, whom it presented as the centre of European 
demagogy'” should be shot under martial law. In 1816 this same 
paper wanted to bring the United States of North America, “this 
disastrous example of successful insurrection”, back under English 
despotism.