fxm] GREAT PRODUOERS—THE COUNTIES.

(18.) To Samuel Incas.

824

1860.
Br. 56.

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 pro-Vincial,
 upon the subject in question. This very conspiracy
to ignore the question of the paper duty ought to be tho
Tost 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
¢alico-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 arguents
 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.’

(14.) To Samuel Lucas.
Politics in the Counties.

“ Algiers, 23rd February, 1861.—1It is a mistake to sup-Pose,
 because there are no contests in the counties, and
because a few nobles or proprietors settle the candidatures
and the returns in every case, that there is no political
Spirit in our provincial towns and villages. There is more
healthy radicalism to be found scattered about our small
towns and villages than in the larger boroughs. I mean
that it is a more sturdy kind of democratic sentiment, for