"Inland Revenue, Somerset House.
"Solicitors' Department.
"The Attorney-General against George Jacob Holyoake.
"The penalties sought to be recovered by this prosecution are several of £20 each, which the defendant has incurred by publishing certain newspapers called War Chronicle and The War Fly Sheet on unstamped paper."
As I had published 30,000 copies, the penalties incurred were £600,000.
These alarming documents were accompanied by intimation as to the question at issue, and the penalties to be recovered. My solicitors, Messrs. Ashurst, Waller and Morris, No. 6, Old Jewry, put in an appearance for me, but on the repeal of the duty shortly after, a hearing was never entered upon, and the penalties have not been collected. How they came to be incurred in respect of the War Chronicles the reader may see in "Sixty Years," vol. i. p. 287.
No intimation was ever given to me—there is no courtesy, I believe, in law—that these intimidating summonses were withdrawn. I had no defence against the charge. I could not deny, nor did I intend to deny, that I had knowingly and wilfully published the said papers. In justification I could only allege that I had acted, as I believed, in the public interest, which, I was told, was no legal answer. The law, which ought to be clear and plain, was, I knew, full of quirks and surprises; and, for all I knew, or know to this day, the payment of the fines incurred might be demanded of me. It was communicated to the then Chancellor of the Exchequer (Mr. Gladstone) that in case of the full demand being made upon me, I should be under the necessity of asking him to take it in weekly instalments, as I had not the whole amount by me.
The position of an "unstamped" debtor was not, in those days, a light one. My house in Fleet Street could be entered by officers of the Inland Revenue; every person in it, printers, assistants in the shop, and any one found upon the premises could be arrested. The stock of books could be seized, and blacksmiths set to break up all presses and destroy all type, as was done to Henry Hetherington; and for many weeks I made daily preparations for arrest.
The St. James's Gazette (April 13, 1901) referred to the fines of £600,000 incurred by me. What I really owed was a much larger sum, had the Government been exacting. Previously to the War Chronicle liability, I had published the Reasoner twelve years, of which the average number issued may have exceeded 2,000 weekly, or 104,000 a year—every copy of which, containing news and being unstamped, rendered me liable to a fine of £20 each copy. Now 104,000 x 12 x £20 exceeded more millions of indebtedness than I like to set down. Any arithmetical reader can ascertain the amount for himself. A friend in the Inland Revenue Office first made the calculation for me, which astonished me very much, as it did him. Had the whole sum been recoverable it might have saved the Budget of a Chancellor of the Exchequer struggling with a deficit.
The Government were frequently asked to prosecute me. It was not from any tenderness to me that they did not. It was their reluctance to give publicity to the Reasoner that caused them to refrain. It was the advocacy of unusual opinion which gave me this immunity.