Daily National Intelligencer

PROMULGATION OF THE LAWS OF THE U. S.

Report of the Committee of the House of Representatives, appointed on the 17th ult. in relation to the publication of the Laws in the newspapers.

The committee to whom was referred the letter of the Secretary of State of the 7th February, 1820, in relation to the publication of the laws in the newspapers, report:

That the act of the 20th of April, 1818, made an unnecessary increase of the compensation payable to the proprietors of newspapers for the publication of the laws. There had been no difficulty in procuring the publication at the price previously established, and it is believed that the Secretary of State, who is now forced by law to give the increased compensation, could, if authorized to use his discretion, have the business performed on as reasonable terms as before the act of 1818.

The committee cannot believe that the act of 2d March, 1799. (since re-enacted and extended to the territories,) providing for the publication, in one newspaper of each state, and authorizing the publication in three of the papers, when the publication in one should be found insufficient, was passed, under any expectation that the expense of publication in three newspapers of every state would be incurred, or that it would at any time be found requisite to employ two newspapers in each of the towns of New Haven, Wilmington, Lexington, and Natchez, whilst none were employed in Richmond, Fredericksburgh, Petersburg, Fredericktown, Lancaster, or Louisville; or that the publication of the laws in the city of Richmond should be suspended, merely that they might be printed in a county adjacent to the District of Columbia, where three newspapers were engaged at the expense of government in the same business; or that newspapers, scarcely known out of the county in which they were published, and of a very limited circulation within, would have been selected for this purpose; but, that the law has been thus executed, is evidenced by the letter referred to the committee.

Newspaper publication might afford a cheap method in multiplying copies of the public acts. Few, however, in proportion to the whole number of the patrons of the press, read those publications, and still fewer preserve them; and, for all practical purposes, the publication in volumes or pamphlets is found to be more advantageous.

On subjects of great national concern, the interest of popular editors usually will (as it has hitherto done) furnish a sufficient inducement to inform their customers of the transactions of the government.

The public derives but small, if any, advantage, from the newspaper publication of Indian treaties; although their insertion, as appears by the letter of the Secretary of State, is among the causes of increasing the expenditure for promulgating the laws, from less than $5,000 dollars in 1816, to near $20,000 dollars in 1820.

The sum payable on each newspaper is, in most instances, sufficiently large to make government the best customer to the proprietor; and has sometimes been found sufficient to establish or continue small printing establishments in the country. In the opinion of the committee, the present law is not less objectionable by reason of its evident tendency to confer on the State Department a direct patronage and influence, (useless or pernicious, over many of the sixty-nine presses which the government has taken into its employment. But, as the laws in relation to the imposts and public lands, sometimes, on their passage, become of immediate public interest in certain sections of the country, the committee think a modification will be preferable to a repeal of the law.

Assuming the estimate of the Secretary of State, it will be found, that, by reducing the number of newspapers to twenty five, in the states and territories, and one in the District of Columbia, restoring the old price for the printers, and dispensing with this manner of publishing Indian treaties, the expenditure in relation to the laws of the present session will be reduced from $19,750 dollars, to $4,678 dollars and 34 cents; and, with a view to effect that object, the committee herewith report a bill

The bill reported by the committee was read a third time on Monday last, passed, and sent to the Senate for concurrence.

Those who opposed the bill said, that they were unwilling to diminish the newspaper circulation, among the people, of the laws passed for their government; that it was due to them that they should at least have an opportunity of seeing what the laws were; that the number of printers of the laws had, in this view, better be extended, even so as to include all the printers of the United States, than reduced to the number of twenty five. With a view to economy, it was said that a petty saving, of five or six or even ten thousand dollars, was nothing compared to the diffusion of information among the people; and the amount could be retrenched on almost any other object of expenditure with more propriety than on this.

It would be desirable, it was said, if it could be effected, to make provision that every free man in the government should read the laws. If the present publication of the laws was so unimportant as to allow Congress to reduce the number of papers to one in each state and territory, the publication of them in newspapers had better be entirely dispensed with --the present number being as small as possible, with a view to any thing like a diffusion of a knowledge of the laws among the People. With regard to the argument in favor of the bill, that it went to reduce the patronage of the Department of State, it was said to be entitled to little weight; for it was not to be thought, that the printers were to be influenced improperly by the pittance allowed them for the publication of the laws. It was denied, further, that the printers would voluntarily publish the laws, or at least such of them as were important, as had been said, without compensation. But, were it otherwise, it was argued, there was no propriety in submitting to the printer the decision of the question which of the laws were, and which were not, important; which were, and which were not, worthy of being known to the People. That the interest of the whole People in the operation of the laws, the agency of their Representatives in passing them, their political right to investigate and judge of them when passed, all required a wide diffusion of the laws; and that to this end the present number of publishers of the laws, three in each state, was not too large, but rather too small a proportion of the whole number of newspapers printed in the United States.