The Newspapers, Printers and Reading Rooms Repeal Act 1869: a case for repeal?

If the reader cares to look at the foot of the back inside cover of this journal he will observe the statement ‘Printed by Kent Paper Company Ltd., London and Ashford, Kent’. He should also find if he looks at any other book or periodical that this too will contain the name of the printer, sometimes as with Legal Studies on the back page and sometimes as, for example, with the Law Quarterly Review and Smith's The Law of Theft on one of the front pages. Why is it that the name of the printer appears thus on publications? The answer is not, as perhaps one may expect, self-advertisement by the printer but because the law so requires.