The Sun.
London, England, 1839-10-22 00:00:00

THE SUN, LONDON, TUFSDAI, OCTOBLR, 22,

powers of oratory, no man of his time was equal
to Lord Brougham. Nor was he wanting in skill,
though it was not precisely of the rhetorical cast.
Even in the most terrific storms of passionate
invective there seemed to be an under current of
cool reason at work, inventing arguments, and sug-
gesting sarcasms. He had imagination to create,
wit to combine, and a torrent of language at com-
mand, which suited itself to every mood and phase
of intellectual employment. Upon matters of po-
litical opinion it has been our fate always to differ
from Lord Brougham. Even of late, when others
of our party were wholly with him, we felt that we
could not be so. But we cannot dwell upon that
now. He is gone—torn away by a horrid and vio-
lent death, while his mind was vet in its full vigour,
and his spirits as elastic and buoyant as ever I We
have no feeling now with respect to him but that
of grief. The most wonderful genius that belonged
to public life is no more, and we, as belonging to
the public, are grief-stricken mourners over his un-
timely grave.
(From the Herald.)
In another column will nine; Herald.)
found the rumour
that prevailed, last night, as to the death of Lord
Brougham. We trust that the report is unfounded.
We venture to think, indeed, that had such a
catastrophe occurred, specific intelligence on the
subject must have been received at his Lordship's
house in town. Should, however, the rumour, un-
fortunately, be confirmed, the public will have lost
a servant of great and varied talents—as well as of
a kindly and generous nature. To very many of
Lord Brougham's principles and opinions we are
strongly opposed. In many respects, we deem
him to have been an unwise and dangerous
councillor ; yet we are little disposed to ques-
tion the honesty of purpose with which he sought
to carry his opinions into action. Whatever may
have been Lord Brougham's rank as a statesman,
few persons, at all events, will deny that his rank
as a debater was very high. Few public speakers
have acquired a larger measure of reputation. Few
of those men who have, contributed in times past, to
the general excitement and gratification, have called
forth when they died a stronger sense of privation,
in the public, than Lord Brougham will do, should
the melancholy rumour now in circulation prove
true. The death of Lord Brougham will not
fail to produce considerable effects on the
state of parties. True, his Lordship pos-
sessed no definite political power. He could
boast of no party in Parliament. Yet even in Par-
liament he produced, at times, results of no slight
moment. He, above all other persons, perhaps,
has, for the last two years, contrived to " damage"
the present weak and worthless Ministry. Lord
Brougham's influence, moreover, over the opinions
of the pro-educational, and anti-slavery parties
throughout the country has never been shaken.
" The web" of Lord Brougham's public life has,
indeed, " been a mingled yarn—good and ill toge-
ther." But his impulses were of an honest kind ;
and his death will not, in many quarters, be unat-
tended with deep and lasting regrets.

We recur to the subject of a uniform penny
postage, which the Quarterly Reviewer, with a hy-
pocritical pretension to a love of justice, opposes
through many pages because it would be unjust.
We showed in our former article that, in fact, it

costs more, in many cases, to transmit letters short
distances, as in the examples quoted by the Re-
viewer of Louth and Edinburgh, than to transmit
them great distances, when many of them are to be
sent, which at once puts down his pretended love
of justice, founded on his common sense view.
Besides the element of the number of letters to
be sent affecting the cost of sending each letter, and
which the blind common sense of the Reviewer
could not see, there is another important con-
sideration which justifies a uniform rate.
In a great number of cases, as in those
of Dublin and Edinburgh, whether the Govern-
ment undertake to carry the letters of individuals or
not, it must keep up a continual communication.
Its officers are scattered all over the empire, and
if it do not now receive daily reports from them,
that is because the public newspapers supply it with
intelligence from every corner of the empire ; and
if there were no newspapers, the Government must
have daily reports, in order to be assured of the
continuance of tranquillity and peace from most of
its functionaries. Even now the Custom-house,
Excise, and Stamp departments, with several other
branches of the public service, transmit and receive
daily an immense number of communications
from various parts of the kingdom. The Govern-
ment, therefore, is compelled to be a carrier of
letters for its own service, and consequently to carry
those of individuals, whether one mile or 100 miles,
can add very little, or nothing, to the expense. In truth,
Government does not carry on much written com-
munication within short distances, and a great deal
with long distances, whence it follows that the car-
rying of letters within short distances is an extra
service which Government performs for individuals,
which is not required for itself, and for which it
might with propriety make individuals pay.
Thus, astounding as it may appear to the '1
Tory common sense of the Quarterly Re-
viewer, it is a fact that it costs the Government,
which must send to the extremes of the empire,
more to carry the letters of individuals within the
circle of the twopenny or threepenny posts, than to
sendfliem to Dublin or Edinburgh.
It is proved by Mr. HILL, whose calculations on
this point cannot be disproved by the Reviewer,
that it costs at present only one thirty-sixth part
of a penny to convey a letter from London to
Edinburgh. The Postage Committee, by compar-
ing the whole number of paying letters with the
present actual cost of transit on the whole, come
to the conclusion that it costs not quite two-
elevenths of a penny on each letter to convey all the
letters which pass through the Post-office within the
limits of Great Britain and Ireland to its destination.
" It is not a matter of inference," say the Commit-
tee, " but of fact, that the expense to the Post-office
is practically the same whether a letter goes from
London to Barnet, or from London to Edinburgh.
The difference is not expressible in the smallest
coin we have." Such being the fact, the Reviewer
will perhaps condescend to inform the publiC, if he
charge a penny to carry a letter to Barnet, what
further sum he will charge in order to carry it to
Edinburgh or Inverness. Shall it be a penny. and
the hundredth part of a penny for the former, and one
penny-farthing for the latter, and must some new
money be coined to suit the sense of justice, infi-
nitely more refined than the delicate feeling that
lives in the insect's antenna, which has all at once
become native to the Tories ? Let the Reviewer,
on any supposition of the cost of conveyance at all
consistent with the facts, seek to form a scale of
charges which shall be exactly proportionate
to the cost of conveying letters, including both
the distance and the number of letters sent, and
the hopelessness of his task will soon make him
take refuge in one uniform rate. It is from the
impossibility of framing any scale, varying with
the distance and the number of letters to be con-
veyed, which shall be at all proportionate to the
actual charge of transmitting letters, that a uniform
rate has been chosen, and that a uniform rate, if
any charge whatever is to be made, is just to all
letter-writers.