The Sun.
London, England, 1836-05-25 00:00:00

Zbe ix+

LONDON,
WEDNESDAY EVENING, MAY 25, 1836.

We lave repeatedly expressed surprise at the obsti-
nacy with which the Post-Office authorities opposed
the institution of Parliamentary inquiries into the ma-
nagement of that establishment. Had we read the
sixth Report of the Commissioners of Inquiry—the
conclusi.cm of which we this day publish—we should
have deemed the conduct of these gentlemen exceed-
ingly na:tural. There is something so gratifying to the ge-
nerality of mankind in commanding the means of ease,
pleasure., rank, and fashionable society, without being
obliged to stoop to the drudgery which awaits the mass
of our Allow-creatures, that it ought to excite no sur-
prise whten persons are found not over-scrupulous as to
the rigid: equity of such means, provided they can con-
trive to maintain an unblemished reputation in the
eyes of tie world. Let it not be here presumed that
we seek to characterise a party or a faction in the
State. -Far from it. Among the most staunch Post-
office Reformers we are happy to rank several cham-
pions of Toryism ; and in the list of those implicated
in maintaining the abuses of that Department intact
there are individuals of every shade of opinion—Whig,
Tory, and Radical. Upon one point the system was
sure to create unanimity of opinion among all who
profited by it—the danger of attempting a change.
The shrine of Diana was threatened by Reform, con-
sequently the very existence of the craft was perilled.
Whatever might be the universal good which a change
of system might effect, the partial evil was both
obvious and tangible. We shall not refer to the
cant of public morality, with a view to cast additional
odium on such combinations to defeat the ends of jus-
tice. There is something so indefinite in the idea of
plundering such a many-headed monster as a nation
so wealthy, pOwerful, and indifferent to trifling losses
as Great Britain, that we feel no astonishment at learn-
ing that some men holding official situations in this
country can pocket an unearned salary without a qualm
of conscience.

A reference to that part of the Report which we
this day lay before our readers will skew that the Coin-
missioners:_suggestions are completely borne out
ccr.'-;„It discloses abuses of the most m0n-
5ti44...4147---.abtises which we were previously of opi-
rtiaiidid not exist, te.an equal extent, in any one public
4partment in this country. Except the Weymouth
Ytioket Station, under the superintendence of Mr.

;

STEVENS, there is not one which does not impera-
tively demand a thorough cleansing under the eye of
a Board appointed by the House of Commons. At
Liverpool, at Holyhead, at Portpatrick, and, in fact,
at every Packet Station, with the single exception
made above, it appears that time had all but sanctified
the perpetration of acts, not more consonant with every
principle of justice than those for which two-thirds of
the convicts in British Australia have been exiled for
the period of their natural lives. Take the following
extract as an instance
The agent at Holyhead permitted the officers of the
dock-yard to sell stores of every description to private in-
dividuals, or to purchase them for their own use. We
understand that this practice, which we consider to be
most objectionable, is strictly prohibited in his Majesty's
naval yards.
" The resident engineer was also ,permitted to manu-
facture articles for his own private use and emolument in
the dock-yard, to employ the workmen, and to take what-
ever materials he required from the Government stores,
using the iron which was entrusted to his own charge.
" He was also allowed to take coals from the stores,
either for the purpose of working up his own materials in
the dock-yard, or to dispose of to others. * * * *
" There was no muster of the artificers or workmen on
coming into the dock-yard. The accounts of the men
employed were invariably put in by the engineer or store-
keeper just as they pleased.
" It appears that one man, who had been absent in Scot-
land, was regularly entered in the engineer's books as
having been during that period daily employed in the
dock-yard. # # #
" The stores were left in a most unsafe and unprotected
state. No watch was kept during the night, nor was there
any person belonging to the establishment who resided near
the yard.
" The timber was allowed to remain in an open field, without
any brand or mark to distinguish it ; and the number of
keys which different people had of the dock-yard afforded
access to the stores at all times. Great facility was thus
given for the commission of fraud and peculation. Stores
might have been charged against the different packets or
colliers to almost any amount, without the possibility of
detection. And the permission granted to the resident
engineer and storekeeper to dispose of stores to private indi-
viduals, afforded them the opportunity of selling those stores
for their own advantage, without exciting immediate suspi-
cion of fraud on their part. * * * * *
" We have received a report of the survey of Mr.
M'Knight, and now lay it before your Lordships, together
with his evidence.
" It has been impossible to trace the extent to which pecu-
lation has been carried, but from the statement be gives,
there is-every reason to suppose it must have been consi-
derable. He says that the accounts of the receipts and
issues are so complicated as to afford no check on the re-
mains in store ; not one half of the things that are in the
establishment being made any return of whatever.'
" Mr. M'Knight also states that he has clearly provcdan
overcharge of 1,000 tons cf coals a year to the packets ;
but with respect to the other stores, he could find, in many
cases, no books or accounts showing what remained, and
that, although he found by his survey what actually re-
mained, he could not-tell what ought to have remained.' "
These extracts will show that abuses at the packet
stations had become tire rule instead of the exception.
In fact the practices here denounced as injurious to the
public service, had gone on so long that they had
ceased to create surprise. The Commissioners are too
hard on the Post-Office authorities, when they give
to this wholesale appropriation the name of peculation.
Peculation implies concealment, but here there
was no attempt made to conceal anything. The
officers of the Post-Olce, with a more than pa-
trifirchal simplicity, did not even appoint a dog to
watch the public property ; and what remained over-
'night, after the visitations of thieves, they divided
among themselves, in proportion to their wants, in the

morning !

But notwithstanding the disclosures that:have been
made, we are constrained to take notice of the conduct
of a few functionaries, who have still the hardihood
to believe that, they can stem the popular tide
of reform before entering this establishment. Such
eforts arrested the prOgress of Reform when recom-
mended by the Committee of Fees and Gratuities in
1787, and 'ny the Finance Committee in 1797 ; but
they will only involve in ruin those who have recourse
to them in 1837, after the disclosures that have now
been made. It is too late to resist the popular will by
the maintenance of a cause, of which everybody can
judge of the merits. When the abuses of the
Post-office were so little known that a Minister
of the Crown could venture to say, without fear of
contradiction, that a Member of the House of Com-
mons was not borne out by the facts of the case in ven-
turing to condemn its management—there was then
plenty room for conducting its defence and vilifying its
assailants. But that time is past. The veil has been
raised, and the hideous mass beneath it is now visible.
It is therefore madness or worse to seek to screen
it from those intent on its removal. It is not
yet three years since Mr. WALLACE denounced the
Post-Office management. What said the then Post-
Master-General, the Duke of RICHMOND ? Why,
his Grace, in his place in the House of Lords, stated
that Mr. WALLACE had attacked an all-but-imma-
culate public establishment. We pray the Noble
Duke to read the Report which we now submit to
the public. It will convince him that there may be
abuses in a department of the public service alto-
gether unknown to the Minister ostensibly at the
head of 'it ; and perhaps it may induce him to be
more cautious in his assertions for the time to come.
Mr. WALLACE is now proved to have had a mote
intimate acquaintance with the working of the Post-
Office system than his MAJESTY'S then Postmaster-
General. The public owes much to Lord LOWTHER
—Tory as he is—and to the other Commissioners, for
the manner in which they have discharged the trust
reposed in them by the Government.

It will be seen by an advertisement, in another part
of to-day's Sun, that a public dinner is to be given to
Mr. O'CONNELL on Saturday next, at Bungay. This
is a more signal proof of the Hon. and Learned Gen-
tleman's increasing popularity than any he has yet
experienced, at least in England; for the neighbour-
hood of Bungay constitutes, it is well known, the most
aristocratic and parson-ridden portion of the most aris-
tocratic and parson-ridden county in all England ;
and of course, had it been practicable, the Suffolk
Squirearchy would have taken good care to prevent the
dinner in question. But the principles of Reform are
triumphing here as elsewhere, bearing down—slowly,
indeed, but surely—all opposition before them ; and,
in a few years, we may expect to find the Tory par-
sons and squires of Suffolk, following in the wake of
DAN, and proclaiming themselves sound, uncompro-
mising Reformers. Meantime, we congratulate Mr.
O'CONNELL on this last flattering—and, we may add,
unexpected—token of public approbation, which is
more than sufficient to repay him for all the calumnies,
and sneers, and insults, that, for months past, have
been so unblushingly heaped upon him by the slander-
ous Tory press.

We have repeatedly directed the attention of our
readers to the subject of local taxation, and the im-
mense burthen imposed upon the inhabitants of the
metropolis, under the various imposts which it corn-
prizes. The local government of this great metro-
polis is extremely defective ; and the multifarious
boards appointed to effect the object, and the absence
of popular controul over a great majority of them, oc-
casion the charizes upon the inhabitants to be very
great, without any corresponding return from so large
an expenditure.

Our attention has been again called to the subject
by two documents, which we insert in this day's paper,
the one emanating from the magistrates of the county
of 7kliddlesex, and the other from the representative
vestry of the parish of St. George, Hanover-square ;
the _first being the annual abstract of the receipt and