The Sun.
London, England, 1838-11-27 00:00:00

TA
),e )1-,a".

WITH WHICH
THE " TRUE SUN " IS NOW
INCORPORATED.

LONDON :
TUESDAY EVENING. NOVEMBER 27, 1838.

The great interest which the pretUt state of the Navy
excites amongst naval men in the country gene-
rally, is strikingly provers by the letters which we pub-
lish to-day from twe, well-known, brave, and intelligent
officers. Nor can the subject be otherwise than fraught
with deep interest to the public, if their statements be
founded, as they obviously are, on truth. Political
writers of all parties have for some time past been ex-
citing in the country a spirit of hostility towards
Russia, and all the while, according to the statement
of Captain NAPIER, the best interests of the country
have been exposed unprotected to her mercy.
The best testimony we have ever seen to
her not loving mischief, whatever may be
her ambition, is afforded by the fact, that she made no
attempt during the last summer to destroy our fleets
and burn London. At present, the early commence-
ment of winter has locked up her ports, and we have
time, if we employ it properly, to set her at defiance at
the commencement of spring. But there must be no
delay, or we must either submit to her dictation or dread
the destruction of our fleets, arsenals, and cities.
Captain NAPIER'S and Captain ST. CLAIR'S letters
leave us on this point nothing further to say.
On the difficulty of procuring seamen for our ships,
which both these officers regard as the great impedi-
ment to speedily manning a fleet—for we have ari
abundance of hulls, and a multitude of steamers
might probably in a short space be converted into
useful vessels of war—we must say a few words.
The celebrated lines of COWPER, in which he pointed
out, in the then condition of Spain; a
.i,Ust retribution
for her savage cruelties and rapacious oppressions in
America, are in spirit more applirralile to the present
want of men for our fleet, :Ilan they were ever to the
condition of Spain. Tine nation is justly and pro-
perly punished by that want, and would meet only
its deserts if shores were ravaged, and its merchant
ships swept from the ocean for its long-continued, most
abominable, and cruel injustice towards the seamen.
However, that wrong is past, and cannot be recalled,
nor can its effects be done away with by any
exertions now made by the virtuous Peers, Bishops,
and Commoners, by whose unrighteous orders that
grievous wrong was inflicted. They are powerful
to do mischief, but they are impotent to obviate
the consequences of their legislative crimes. The
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having been for a long series of years, to scare our
population from entering the navy, the nation must
now do what it can by considerable bounties, high
wages, and other advantages as recommended by Cap-
tain NAPIER, to make the naval service acceptable to
the people. Above all, it must remove from it by a
public legislative denunciation of the above-named
crime, the stigma which now attaches to it, and en-
deavour to make it honourable as well as advantageous
to be a common sailor. Our ships must never again
be considered as gaols ; felons must not be sent to
them as a punishment ; and soldiers must not watch over
the sailors as if they were not to be trusted. The Ma-
rines are an old and an honourable corps, but the
want of the country is ;sailors, not soldiers, and as
long as the Marines are kept and embirked to be the
avowed guards of the officers, and sentinels over the
sailors, our ships will have the character of gaols, and
no money will make the naval service acceptable to
the people. Brutal coercion has been tried, and failed
--the opposite system, thoroughly carried out, mus
now be begun.
Th

e interest taken in tile most important question
of the reduction of postage, is extending amongst all
classes, and the more it is dwelt upon, the more ex-
tensive are the benefits which are brought to view.
It seems to have been inquired into by the Committee
with a fulness and zeal which its importance demanded.
It is well known that, in the outset of its labours,
the plan of Mr. HILL, or rather, we should not say the
plan, for that was always considered simple and prac-
ticable, but his calculation that the conveyance of a
letter from any one post town in Great Britain and
Ireland to 'any other post town, did not cost more
than 1-36th of a penny, it was expected would not be
borne out.

But the Committee were determined that the
subject should be fully examined, One of their
first steps, it appears from their Report, was
to send to the Post-office for a list of the
officers best qualified to give them information upon
the subject ; and it is a remarkable fact that the wit-
ness whose name stood first on the list sent by the
Post-office for examination, demonstrated that a gene-
ration had passed away since the last improvements,
without in any way enlarging their views.
The revenue had stood still, notwithstanding the
increase of population, of commerce, of knowledge, of
literature, and of science; but it would seem that the
intellects of the Pcst-office officials had been as
stationary as the revenue.

It will hardly be believed that the only reason the
prime witness from the Post-office could urge against
Mr. HILL'S plan was, that dunning letters are therelly
rendered more effective I and that, considering the
question as one of revenue, it was not wise to make
" too great" a reduction.
We are persuaded that our readers would hardly
believe that this is a fair statement of the man's evi-
dence, if it were not give.' to them literally. we
therefore give them the extract :
From the experience which your long service in the Post..
office has given to you, will you inform the Committee
what is you opinion, in general terms, of Mr. Hill's plan,
and how it would be received by the public ?—I conceive that
any reduction of postage would be well received by the
public, but I think that it is unwise to make too great a
reduction.
Will you state why you think so ?—From the extreme low
rate at which he fixes the prices of postage.
Is it on account of the revenue you form that opinion ?—Of
course I must hold that opinion; as long as the establishment
to which I belong is made a branch-of revenue, I must al-
ways look to the revenue.
Is it with a view to the revenue you think Mr. Hill's pro-
posed reduction is too large?—Decidedly.
There are other component and essential parts of Mr. Hill's
plan which you have not adverted to, the reduction of postage
being the only one to which you have spoken ; will you be
kind enough to state what your views are regarding the other
parts of his plan—one being, payment of the postage in
advance?—l conceive the payment in advance would be ob-
lected to by many persons; I will mention one description of
etters upon wbith I think the payment ii advance would be

objected to, namely, letters applying for the payment of debts;
the creditor writes to the debtor, and very often his having
been obliged to pay the postage produces the payment of the
debt, lest he should have another dunning letter ; but in case
of the payment in acivaz:ce being compulsory, the writer
would have to add that additioual charge (that is to say, one
penny) to his former debt, without being able to recover it
of the debtor ; and those letters are very numerous in London
alone.

Have you any other objections to state to the payment in
advance ?—No, I think not.—( Questions 946-51.)
Thus, the first witnr_sB from the Post office, says the pam-
phlet already quoted, imparts the important truism, that it is
unwise to make "too great" a reduction ; and that he has no
other objection to payment in advance, than that heavy post-
age very often makes du,lning letters effective !
Upon this Mr. SEIURST retnarks

An official, particularly if he happens to be an aged
official, is a creature of Labit ; if he is one whose duties con-
fine him pretty closely to his office, that office becomes the
world to him, and to propose to enlarge its boundaries
shocks him like an cal thqu,ike.
If too, he enjoys his place under an establishment whiCh
is a monopoly, his Lotion is, that the business of the " bar-
barians" without shou!d be cut down to the measure of his
office within.

We believe there are many who have witnessed the
influence of routine upon Government officials who
will concur with him.

When Lord Low ER, who was also a member of
the Postage Committee, was labouring years since to
procure for the mercantile world permission to send
Prices Current throwzii the Post-office at a cheap rate,
he seems to have ►net with the same contraction of
mind and unwillingness to go a-head. We quote from
the fifth Report of the Commissioners of Post-office
Inquiry, page3s, the examination of another official:—
You have been a considerable time i❑ the Post-office?-1
am in my fortieth year.
Supposing it were thouglit advisable to circulate Prices
Current through the Past-oftice, subject to a small stamp-duty,
or at three-halfpence or two-pence postage, what do you think
would be the effect of that ?--I can only say, that, as regards
the duty, we are so pressed for time, that any considerable ad-
dition in any way would ainost impede our operations. We
work against time, and everything is fitted in such a way as to
bring the letters to the Post-office at the last possible moment.
Generally, the public has the extreme possible time, and it is
difficult, on Saturdays and Mondays, at present to despatch
the mails by eight o'clock; therefore we certainly look with
some degree of anxiety at any increase of duty thrown upon
the department.

What would any tradesman do if pressed by an increase
of business—say Me,i.trs. fle,ne, or Chaplin, or Pickford,
Deacon, or any of the great public carriers? Would they say
to their their customers, '• Du not increase our business," or
would they enlarge their waresouses and increase their force ?
Would they fear an kcreas.2 of business or a falling off of cus-
tom ? The answer is ob%ious. They would increase their
power in proportion to their business; but the anxieties of the
Post-office official' are reversed; he fears he shall have too
much business, and he urges that the business should be cut
down to the standard of his department.
As Mr. A s H UHST observes—
" To enlarge the circle of his routine, confounds his notion
of the unalterable fitness of things."

It is amusing to olmerve the uniformity of the effect
of a bad system upon the intellects of men of different
generations. W hen the late Mr. PALMER was urging
thz present system of Mail Coaches, the Post-office
officials, as practical (?) men, were then called to give
their evidence, and one of them said of Mr. PALMER'S
great improvement—

It is not probable that any set of gentlemen, merchants, or
outriders, can instruct officers brought up in the business of
the Post-office ; and it is particularly to be hoped, if nut pre-
sumed, that the survey o:s need no such information.

Unfortunately for the class who rest upon assumptions and
presumptions, facts and figures are fast spunging them out.
In matters of business men w ill walk by sight, and not by faith.
The system the officers of the Post-office have bad to admi-
nister has been imperative upon them. The Legislature im-
posed the heavy rates w hich they have been made the instru-
ments of collecting. The same necessity and the same influ-
fluences would have produced the same effects and the same
course of reasoning upon other men ; but it is right that the
reasons should be examined though the men be blameless;
and the highest interests of society demand the adoption of
this most important change.
Mr. ASHURST observes—
Commerce has enlarged—population has increased—educa-
tion has spread; but the Post-office, into which the great
stream of their combined results would have poured, had Go-
vernment opened its channels to the quiet but mighty current,
has been stationary.
nf Av4vnniva
tions with the labouring classes—who was examined before
the Committee, observed to me, and I have no doubt the same
idea will be found in his evidence when published, that the
people—by which be meant the masses, the operatives and
labouring classes—the people have not been dissatisfied with
the Government, in r•. lation to the Post-office, because they
have not known that the carriage of a letter, from one part of
Great Britain and Ireland to another, costs only the fraction
of a farthing—wheil comes to be known, they will no
longer be satisfied that they, and their families and relations,
shall be shut out from the luxury of communicating with each
other, when they are driven by duty and necessity to separate,
that they may support themselves.

In our columns of to-day will be found the sub-
stance of two speeches on the Foreign policy of Great
Britain, delivered at sundry meetings of the merchants
of Newcastle, by Mr. DAVID URQUHART, whose
unremitting exertions to enlist the public opinion of
England against the aggressive policy of Russia have
obtained for him a degree of celebrity equally creditable
to his talents and his pate iotism. The Foreign policy
of England is all-important at the present moment,
and with that portion of it which bears directly upon
our relations with the East, few men are better ac-
quainted than Mr. URQUHART. There is another in-
troductory point to which we have pleasure in adverting.
In declining to appear before his countrymen,
clothed in the livery, or standing forth as the repre-

sentative of the exclusive opinions of any party, Mr.
URQUHART offers a guarantee for the sincerity of his
convictions, which we freely accept. Nor is such a
guarantee altogether unnecessary, when it is recollected
that circumstances connected with Mr. URQUHART'S
recall from the Secretaryship of the British Embassy
at the Porte, and the subsequent disclosures made at
his instance by Lord LYNDHURST in the House of
Lords, inclined many of his former supporters
on the question of Russian policy to believe that

in a fit of spleen, brought on by the disappoint-
ment of his ambitious projects, he had thrown him-
self, body and soul, into the clutches of the Tory
faction. Such, however, he assures us, is not the
case ; and his speeches at Newcastle are so far im-
partial that they attack without distinction the Foreign
policy of every British Administration for the last fifty
years—not even excepting those presided over by CAN-
NING and WELLINGTON. But while we admit the great
utility of Mr. URQUHART'S labours in the way of
rousing the public spirit of the British mercantile
body to the importance of attending more closely to
the study of our Foreign relations, we beg to warn 'our
readers against being carried away with the idea that
we reciprocate one-half the opinions which he has
thought proper to advance. Mr. URQUHART is
unquestionably well acquainted with our oriental
policy ; but it is equally indisputable that he
is an alarmist on points where it would be inexcusable
to tax the Government with the shadow of a neglec
of British interests. To prove that our trade is on the
decline, and that of all other countries increasing, he
takes the Parliamentary returns for a number of years,
when it is notorious that no manufactures could
he carried on in any part of the Continent, in
consequence of the wars of NAPOLEON, and
without calculating the effect of war prices, he
arrives at the conclusion that British commerce
has actually declined within the last thirty years !
If three bales of cotton goods will not now sell
for the price of one twenty years ago, is it not rather
unfair to argue that the cotton trade has declined, be-
cause the Parliamentary returns show a trifling deficit
in the gross amount of cash received for the sale
of cottons ? Had Mr. URQUHART made the quantity,
instead of the price of British manufactures, the
basis of his calculation, he would have discovered
that our trade has increased in a ratio far exceeding
that of the increase in our population. But in all
that Mr. URQUHART has advanced relative to the •
necessity of increasing our naval strength, we entirely
concur. The true measure of our power at sea
should be ever that of the combined naval strength of