The Sun.
London, England, 1834-03-28 00:00:00

SiPIRIT or THE PUBLIC JOURNALS

The intentions of the Postmaster-General

the new arrangements contemplated relative to
the transmission of newspapers appear to have
been far from perfectly understood by those
who are, in the first instance, principally to
reap the benefit 'of them. We understand that
the conductors of that miscellaneous class of
publications, comprising Lloyd's List, the
Price Currents, and many others, who have en-
joyed the advantage of a transmission by post,
under an arrangement with the clerks of the
roads, or the secretary to the Post-office, have
come, many of them, to the absurd conclusion
that on the cessation of the privileges as re-
gards newspapers, they would be left without
any facilities at all, and that their publications
could go only as letters--a tax • none of them
could afford to pay ; and many of them, it is said,
have announced their intention of throwing up
the said publications on the sth of April,
when the privileges as to English newspapers
will cease. Nothing could, however, be more
opposed to the real views of the Post-

master-General than such a result. It is true
that the clerks of the Post-office will not be
permitted any longer to levy the annual tax
they have heretofore derived from such publica-
tions, but until something better can be done for
them, which we have no doubt will be the case,
the same facilities will be continued under ale
three!t, sanction of the Postmaster-General, who
:,as even expressed his willingness, rather than
the inconvenience apprehended should arise from
the rapidity with which a part of his arrange-
ments is carried into effect, toirank for a short
time all these publications. he alarm felt on
this head is therefore entirely groundless. The
Post-office privileges with regard to the circula-
tion of English newspapers within the United
Kingdom will cease, as was first intended,
on the sth of April. Those which relate
to foreign newspapers will go on for a further
period, but they will definitively cease, we be-
lieve, on the sth of July. On this point also
some very ridiculous and perhaps wilful, misap-
prehensions have arisen. The parties engaged in
the supply of foreign newspapers have chosen to
Bsume, probably because it suited a purpose of
their own, that this privilege was also to cease
on the sth of April, and no substitute having
been provided for it by the Postmaster-General,
they have sent in their proposals for the new
quarter about to commence, in which they have
estimated every sheet of a foreign journal at the
cost of a foreign letter. The French Moniteur
accordingly, which has many supplementary
sheets,- is tendered at the moderate sum of 441.
sterling per annum, and others in the same
proportion, being about four times as much as
the extravagant charge made under the mono-
poly of the foreign post-office. These gentle-
men, however, who have so long conducted
this trade for (heir own benefit, will be com-
pelled to go on with it for that of the public,
until the whole plan embracing the supply of
the foreign journals is matured. What that
plan will be, and what the charge by the Eng-
lish post-office for the conveyance of foreign
newspapers all over the kingdom will be, is not
yet, we believe, definitively settled ; but we
learn with much gratification that the intentions
of the Postmaster-General, in this respect, are
most liberal ; that he will be guided by a prin-
ciple of reciprocity, or rather that he will set
the example in this respect for foreigners to imi-
tate. The conductors of the French post-office
entertain, we know, similar sentiments—so
much so, that we shall not be surprised if the
transmission of newspapers takes place within a
short time throughout France and England
with a tax so light as nearly to be termed a
free transmission. Subsequently to the an-
nouncement of the proposed reform at the
Post-office, it appears that a vast number of ap-
plications have been made to the Postmaster-
General, to obtain facilities for the conveyance
by post, for various publications which at pre-
sent have no favour of that sort, for commer-
cial circulars, and even for printed books and
pamphlets. This opens, of course, a very wide
range of operations in addition to those already
conducted by the Post-office, and the very ex-
tent of them is necessarily, at the outset, a se-
rious obstacle in the way of granting these ap-
plications ; but we are not without hope that
new and great facilities will in this way also be
obtained under the pending arrangements, and
that in the end the reform at the Post-office
will prove one of the most useful and wisest
acts of the present administration, the chief
merit, however, belonging to the Duke of
Richmond, whose zeal and personal exertion
and perseverance in the whole affair are de-
serving of the highest commendation.—Times.

The absence of the Attorney-General from
Parliament, and the presumed inability of the
present organ of the Home Department in the
House of Commons to cope with a professional
subject, have probably been the cause of the
Lord Chancellor taking upon himself to intro-
duce to Parliament a bill for improving the cri-
minal jurisdiction of the metropolis. The sub-
ject could not be in better or more appropriate
hands, though as it must be, we apprehend, in
its consequences, in some degree a "money bill,"
there may be some technical objections to its
originating in the Upper House. The view
which Lord Brougham takes of the subject be-
ing precisely that which we have repeatedly ad-
vocated, we cannot but congratulate the country
upon the prospect of at length seeing the criminal
laws of the country, in their higher functions
and penalties, at least consigned to competent
hands, instead of, as now, to those of London
bankers and country gentlemen—both most ex-
cellent classes in their way, but no more
fitted to fill the office of judges than the
judges are to become physicians. We are
happy to perceive that our view of the
subject is likewise borne out by some at least
of the judges themselves, who, during the
present circuits, have animadverted upon the
anomaly of their having had to try petty lar-
cenies of the pettiest description while the ma-
gistrates at their sessions had been disposing of
capital felonies. Though Lord Brougham's
bill, as opened to the house, only extends to
the metropolis, we trust that either it will be
made to embrace or be followed up by a general
measure, reaching all parts of the kingdom,
more especially those provincial corporations
where certain worthy grocers and cheesemon-
gem, in their capacity of Mayors, actually, in
some instances, dispose of cases, both criminal
and civil, of as high a nature as any which de-
volve upon the judges on the circuit or in West-
minster Hall. Till the provisions of Lord
Brougham's bill become known it would be use-
less to speculate upon its details. It will be
essential to the thorough success of the proposed
measure, that Parliament should clear the way
for its operation by diminishing the fees and
other charges now payable to certain of the
city officers. The only plausible ground