The Sun.
London, England, 1835-08-17 00:00:00

TUE SUN, LONDON, MONDAY, AUGTIST

The publication oj, fliß SUN NEWSPAPER commenced this day
et 30 minutes past 3 o'clock.

LONDON,
MONDAY EVENING, AUGUST 17, 1835.

The more we reflect on Lord LYNDHURST'S
qualification clause in the Corporation Reform Bill,
the more we are disgusted with its tricky and disin-
genuous character. Mischievous however, and even
fatal as it is, to the measure which it - professes to im-
prove, it will, at least, have this good effect, namely,
that it will react in full force on their Lordships, by
setting the people to enquire what are their quali-
fications for the task which they have assigned them-
selves. If a certain quantum of intelligence be neces-
sary to qualify men to vote at a town-council election,
how much more, it will soon be everywhere asked,
must be necessary to qualify them to vote in their
capacity of supreme Legislators ? This is a question
which, we need not say, will place their Lordships in
a very ticklish position ; for as at present constituted,
they act without qualification of any sort. They need
not be wealthy--they need not be intelligent—they
need not even be respectable ; they are Peers of the
realm, and that one magic word more than counter-
balances all their deficiencies. Is it not high time
that this monstrous anomaly should be reformed ?
What use is a Second Chamber, if the majority, in-
stead of being composed of men qualified by their in-
telligence to rule over us, is made up of Imbeciles and
Intolerants, who, with the usual bigotry of ignorance,
act only as a drag-chain on all improvement ? Their
Lordships may rely on it, that the hour is close at
hand, which will bring their institution to a searching
test, and reform it, just in proportion as it approxi-
mates to, or falls short of, public utility. The pre:.
sent age is no longer what it was, twenty, or e,-en ten
years ago. Reform has had the effect of remodelling
the national character—has made it active, where it
was once passive—intelligent where it was once igno-
rant—inquisitive where it was once incurious. For
this their Lordships have. to thank themselves.
They it was who goaded us into the activity which
they now so much deprecate. They it was who taught
us the-value of knowledge, by making us feel the curse
of ignorance. Had they never tyrannized, we should
never have resisted. Had they never questioned our
rights, we should never have dreamed of questioning
theirs. But they would not he convinced : warning
after warning passed unheeded by them ; and now
nothing remains, but that they prepare for, and make
the best of, consequences. Flagrant indeed must have
been their conduct, when it ha:, set a whole commu-
nity, naturally averse to ci:sange, and inheriting an
almost superstitious veneration for rank and ancient
pedigree, on the enquiew " of what use is the House of
Lords ?" Fain v.-.rould we blink this ugly question,
but it is forced on us in so many shapes, and comes to
us through r..,0 many channels, that it is impossible not
to notice it. Wc repeat then that the quere "of what
use '.s the House of Lords" is being everywhere
daily put, and no where satisfactorily answered.
It, has been publicly put at Manchester—at Liver-
pool—at Sheffield—at Plymouth ; and it will he
put in the course of the week at half the public
Meetings in the Kingdom. Fog their own sakes,
then, if not for ours, we implore their Lordships, by a
few just and timely concezeilons, to stop the further
agitation of this, to them, vital question. They, and
they only, can do it. Let them not deceive each_other
by the idea that they are still omnipotent ;—the power
that was once ;'heirs has passed into the hands of the
people. What the House of Lords once was, the
House of Commons now is.

11,e Tories are chuckling at the blunder and " some•
t}zing more," committed by the Chancellor of the
xchequer, in the appropriation of his surplus revenue.

Never, indeed, in our recollection was a poor budget-
_ speech so unmercifully assailed. The scalping knife
• of the Standard, and the tomahawk of the Times
)ave been applied to it with characteristic ferocity and
vindictiveness, aggravated in this case by what appears
to-Usfhe injudicious if not extravagant eulogy of their
Political -opponents: We side with neither fluty.
The truth will, we apprehend, be found to lie between ;

and if Mr. S. RICE has fallen short of some of his
predecessors in the talent for financial exposition, he has
also assuredly surpassed some others of them. We think
he will not be far from his proper position if we place
him about half way between CANNING and. old Nic.
But whatever place among financiers he may be entitled
to occupy in point of ability, we must candidly confess
that his first essay has not raised him in our
estimation, either as a statesman or a man
of intregrity. He was " pledged" to reduce
the " tax on knowledge," as the newspaper stamp
duty has been very properly termed ; and this pledge
he ought to have redeemed—and could ►have redeemed,
if he had been inclined. But how pitifully does
he set to work in order to get rid of his obligation !
He endeavours to screw down his surplus by under-
stating the probable produce of the taxes for the
ensuing year, in a most unprecedented manner ; and
when he has accomplished this part of the operation
he proceeds to swell the amount of tl, interest due on
the West Indian Loan, until I.c brings it within about
200,000/. of his attenued surplus. " Now, says he,
what am Itodo ? The Stamp Duty on Newspapers
more than do:d-ble this sum ; and as those who exclaim
against tax have declared that they will not be
sat:.sfted with less than its total abolition, I think it
better to leave it as it is, and wait for a more favourable
opportunity 1" As to the subterfuge resorted to by the
Right Hon. Gentleman, that Mr. BULWER had a Mo-
tion on the subject standing for the 21st, it is almost too
contemptible for notice. How can any Motion be
effectual at a period when the Session is within a fort-
night of its close ; Yet such are the pretexts under
which Mr. S. RICE tries to wriggle out of his en-
gagements, and ventures to baulk the public expecta-
tions. Of what value will his declarations be in
future, when he launches forth in praise of the educa-
tion of the people—the necessity of enlightening public
opinion—after he has thus afforded a practical and
decisive proof, that be has no wish to remove one
of the greatest impediments to the dissemination of
knowledge that the wit of man ever contrived. But
Mr. S. RICE and his colleagues may repent of their
error when it is too late. Their enemies are on the
watch, and will not fail to turn this false move to ad-

vantage.

From the great anxiety which prevails throughout
the country for a speedy improvement of the Post-
Office Establishment, and from the willingness ex-
pressed by the House of Commons to give a legisla-
tive sanction to any project calculated to accomplish
the object which the public proposes to itself, we have
been induced to examine with more than ordinary care
the racent Returns relative to diffetent branches of that
establishment, made to Parliament on the motions of
Mr. ROBERT WALLACE and Mr. VERNON SMITH.
The latter gentleman was one of the Post-office Com-
missioners, appointed in August 1834, to inquire into
the mode of conducting the business of the Post-office
Department ; and the principal document before us is
the report of that Commission, made to the Lords of
the Treasury in the December following. The other
Commissioners were Lords MULGRAVE and Co-
NYNGIIAM. The Report states that the Commis-
sioners first directed their attention to a proposal made
by the French Post-office authorities, for the purpose
of facilitating and simplifying the conveyance of letters
between this country and France ; and next, that they
took into consideration " the great question of the in-
ternal communications of the country—with reference
to three points, besides the cost—the speed—the
frequency—and the diffusion of the Post." Now the
Commissioners may have done all this, and a great
deal more ; but unless they had apprized us of the fact,
we should never have discovered it from the document
before us. In fact, we regard the Report as exceed-
ingly lame in all respects, and particularly deficient
where the fullest information ought to have been given.
It is almost impossible to find out what are the exact
opinions of the Commissioners themselves on any one
point of the inquiry—or rather they appear to have
terminated their labours as they began them, without
having formed any opinion whatever on the subject.
They admit that changes are required, but they cau-
tiously abstain from suggesting in what they ought to
consist. Now, although the Crown in the appointment
of a Commission only calls for simple evidence on
questions or facts regarded as dubious, yet to report
implies the right of expressing opinions fully and
freely ; which opinions are the more called for, inas,
much as persons who hear evidence face to f;!.ce with
those who deliver it, are an hundred times better
judges of the stress that ought to :,e laid upon it than
other persons of equal abi.Y,iy, who only become ac-
quainted with it th:ough the medium of a printing-
office. We complain, moreover, of confining the in-
quiry to sources from whence it was impossible to
obtain the fullest information. The members of our
national I::terary institutions ought to have been exa-
iniwz,a, or otherwise consulted, on a question upon
which they are are as well qualified to decide as the
clerks in a banking-house.

A great difference of opinion prevails among the
merchants and bankers of London, with respect
to the measure proposed by the French Post-office,
for facilitating the conveyance of letters between
England and France. Before explaining that mea-
sure, it may be necessary to inform country readers
that under the existing system of Post• office re-
gulations, persons in England writing to France are
obliged to pay the postage to Calais, and that the
residue of the postage is paid by the persons to whom
the letters are addressed. Exactly the reverse of this
takes place when the writers live in France, and ad-
dress themselves to correspondents in England.
The French Post-office authorities proposed--

" 1. To allow the sender of a letter in either country to put
his letter into the Post-office without paying any part of the
postage, leaning the whole to be defrayed by his correspondent
in the other country, to whom the letter is addressed.

" 2. To enable him, if he thinks proper, to i,ay the
postage of the letter, as far as the frontier of olin country
only (the mode practised at present.)
" 3. To enable him, in like ni4ither, to pay the whole of
the postage of the letter, boar Prench and English, at its des-
tination."

To render this proposition of the French Govern-
ment perfect, nothing was wanted but that the French
Post-office should adopt the plan of the English, and
charge letters by the sheet instead of taxing them by
weight as at present. This obstacle the Duke of
RICHMOND, in the course of his examination, ad-
mitted might have been overcome, had the British
merchants approved of the first and third clauses of
the proposal. This, however, the majority refused to
do. Mark the ground of refusal—because, if a
privilege of conveying unpaid letters, between
France and England, was established, French-
men would leave the whole elwrge of postage
to be borne by their correspondents here I Such, in
plain language, was the gratuitous insult offered to the
people of France by a majority of the merchants whom
the Post-office Commissioners thought proper to con-
sult respecting the liberal proposition made by the
French Government. We really blushed for our
country on reading such evidence—we had almost
added, for the littleness of the Noble Lord who was
not ashamed to record the extent to which it biassed
his judgment. Did it not enter into the heads of
these sagacious worthies that they would have the
option of refusing all letters addressed to them frrim
France? Did it not occur to them that they
regulate their foreign correspondence after tia,ir „n
fashion, either by insisting that all letters. addressed

them should bear the writer's name, seal, or private
mark, on the cover, or by establishing it as a rule in
their respective offices, that no departure from the
present system would he allowed ? Such tun
not to have more than .• oice extended to them.
They -prefer the present system ; let them follow it.
This is all they have a right to demand, and as much
as the Government ought to grant, when a more nu-
merous and enlightened portion of the British people
entertain a different opinion.

It would be a waste of time to demonstrate the
great advantages of the proposition respecting the
Post-office conveyance of letters made by the French
Government. Thousands of English families are resi-
dent in France, who are prevented from corresponding
with tlneir friends in this country, because their letters
cannot be forwarded without expense to the receivers.
There are, besides, hundreds of Englishmen in Paris
who would gladly make known their distresses to their
relatives here, but who are destitute of even the means
of paying the postage of their letters to Dover. The
present restrictions also operate against the communi-
cation of political and literary intelligence between the
two countries. There are many profound scholars
who would be happy to communicate their discoveries
in science, had they-an opportunity of doing so with-
out- an expense which they are too often ill able to
afford. Besides, no man likes to be taxed for doing a
service to others.

There is another point which ought not to be
overlooked in this question. We are a jealous
people, and never hear of a proposal made to us
by foreigners without suspecting a design to over-
reach in some way or other. Now the proposition made
by the French Post-office authorities, can excite no
feeling of this sort. The additional outlay of our
merchants in the shape of postage (admitting for ex-
ample's sake, their most insulting and illiberal objec-
tion) would go into the coffers of the British treasury.
France would not gain a sixpence by it in the way of
Revenue, or indeed in any way whatever.
So much for this Report of the Commissioners o f
the Post office. We now come to the Returns moved
for by Mr.WALLACE. This Gentleman, as the public
is well aware, was the first to grapple successfully with
the flagrant abuses of the Post-office department. Be-
fore him no Member of the House of Commons had
the moral courage to encounter a sort of Government
Corporation, which almost bade defiance to the vigi-
lance of the Cabinet. All its affairs were conducted
with such secresy, that even the Ministers of the
Crown had but an imperfect knowledge of its in-
ternal management. Mr. WALLACE is however
one of those men who are only roused to make greater
exertions by powerful opposition. Sanguine, perse-
vering, industrious, inquisitive, and unchangeable in
his resolutions, he gathers strength, and even hope,
from difficulties that would overwhelm and confound
ordinary men. By the copies of Reports of two
other sets of Post-office Commissioners, appointed
severally in the months of February and May of the
present year, to inquire into the Mail-coach Con-
tracts, we find that Mr. WALLACE has already been
the means of effecting a saving to the country to the
amount of fourteen thousand pounds a-year I This,
however, is a trifle to what may be saved on the expira-
tion of the present contracts, when the conveyance of
the Mails will be left open for public competition.
Among the Returns made to Parliament by the
Post-office authorities, we find one, on the motion of
Mr. WALLACE, detailing the amount of poundage
charged by the Post-Masters of the United Kingdom
upon Post-office Money Orders. It will be remem-
bered, that when the Hon. Gentleman moved for this
Return on a former occasion, the Post-Master General
refused to make it, alleging that it was carried on by
private capital, and consequently was not under the
control of the Post-office. The House of Com-
mons very properly refused to admit such an excuse,
and it now turns out by the Return made, that the
statement of the Post-Master-General was without the
shadow of a foundation I In fact the money order Office
was made a complete job, to the detriment of the public,
and the injury of the national revenue. The money-order
Office was first established to enable soldiers to trans-
mit trifling sums of money to their wives without
hazard or unnecessary delay. Its advantages were sub-
sequently extended to the poor generally, who readily
avail themselves of it. The charge for money orders
is at the rate of eight pence in the pound, of which the
Post-master who gives the order pockets three pence,
and the Post-master who receives it three-pence more,
and the remaining two-pence is handed into the
General Post-office. And yet this is a branch of
the public service of which the Post-office pretended
to know absolutely nothing ! Now here is a wide field
for the energies of such a man as Mr. 'WALLACE.
Eight-pence in the pound is surely twice as much as
ought to be exacted in the shape of poundage, especially
as none but poor industrious individuals ever require to
transmit money through such a medium. The system
of dividing the profits is tantamount to an authorized
system of robbing the Exchequer. This must be
looked after, and care must be taken to fix the salaries
of such officers, without the prospect of its increase by
defrauding the revenue. But has it occcurred to Mr.
WALLACE that many. trifling sums of money sent
through the order office are never claimed ? Perhaps he
will have the kindness to ask in his place in Parliament
in what are such sums disposed of. We know that in
large provincial towns they have been known to accu-
mulate so as to be very considerable, and in London
their amount throughout the year must be enormous.
We should be glad to learn what becomes of all this
money ? Is it, too, reckoned among the perquisites of
the Magnates of St. Martin's-le-Grand ?
We must take another opportunity of calling the
attention of the country to the Motions made by Mr.
WALLACE with respect to the Sunday delivery of
letters in London ; late editions of Sunday News-
papers ; together with the Post-office farce of keep-
ing holy the Sabbath, while the whole machinery of
the Establishment—animal and mechanical—goes on
without a moment's interruption. This is the great
evil—the " head and front" of the whole system
under which the Empire is now suffering. A radical
Reform in the Post-office, must include the general
delivery of letters on Sunday.

We have received the whole of the French Journals
of Friday and Saturday. On Thursday the President
of the Court of Peers pronounced judgment on 57 of
the Lyonese section of the prisoners of April. Nine
were acquitted, seven condemned to transportation, two
to an imprisonment of twenty years, three to fifteen
years, nine to ten years, four to seven years, nineteen
to five years, four to three years, and two to one year.
The whole of the prisoners are jointly bound to pay the
costs of the prosecution.
The following important intelligence from Spain
is given in a second edition of the Journal de Paris,
dated yesterday A telegraphic despatch from
Bayonne, elated the 14th, announces that serious dis-
turbances had broken out at Saragossa, and that de-
tails were e,ipected by the next courier."
Ex:tract, from a letter dated on the 9th inst., from
Perpagr.an

"T 'lle tranquillity of Barcelona appears to be. once
more re-established, but we have to deplore the ruin
of a. :number of establishments, both public and pri-
vate: n ong otbers;.tliat of the steam-engine manu-
- BONAPLAT4 and Co., lately
fae.-.lry of NI
esrs, _

erected at great expense ; it has been burnt to the
ground, as well as the convent of St. Sebastian, the
archives of several administrations, the office of the

anji the Post-office.
" No Frenchman has suffered from these disturb,
anus; with the &.'cetitibti df M. PAutilkT
the banker, whose fortune and whose life have been
seriously threatened, because he passed for being a
Carlist. The energetic intervention of the French
Consul, and of the Commander of the corvette La
Perle, have been the means of saving him. He has
found ref►tge oo board the Perk.
" LL A UDER with hiS family has entered the French
territory. He complains greatly of having been aban-
doned by his Government ; and a very small force, he
says, employed in time, would have enabled him to
prevent disasters which it will now be very difficult to
repair. He and his friends were expected at Perpig-
nan on the 10th."

There is no further intelligence from Spain.
The Messager states that it is strongly reported in

the political circles that there will shortly be a new
creation of Peers. Six Members of the Chamber
of Deputies were mentioned as to be elevated to that
honour.

FRENCH FUNDS.—PARIS, AUGUST, 14.
Five pc. Cents., 109 E 2fc 10c. 13c. 23c. 30c. 33e.
Four per Cents., 98E 70c.
Three per Cents., 7.91119 f. lec. 3c.
Bank Actions, 2,1125 f.
Route de N,ples, 97f. sc. 20c.
Roman Five per Cents., 101
Rente d'Espagne, Five per Cents., 35
Rente d'Espagne, Three per Cents., 24%.
Royal Spanish Loan, :381i.
Rente Perpetuelle d'Espagne, 53 3E04.
Belgian I.oan Five per Cents, 101-14 102.
Portuguese Loan, Three per Cents, 58 5'73i.
fiaytian Loan, 370.
EXCHA NOP. ON LONDON.
0 se month, parer, 23f. ; money, 25`. 50c.
'Dace months, paper, 25f. 40;:. ; money, 25f. •L''C

German, Dutch and Brussels papers have been re-
ceived. The only important intelligence they contain
will be found in another column.
DUTCH FUNDS—AMSTERDAM, AUGUST 14.
Money. Bills.
Actual Debt, 2 per Cent. 54 55
A 'port srodie, 4 per cent. 93;4 1334
Ditto, ditto, 3V, per cent 781,4 79
Loan (1530) 5 per cent.
Ditto (132 and 11 33) 5 per cent.
Commercial Company, 4 per c,..nt ION 108%
New ditto 101.6 102
Exchange on London, One month l2 25.
•. Two months
SPANISH FUNDS
Cortez at Amsterdam, 5 per Cent 361, to 37
Ditto, ditto, 3 per Cent 231,4 to 23N
Loan, London (1632` 5 per Cent. 3.1,i to 34
Cortes Coupons

The Bill for Abolishing Imprisonment for Debt
was passed by the Commons on Satutday. We
congratulate the country on this event, and hope
that so excellent a measure will meet with no
obstruction in " another place," but will soon be-
come, as it ought long ago to have been, the law of
the land.

By some oversight of our printer, the letter of
our Dublin Correspondent on the appointment of a
Private Secretary to the LORD LIEUTENANT of Ire-
land was not inserted in The Sun of Saturday. We
regret this, as we had a leading article on the subject,
in which reference was made to that letter. We now
beg to call attention to the letter itself, which *will be
found in another column.

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