The Sun.
London, England, 1844-08-07 00:00:00

_

z
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Year.

832 .... . .........................
833........»
834 ........ ............
835... .......... .... „.
836...
837
,838
839.........
,840
1841
[842
[843
[844

Total
Crimes, murder, robbery, &c
Ribbonism •••12
Sedition, &c.
Bankruptcy
••
Forging a Post-office stamp
Letter returned to the writer .
1

Total .
The Lords-Lieutenant and others who have signed these
warrants are arranged in the following list, according to
date :-
1832 .
1834 .

Marquis of Anglesey.
11 J. Littleton (secretary).
Marquis of Wellesley.
Earl of Musgrave.
Ditto.

1835 .
1836 .

--- ...
1837 ...

T. Drummond (secretary).
Ditto.
Lord Plunkett (one of the Lords Justices).
Archbishop of Dublin (ditto).
Lord Morpeth (secretary).
Marquis of Normanby.
Lord Viscount Ebrington.

°.-- .. .

Ii the um it itt the OM eif ellmillei COUPIIIII, thee
record kept of the grounds on which they are Issued, rucpf
so far as correspondence preserved at the Home- offlee way
lead to infer them.
Your Committee will here notice a statement which has
been made, that instances have occurred of sending entire
mail bags with letters to the Home-office for examination.
Your Committee are satisfied that no instance of the kind has
occurred. None but separate letters or packets are ever
sent, out of the ordinary course, from the Post-office to the
Home-office, and those never but under a Secretary of State's
warrant; and that warrant usually directs that a letter or
letters, directed to certain persons, or written in a certain
handwriting, be detained : and that either a copy of the
post-mark, or of the address, or of the contents, or that ex-
tracts from the contents, or the letters themselves, be sent to
the Principal Secretary of State. In some cases the warrant
directs that some deputy-postmaster shall communicate in-
formation to the same effect to a magistrate, or some other
person, in the country; and when that is the case, the pre-
sence of some third person, named in the warrant, is usually
required.
It may, perhaps, be necessary to state that, in some very
few cases, the Secretary of State has been required to autho-
rise the Postmaster-General to return to the writer a letter
which has been already posted. Some doubt seems to have
existed how far this can lawfully be done. In the year 1795,
Holland being in the occupation of the French army, one
of the principal Secretaries of State, by warrant under his
hand and seal, detained the entire mails of the 13th, 16th,
and 20th of January, intended for that country ; and an
Act of Parliament (35 George 111., cap. 62), was passed
to enable the Postmaster-General "to open the letters
contained in those mails, and return the same to the parties
by whom they were written, signed, or sent." A case
nearly similar occurred regarding the Hamburgh mail (see
47 Geo. 111., session 2, c. 53), in 1807. The number of war-
rants issued under this head from 1799 to 1844 is 7, as stated
in the abstract.
The general conclusion which the Committee draw from
the returns before abstracted is, that in equal intervals of
time these warrants have been issued in nearly equal num-
ber, by the several Administrations which have been in power
from the commencement of 1799 until now. For although
in certain years, in consequence of internal commotion,
it happened that the number of warrants issued by eel.tain Secretaries of State was unusually great, yet in
other years, if they continued sufficiently long in office, the
number of warrants they issued for similar purposes proved
to be unusually small ; so that the annual average of all the
warrants they issued, during the whole period -of their con-
tinuance in Office, did not rise materially above the general
annual mean.
The general average of the warrants issued &ring the
present century does not much exceed eight a year. This
number would comprehend, on an average, the letters of
about sixteen persons annually; but how many letters to
and from each person coming within the scope of these war-
rants have on an average been opened we have no means
of estimating, since no record of the number of letters de-
tained and opened under warrant has en kept by the
Post-office, but there is no reason to believb
ee that number to
be great; and the Committee have ascertained that, in the
case of many warrants, no letters whatever have been
opened. Those which do not appear to relate to the object
for which the warrant is issued do not undergo particular
examination. Of the average number of days for which a
warrant is in force, the Committee cannot form any just
estimate. It was only as regards the warrants issued from
1822 to 1844 that any return was made to your Committee,
showing how long they continued in operation, and in the
early part of this period, there appears to have been some
inattention in seeing to their timely revocation ; it is pro-
bable that many a warrant had become inoperative long be-
fore the period when it was cancelled. In that respect there
is a marked improvement in the practice of the present Home
Secretary, as compared with that of his predecessors ; since
the average duration of the warrants issued since September,
1841, does not exceed forty days ; and in many cases it is as
low as three or four days.
From the abstract that has been given of the warrants
issued in the present century, it appears that about two-
thirds of them were criminal warrants; for by far the
greater portion of those marked " uncertain" appears to be-
long to this class.
So far as the criminal warrants go, no suspicion arises that
unfairness or impartiality has directed their issue. With re-
gard to the other class of warrants, though there have been
some few issued by different Administrations that have been
in power during the last 22 years, in regard to which it is
obvious that on a subsequent review of the facts a difference
of opinion might arise as to the discretion exercised in each
particular case, yet your Committee see no reason to doubt
that the conduct of the Secretaries of State belonging to each
of those Administrations has been guided by no other motive
than an anxious desire to preserve the public peace, with
the maintenance of which they were charged.
It does not appear to your Committee necessary to follow
the warrant from the time of its reception at the Post-office,
to that of its execution. The letters which have been de-
tained and opened are, unless retained by special order, as
sometimes happens in criminal cases, closed and resealed,
without affixing any mark to indicate that they have been
so detained and opened ; and are forwarded by post according
to their respective superscriptions.
There are other cases, under the 33d and 36th chapters of
the Ist of Victoria, besides the case we have been consider-
ing, in which post-letters may lawfully be detained or de-
layed, or opened, by an officer of the Post-office. These ex-
cepted cases are the following:.—When the person consents,
to whom the letter is directed—when the letter is returned
for want of due direction—when the person to whom it is
directed is dead, or cannot be found, or shall have refused it,
or shall have refused or neglected to pay the postage thereof.
If any letter not included in the above exceptional cases be
opened, delayed, detained, or abstracted at the Ppst,oillea,
through the malpractim aswieffi punishment under the
latter of these Acts.
With regard to all other inland letters, your Committee
are assured by the Postmaster-General, by the Secretary of
the Post-office, and by the President of the Inland Depart-
ment at the General-Post-office, that the secresy of corm-
spondence is inviolate ; and this assurance they have seen no
reason to doubt.
Your Committee will here notice a statement which has
been made, that letter-bags from Dublin, Brighton, and other
places, have oflate, before being opened, been taken out of the
usual course, into an inner room of the inland- office at the
General Post-office, for the purpose of being there examined.
The allegation of fact is correct, so far as counting the letters,
and observing their external appearance, goes. This is fre-
quently done in order to ascertain the condition of the bags
on their arrival, before their contents are delivered over to
be sorted, it having been found a necessary check upon the
commission cf irregularities by the subordinate functionaries
of the Post-office; but this examination has no connection
whatever with the opening of letters under warrant, and it
is not the method practised when letters are detained and
opened by authority of the Secretary of State.
On the subject of the foreign department at the General
Post-office, the secresy of foreign correspondence your Com-
mittee are assured is kept inviolate. Certain warrants bear-
ing respectively the signatures of the Right Honourable
Charles James Fox, when Secretary of State for Foreign
Affiiirs, in 1752, and of his successor, the Marquis
of Carmarthen, were laid before your Committee, which,
being of a very comprehensive nature, have, in conjunc-
tion with other information, induced your Committee to
believe that diplomatic correspondence, when posted in ordi-
nary course, incurred in this country and in the other great
States of Europe, nearly equal risk of inspection. How long
similar warrants continued, and when they were finally re-
called, your Committee have no information, nor do they
think it their duty to report as to any practice which may
have existed in reference to this part of the subject. Of this
they are satisfied, that no such warrants or practices now
exist; and that public as well as private correspondence,
foreign as well as domestic, passing through the office in
regular course, now enjoys complete security, subject only to
the contingency of a Secretary of State's warrant, directed
for special reasons against a particular letter or letters.
In making the above statements, however, it is right to
observe that there exists another channel of communication
with foreign countries, by means of the King's messengers
and foreign-office bags. This is not under the control of
the Postmaster-General, but of the Secretary of State for
Foreign Affairs. It is conducted by officers appointed and
paid by the latter, from whom alone they receive their orders,
and to whom alone they are responsible. Somi years ago no
inconsiderable number of private letters, passing between this
and foreign countries, was sent and received by these bags ;
but this abuse (for such it was, as payment of postage was
thus evaded) has been almost entirely discontinued ; and
your Committee believe that at present the bags contain little
more than the official correspondence of our own diplomatic
agents, and of the Ministers of such foreign States as may
choose to avail themselves of that mode of transmitting their
dispatches. The authority of your Committee extends no
farther than to inquire how correspondence is dealt with,
while remaining in the custody of the Post-office.

It remains for your Committee, after treating of the cor-
respondence in Great Britain, to make a brief statement as
to the law and practice regarding the same matters in Ire-
land. The statute of Anne extended to that country, and
whatever legal force the warrants of the principal Secretaries
of State, directing the opening of letters, had in Great Bri-
tain, those warrants had the same force in Ireland. But
previously to the passing, in 1783, of the Irish statute, the
23d and 24th of Geo. 111., c. 17, intituled "An Act for Esta-
blishing a Post-office in this Kingdom," the_principal Secre-
taries were in the habit of delegating to the Lord-Lieutenant
authority for this purpose. Nor was thia all ; for by a war-
rant, dated October 31st, 1740, Secretary the Duke of New-
castle directs Sir Marmaduke Wyvill, the Postmaster-Gene-
ral for Ireland, to open and detain all such letters as the
Duke of Devonshire, then Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland, or
any other person appointed by him, should authorise and
direct : copies to be sent to the Duke.

The necessity for having recourse to a twice-delegated
authority was removed by the statute above referred to,
which gave the same indemnity to persons in Ireland
opening
letters by authority of the Lord-Lieutenant, that the
statute of Anne gave to persons in Great Britain and Ire-
land, opening letters by authority of a princpal Secretary of
State. -
Your Committee here submit an abstract of the warrants
whereon ry r
thearsantse; ed
issued by the Lord-Lieutenant, or other Chief Governor or
iandtdheedaadsn,other according abstrteoctt, the
errgranoungindag
sued:—
Governors of Ireland, to the Postmaster-General for Ireland,
for every year from 1832 to the present time, being a period
tohf 2hr
eee ry haveissued
e

Number of Number of comprehended inPersons
Warrants. the said Warrants.

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