The Sun.
London, England, 1844-06-25 00:00:00

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LONDON, TUESDAY, JUNE 25, 1844.

In the House of Lords, the Earl of WiNculLsEA
gave notice that on Friday he should present some
petitions on the corn-laws, and call the attention of
the House to public granaries—a subject which he
had deeply considered.
The House resolved itself into Committee on the
Bishoprics ;of St. Asaph and Bangor Bill. The
Dtrke of WELLINGTON had previously announced that
he would oppose the motion, but little notice appeared
to have been taken of this announcement, for the Bill
went through Committee, and was ordered to be read
a third time on Monday.
The Bishop of EXETER moved that the House re-
solve itself into Committee on the Brothels Suppres-
sion Bill.
Earl FITZHARDINGE took the opportunity of de-

Hying the statements made by the Bishop of Gi.ou-
CESTER relative to the suppression of these nuisances
in the neighbourhood of Westminster Abbey, and on
property belonging to the Dean and Chapter.
The Bishop of GLOUCESTER made the best of a
bad case, but at the same time made a singular ad-
mission. On that very day he said the Dean and
Chapter had given notice to many of the tenants to
quit. We imagined, from the former speech of the
Right Rev. Prelate that the system of purification
had been carried to the utmost pitch. The honour of
purifying the purlieus of Westminster Abbey, it thus
appears, will be conferred on Earl FITzHARDINGE.
The Bill went through Committee, and the House
adjourned.
In the Commons, after the presentation of petitions,
Mr. T. DUNCOMBE again brought on a question
which interests every Englishman—the atrocious
system adopted by Sir JAMES GRAHAM of opening
letters at the Post-office. We cannot abridge his
speech. Every word of it should be read. Sir JAMES
GRAHAM'S reply exhibited a Minister of State in the
most deplorable light. Mr. DUNCOMBE moved for a
Committee of Inquiry. The Home Secretary
resisted the motion. His conscience, he said, was
pure—he had discharged his duty, which was an im-
portant one, and he should resist the motion.
Mr. MACAULAY supported the motion for a Com-
mittee of Inquiry, in a speech which made a great
impression on the House. Indeed, there appeared to
be but one feeling on the subject, though of course
the Ministerial supporters were obliged to vote with
Sir R. PEEL, who did the best he could to get his
ultra-Tory friend—once an ultra-Radical—out of the
scrape.

Lord JOHN RUSSELL, Mr. MILNES, Mr. SHEIL, and
several other leading Members spoke, and the dis-
cussion altogether was full of interest. A division
took place, when, with all the power of the Govern-
ment, in a House containing 372 Members, they could
muster a majority of only 44. If Englishmen sub-
mit to such a system they deserve to be slaves.
The third reading of the Sugar Duties Bill waa
postponed till Thursday.
After the transaction of some minor business, the
order of the day was read for going into Committee
on the Bank Charter
Mr. MASTEEMAN, moved that the House go into
Committee that day six months. The motion was ne-
gatived on a division by a majority of 187, and the
Bill was committed.

On clause two being proposed, Mr. NEWDEGATE
moved that the blank be filled up with twenty-two
instead of fourteen millions. Eventually the amend-
ment was withdrawn, and the House resumed.

The other orders of the day were then disposed of,
and the House adjourned at Ten Minutes past One.

Mr. DUNCOMBE, who is one of the few really honest
men—the rani nantes in gurgite sasto —that the pre-
sent House of Commons possesses, and whose speeches
are uniformly characterised by that straightforward-
ness, good sense, and intrepidity, which are among the
best qualities of a statesman, brought forward last
night the important question of opening letters at the
Post-office—a practice which the Home Secretary has
not thought it beneath him to sanction with his direct
approval, and which the Premier, though with the
longest and sourest face that ever man yet made, has
vainly endeavoured to justify. Not only, as appears
from Mr. DUNCOMBE'S statement, have the private
letters of Captain STOLZMAN, M. MAZZINI, and
God knows how many other persons, been
opened at the General Post-office by order of the
spotless GRAHAM, but the affair has been transacted
in the most mysterious manner possible, and with a skill
and science which convinces us that the parties engaged
are adepts in the work, and could not fail to achieve
high distinction as burglars and cracksmen, were they
ever to turn their attention that way. "Every care,'
said the Hon. Member for Finsbury, " had been taken
to avoid suspicion ; impressions had been taken from
the seals, and from these the opened letters were re-
sealed, and the cut was made so clean that it required
almost a microscope to discover it. There were also
double impressions made with the official stamp, so
that the date when the letters were received at the Post-
office could not be ascertained." Now wherefore all
these mean, tricky precautions, savouring so strongly of
the genius of petty larceny, if the act were one per-
fectly defensible at law, justified by frequent prece-
dent, and in strict accordance with the ordinary
usages of the Home-office? If it was absolutely ne-
cessary that the thing should be done, it should have
been done boldly, and not in this burglarious fashion.
" That the power of opening letters was vested in
the Secretary of State," observed Mr. DUNCOMBE,
"he admitted, but it was only to be exercised in
cases in which internal sedition or domestic trea-
son was apprehended." Now, in the instances of
Messrs. STOLZMAN and MAZZINI, no plea of the
sort could be urged in justification ; neither of these
gentlemen had ever interfered in the politics of
the country ; consequently the official violation of
their correspondence was an act of the most gratuitous
treachery and despotism. And what was the defence
set up by Sir JAMES GRAHAM, in reply to the Mem-
ber for Finsbury's charges? He was warranted, for-
sooth, in acting as he had done, on the faith of a law
almost as obsolete as that which sanctioned the use
of the torture, the burning of witches, the wager of
battle, and other such monstrosities ! And was this
all that the Home Secretary had to urge in arrest of
judgment ? Oh, no ! The richest part of his de-
fence is yet to come. He denied the authority of the
House to call him to account ; and, with a face of the
most comical solemnity, insisted that he had dis-
charged his duty, and that his " conscience was pure
in the matter !" His conscience ! Does he forget
his past political doings ? Does he forget his numer-
ous Protean changes and tergiversations from ultra-
Radicalism to Whigism, from Whigism to Toryism,
and from Toryism to any other Ism that has suited
the views of his master and the exigencies of the
moment ? Does Sir JAMES GRAHAM forget all this ?
If he is conveniently oblivious of the past, the right-
thinking portion of the community are not ; and
when they read his defence, and more espe-
cially his allusion to his " conscience," greatly
indeed shall we be mistaken if they do not experi-
ence a nausea akin to that of sea-sickness. To find
the Devil quoting Scripture is bad enough ; but to
find the Home Secretary talking of his "conscience"
is, if possible, still worse. Poor Sir ROBERT PE➢L
Ile is really greatly to be pitied for the exhibition
he was compelled to make last night ; though when
we bear in mind how often he has dragged others
through the dirt, we ought scarcely to feel regret that
he is now dfagged through it himself. Never had this
consummate master of specious common-place so
little to say for himselfor his colleague, in reply to the
crushing attack of Mr. MACAULAY. In vain he

endeavoured to throw over the case a fine coating of
sophistry. The naked facts stared tbrough the var-
nish. He thought," he said, " that his Right Hon.
Friend was justified in exercising the power he had

done." Mark the safe, discreet, wily wording of this
sentence, so characteristic of the Premier's charac-
ter ! He was not positive that the home
Secretary had acted rightly; he only "thought" he
had—a most convenient mode of defending his col•
league, which commits him to no decided opinion,
but enables him to back out of an ugly pre-
dicament, and even throw Sir JAMES GRAHAM

overboard, whenever it may suit his views of ex

pediency to do so. We do most earnestly hope tha

. _
the people will mark their sense of the Home Secre

tary's conduct, by holding public meetings on the

subject in every county, city, and town, throughout
the length and breadth of the land. They may rely

on it that the evil will not stop at the point which it
has now reached. The principle that private letters
may be opened at the Post-office being once sanc-
tioned by Government, will soon engender a regular
system of official espionage, under whose inquisitorial

tyranny no
man can be safe. If one individual's corre-
-1 spondence may be violated by authority without a why
or a wherefore, why should not another's ? Dr. Pima.-
/ POTTS, for instance, may indite a moving epistle to
I the Ecclesiastical Commission, requesting that his
rich and long-lamented rectory of Stanhope may be
restored to him ; the Member for Evesham, finding
politic, a more honourable than lucrative profession,
l
may: address a letter to the Manager of the Surrey,
be again allowed requesting that he may to pay
Othello for his benefit at that theatre ; and
both these strictly private and confidential
communications may be violated by order of
the Home Secretary, and, the greatest possible
shock be thereby inflicted on the delicate sensibilities
of the unsuspecting writers. The principle—whether
legal or not—of opening letters intended solely for