The Sun.
London, England, 1844-07-05 00:00:00

4.4...,ir-ToTrAOMIK • -
(4 mid IA 1111 C

LONDON, FRIDAX, JULY 5. 1844.

--...._
A vast number of Bill's received the Royal Assent
in the House of Lords, a very significant symptom of
the speedy termination of the Session.
The Earl of AffsTo gave notice that he would ask
Lord, lIADDINGTON this evening whether it was the
intention of the Government to send a naval force to
the coast of Morocco to protect the interests of British
subjects.
The Marquis of CLANRICARDS gave notice for
Monday of a motion relative to the war pending in
the West of Africa.
The Earl of RADNOR, after adverting at consider-
able length to the obnoxious and anti-English prac-
tice of opening letters at the Post- office, moved for a
Select Committee to inquire into the system of open-
ing letters at the Post-office.
The Duke of WELLirTwrom fully admitted that the
question had assumed a shape which required inquiry.
After defending the practice -to a certain extent, and
exhibiting a number of bugbears to justify it, he
moved as an amendment a Secret Committee, to be
composed of the following Members—Earl Somers,
the Earl of Burlington, the Earl of Rosebery, Lord
Colchester, Lord Brougham, Lord Cottenham, and
the Bishop of London.
We regret to find from a few remarks made by
Lord NORMANDY, that the practice was not confined
to the Tories, and that the power had been
exercised in Ireland against suspected Eibbonmet).
It is a detestable powCf, .ncl whether exercised by
Whigs or Tories, will be universaiii denounced. We
have never heard -one-disiaterested onan say a word in i
support of such an un-English practice. Party feel. I
ing is not mixed up in the luestion, Tories, Whig

and Radicals, if we except the Government hacks,
are unanimous in the opinion that the Post-ufficc
should be sacred. Extreme cases may occur. In
times of danger, and more particularly when rebel-
lion prevails, the Habeas Corpus Act may be
suspended, blit that can be done only by Act of
Parliament. Let the same rule apply to opening '
letters. Nothing but the safety of the State can
justify it, and the permission should not be given
without a specific Act of Parliament, which would
put every man oa his guard. In that case no man
or woman would write to a friend, but in the belief
that their correspondence might be known to the
Grahamites, and that every family communication
might be read by the underlings of office. We agree,
however, ith that consist,nt and honest lawyer and
-ta'esnian. Lord CAMPBELL, in every instance it
would 14• rto put an e,:d to this obnoxious
Folder.
The Earl of RADNOR withdrew his motion. The
Conamitti e was appointed, and ordered to meet on
Thursday.
In the Commons, Mr. CHRISTIE presented a petition
from CHARLES HENRY RUSSELL, the plaintiff in cer-
tain actions against noblemen and gentlemen for gam-
bling, any gave notice that he would this day move
that the petit:Ter, AC-cording to his request, be heard
at the bar of thelkouse.
Mr. SHELL gave
ce of a motion for this day,
relative to the French pu"csessions in Africa.
In answer to a question fi:ran Mr. WALLACE, Mr.
GLADSTONE said it was the firm.
determination of the
Government to go on with the RailNsYs Bill.
Mr. P. M. STEWART asked Sir Z93BEET PEEL,
whether the report was correct, that (;..'vernment,
after haying carried the Bank Charter Bill, Neuded
to interfere with the banking and currency of :...le°t"
land and Ireland. Sir ROBERT PEEL gave an answi."
which would lead to the belief that he is about to make
an inroad upon the Scotch and Irish banks.
Mr. HUME denounced the practice of opening
letters at the Post-office, and said, if the House had
appointed him on the Committee, he would have
declined to attend it. He would have nothing to do
with Secret Committees.

The Bank Charter Bill, after some conversation
and several attempts at amendments, was read a third
time, and passed.
Sir JAMES GEAUAM moved that the House resolve
itself into Committee on the Poor-law Amendment
Bill.

An amendment was proposed by Mr. BoaTnwica,
the discussion on which, or rather on the general
principle of the -Bit, occupied the House the re-
mainder of the night.
On a division the amendment was negatived by a
majority of 180.
The Bill was then committed pro forma. The
House immediately resumed, and adjourned at a
Quarter past Two.

In moving last night, in the House of Lords, for
the appointment of a Secret Committee to inquire
into the practice of detaining and opening letters at
the General Post-office, the Earl of RADNOR justly
remarked that when the Home Secretary of State
thought that the public safety required an examina-
tion of private letters, he ought to open them on his
own responsibility. If the law were to be violated
with the object of securing the safety of the State by
seizing upon correspondence, then, added the Noble
Earl, " the Minister ought to violate the law on his
own responsibility, and having done so, he ought to
come down to Parliament and boldly say he had done
so, because there had been a public necessity for it,
and call on Parliainent:to protect him from the conse-
quences. Those who urged the necessity of opening
letters in order to secure the safety of the State, sup-
posed the case of correspondence, the seizure and
examination of which might prevent rebellion or dis-
turbance at home; but such a necessity for the inter-
ference of the Home Secretary could never have
been anticipated with respect to the letters of
foreigners. It appeared to him that this detention and
examination of the letters of foreigners was a breach
of the laws of hospitality which was revolting to the
public mind." This is well put by the Noble Lord.
The law on the subject of opening private corre-
spondence at the Post-office, which was never in-
tended to be other than a dead letter, except in ex-
treme cases of necessity, which the Legislature has
no right to anticipate, should at once be abrogated ;
and the Secretary of State—as Lord RADNOR sug-
gests—should open suspicious letters on his own respon-
sibility, plead the imperative emergency of the case,
and claim the protection of Parliament for the con-
sequences of his act. Rarely, if ever, it is to be
hoped, will he be compelled to have recourse to this
step ; but while the law exists as at pre-
sent it arms him with sufficient power to
have recourse to such an obnoxious stretch of au-
thority, which, in the hands of a suspicious, unscru-
lous, tyrannical Minister—and such have existed, and
may exist again—could not fail to be attended with
the most injurious and demoralising consequences.
As regards the Committee, to which the Duke of
WELLINGTON unhesitatingly acceded, on the plea that
there was no alternative, we must honestly confess that
we are very doubtful whether any really good results
will follow from it—first, from? the absolute se-
crecy which is to be attached to all its proceedings,
and secondly, from the nature of the inquiry
which it is proposed to enter into. Another
curious feature in the business, which we do not pro-
fess at all to understand, is, that the Lords' Com-
mittee are to have the benefit of the advice and assist-
ance of two law Peers, while lawyers are rigidly ex-
cluded from the Committee of the House of Commons.
Surely there is some inconsistency here ! What is
sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander, and if the
aid of a lawyer is considered necessary in the one
Committee, we should have thought, as a matter of
course, that it would have been considered equally
m cessary in the other. The whole affair, we suspect,
will end, like many others of the same sort,
in smoke ; little or nothing more will be heard
of the proceedings of either conclave ; but, meanwhile,
a substantial good has already been effected, for public
attention has been strongly fixed on the subject,
public indignation and astonishment everywhere ex-
cited, and the consequence will be, that no private
letters will ever henceforth be opened at the Post-
office, whether with or without the warrant of a
Home Secretary, unless the necessity of the case
be made so apparent to Parliament, that no rea-
sonable man can possibly object to it. The most
remarkable feature in the whole affair, and not
the most creditable to our vacillating Government,
has been the high, authoritative ground which
they took on the first mooting of the question by.
Mr. DUNCOMDE, and the readiness with which they
immediately afterwards abandoned that ground. In
the first instance, they were strongly opposed to any-
thing in the shape of inquiry, and would give no
explanation at all ; yet, not three nights afterwards,
they were unanimously in favour of inquiry, with a
view to afford the fullest: explanation ! The truth
is they have been influenced, in this as in every
other cage, by sheer motives of expediency ; and have
granted the Committee, as they will be pretty sure
to grant a repeal of the corn-laws, the instant it suits
their views of expediency to do so. As for acting
upon principle, and the convictions of their own un-
derstanding, such a thing never once enters into their
calculation.
so. ' •

The whole " talk" of the 'House of Commons, this
session, has not afforded us so much amusement as a
lachrymose and vituperative little attack made, on
Tuesday night last, by Mr, ARTHUR ROEBUCK, on
the conduct " of the daily press of this country,"
touching the Post-office exploits of Sh. JAMES
GRAHAM. When serpents cast their skins, accord.
ing to a popular superstition, they assume with their
new cuticle all the vigour and sprightliness of renas-
cent youth. Whether lifr, itozsvcic has experienced,
is Ms own person, the genial influences
of some such vivifying process on throwing
by his gown of ' "stur and involving himself in
one of silk, we do not undertake to determine. But,
under some consciehtious conviction of such a fad
only, could " he," Mr. ARANWR ROEBUCK, whose
freaks we have watched for these last fourteen years,
" assnro the Right Hon. Baronet that be fully
sympathig.ed to the feelings he had expresced," The
association of .`.` itogppot and sympathy" would be
too extravagant—too
luclici'4u3lif Monstrous—for the
Wang, even, of a Bath electioneering placard? It
wool mot impose pp. the credulity of a Bath chair:
man. 6.$ Etirpethy".,,e}l.4 (9r A political superior too
nutliTi4l.oo4l 'Ce#lll. de-•
...from the spleneLle, _ fig -
nouncer of all parties, and all part,..24. ."4-414°

From the waspish, petulant aspirant after i '
impracticable honours and hopeless elevation ! Why
we could more readily credit a rumour that the Duke ,
of Yosues bronze ststus, from the somewhat more';
majestic isolation of its position, had heaved a sigh
"natural sympathy" (for his Royal Highness's sur-
viving creditors), than that Mr. ROEBUCK. has any
such graceful weakness in his moral or physical com-
position. If he ever had it, we should say "it
withered all" —like OPHELIA'S flowers—When the
common catastrophe of extinction overtook the re-
nown of his friend, M. Paersmar, and the insurrec-
tionary efforts of Lower Canada. But Mr. ROEBUCK
proceeded to :my that "advantage had been taken of
this incident"—(the whole subject matter of Sir
JAMES GRAHAM'S inculpation—the fact of opening the
letters—the mooted question whether one or more
warrants were requisite for his authority to do so)
all are compressed into this convenient " incident")— '
advantage has been taken, he says, " to call down
public indignation upon an officer who has done
nothing more than tread in the footsteps of his
predecessors." (Exemplary Sir JAMES ! He would
not even break open sealed letters except under
warranty of precedents !) " This opinion has been
aided and created out of doors, by all the vile arts
which attach to the daily press in this country."
What means this ? That the " daily press" has
no sympathy with Mr. Roznuce.? We trust it has
not. Mr. ROEBUCK, as the Morning Chronicle well
observes, " is, in his small way, as unpopular as Sir
JAMES GRAHAM ;1' and, after these marked advances
on the part of the " sympathising" silk gown, we
should not be astonished to see them figuring together
as partners, in a political " Polka dance," for the re-
mainder of the session !
Mr. ROEBUCK passes from the imputation of " vile
arts" to the daily press, to the declaration " that a
iouler instrument of calumny cannot be found." No?
j Not in the wholesale, unmeasured, unfeeling, insolent
invectir .against distant Lieutenant-Governors of
colonies, an absent military commanders, and
,de-
ceased civil and .stofessional authorities, with which
the House of connions has been occasionally
ours together, in endless
of all that has been
arraignments, night after tsiglit,
said or done, written, directed, or transacted, by the
Government of the day at home, and its representa-
tives abroad ? With such remarkable instances of
individual slander on record, does Mr. Rows/xi( ven-
ture to talk of " all the foulness of the calumny of the
Public press having been heaped on the Right Hon.
Baronet ?" Come, come, Mr. Roznuce.! You are
troubled, we fear, either with a short memory, or a
bashful unconsciousness—" temporal acti."
But since we, for our'parts, cannot give to Mr. RoEs
BUCK credit for any such mere "prejudices"—(more
important principles pass by that designation, in his
system of ethics, than simple emotions)—as "sym-
pathy" for any human being:in existence,—save one
—we must suppose his " sympathy" is for the conduct
of Sir JAMES GRAHAM. He would " tread in the
footsteps" of Sir JAMES'S predecessors. We wish
him joy of his prepossessions. We have often ob.-
served, that on questions wherein the personal rights
and liberty of the subject have been found
in collision with corporate or pecaliar claims,
or with the accidents of industrial occupa-
tion (such as those of female and infant
labour in factories, or such as those wherein,
tin. example, the " privilege-of-Parliament" pre-
tensions have been urged to their highest flight ;)
Mr. ROEBUCK—with an inconsistency peculiarly
graceful in the noisy advocate of democratic institu-
tions and the working classes—has taken a part
utterly opposed to the popular—to the generous view
of the great majority of the community. Perhaps a!
vulgar love of paradox—perhaps the simple fact that
" a fellow feeling makes us wondrous kind"—may
prompt his vote on such questions, or questions of►
that class, and may incite him to the rescue of the!
Home Secretary on this occasion. It is not worthi
while examining how this may be. But we have!
just one grain of curiosity touching another topic,l
personal to this busy declaimer and silent barrister.'
What are the past distinctions, the present ser-
vices, or the existing position of Mr. ROEBUCK
(saving always the rights of that most fussy
and obtrusive of dignities, identified with an acci-
dental M.P.)—on which the Learned Gentleman
,deems himself at liberty to hold such disrespect-
ful, such abusive, language of the " daily press of this!
country ?" We never heard him even suspected of.
any such superiority in position, in services, in dis-!
tinctions. His ill-breeding in all this, being the'
Learned Gentleman's misfortune, we don't insistl
upon. If he cannot help that, however, he is not,!
therefore, at liberty to advert to the press in terms of
insult and contumely, for having discharged what
has conceived to be its duty, on a great public guess'
tion. Does Mr. ROEBUCK imagine that the official'
conduct of members of the Government is not publid
property, and, therefore, a legitimate subject for an;
discussion of the public press ? Or has he such al
freehold, whether in fee-simple, or in (imaginary)
expectancy and remainder, in the ministerial repute;
tion of Sir JAMES GRAHAM, that, like that other herd
of a farce, who over-estimated his own prowess, h
will not allow even the boots of his mightiness to bd
challenged ?
Really, Mr. ROEBUCK has no excuse for his over
weening folly. A man so infirm in temper, so un4
genial in temperament—without poetry, without
sentiment, without the power of attaching others, of
appreciating in others the softer or more generous purl
poses in which he is careful to show himself deficient;
such a man might surely learn to be practical, conk
sistent, temperate, in his public deportment. Hii
idiosyncracy, and the crude, harsh, utilitarian chas
racter of his philosophy—(such as it is)—suggest
no excuse for these escapades of peevish
imprudence, and atrabilious resentment. We
have one word more for our parting. In
the true King CAMBYSES vein he thus concluded:
—"/ will not do honour to one more than another of
these detestable channels of public information by--
naming them !" Horresco referens. Their doom,
then, is fixed ! For ourselves, we shall endeavour to
live on, notwithstanding. We have taken a part—
perhaps no inactive one—in the general delinquencies of
our unhappy brethren. What we might have gained,
first in our own good opinion, secondly in that of the
public, had we been selected, by name, as an excep-
tion to this fearful sentence, ..we cannot tell; but it
would have been little, indeed, if we may judge by
the terrible constancy with which we support
ourselves under our actual calamity. Mr.
ROEBUCK will not "honour" one journal more
than another by naming any one of theni.
An overwhelming avalanche of silent destruction !
An awful but voiceless ruin ! And yet—(such is the
indomitable levity of these " detestable" natures)-1
that the Chronicle replies to these " words of power"
with this irreverent exclamation—" Heaven help the
poor irritated little gentleman !" We shall only add,
of the distinction thus barbarously withheld from us
and our brethren, that we can imagine no dose so in-
finitesimal—so, utterly imperceptible to the highest
microscopic power—in the homoeopathy of political
depreciation, as—the " honour" of Mr. ROEBUCK'S
nomination.

Madrid journals of the 27th ult. have been received,
but they are filled chiefly with rumours. It is re-
ported that an extensive conspiracy has been dis-
covered, that the Marquis DE VILLUMA will retire
from the Ministry, that the Royal Family of Naples
is expected at Barcelona, and that the Cortes are to
be dissolved forthwith.
The Three per Cents. were done at 281 at 60 days,
and the Five per Cents. at 20i at 30 days.

Several of the Paris journals continue their attacks
on the demand made by the KING for pensions to his
sons and daughters, but we find nothing in the articles
deserving particular notice. The excitement is dying
away awl probably little more will be heard of the
affair till some motion is 1114de in the Chambers for a
provision to the Duke DE NEMOVRO Rs Regent. In
the Chamber of Deputies the discussion on the Paris
And Strasbnrgh Railway Rill was brought to a close
on TuesdaiT. AI. AaAoo moved an additional article
for limiting to one-tenth of the whole the number
pf, foreign-made Iccomotives to be used on the line,
I,oo} a view to encourage home manufactures, but
the motion was reipptpd by a large majority, 191 to
62. The sum voted fOr carrying Okc works is
88,700,000 f. The line is to run from Paris by
Esserpay, Chalons, and Nancy, with branch lines to
Rheims.apd
o aiithentic accounts have been received from
IgeT *an the 27th ult.? when the Vrencb
§-71-7,1 „