The Sun.
London, England, 1845-02-19 00:00:00

111'

LONDON, WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 19, 1845.

The House of Lords met at Five o'Clock.

The business transacted was confined exclusively to
the presentation of petitions. Among them was one
from Etlinburgh, presented by Lord CAMPBELL, against
any change in the Scotch system of banking, and one
from SAMUEL GRAY, complaining of the conduct of the
law officers in Ireland, in instituting repeated prosecu-
tions against him on the same charge.
Their Lordships adjourned shortly after Five o'clock.
In the house of Commons the Hon. H. Frrznor took
the oaths and his seat for Lewes.

Sir W. HEATIICOTE brought up the report of the Sub-
Committee on private Bills.
Various petitions were presented.
_ _

New writs were ordered for East Kent in the room of
Sir E. KNATcHBULL, who had accepted the Chiltern Hun-
dreds, and for Thetford in the room of Mr. W. B. BA-
RING, who had accepted the office of Paymaster-General.
Several notices of motion were given, among them was
one by Mr. WARD, for Tuesday week, to renew
his motion respecting the exclusive and parti-
cular burdens on land, and one by Lord J. RUSSELL,
for going into Committee of Ways and Means for the
purpose of proposing the sugar duties, to move this
resolution by way of amendment : That it is
the opinion of this House that the plan proposed by
her MAJESTY'S Government, in reference to the sugar
duties, professing to keep up a distinction between
free-labour sugar and foreign slave-grown sugar, is im-
politic, and would aggravate the evils of a protecting
duty to their colonies at the expense of the consumer,
would tend to impair the revenue, and render the re-
moval of the property and income-tax, at the end of
three years, very improbable and uncertain."
Lord ASHLEY then moved for leave to bring in a Bill
to regulate the labour of children in the calico print-
works of Great Britain and Ireland.
Sir J. GRAHAM could not refuse to consent to the
introduction of the Bill, but he must reserve for himself
and the Government the most perfect discretion with
respect to the mode in which the details of the Bill were
to be carried out.

Mr. WALLACE thought the dyeing and bleaching de-
partments ought to be included in the Bill, and at a fu-
ture stage he should move that they be so included.
Mr. HUME deprecated any legislative interference be-
tween the employer and the employed—between the
parent and the child. The proper remedy for all the
evils complained of was to remove those fetters which
monopoly and class interests had placed upon industry.
Mr. COBDEN gave the Noble Lord credit for his
motives„but thought he had been misled. In calico-
printing, and other trades of the same kind, the time of
labour was not fixed or compulsory ; they did not begin
and cease with the steam-engine, as in other branches—
it was the wish of their parents that children should be
employed—they worked in the same room with them.
under their eye, and might leave off when they thought
proper. It was not here as in the cotton mills, their
time was free; and if they overworked themselves, it was
their own or their parents' fault.
Mr. WAKLEY supported the motion—urged the Noble
Lord to extend his inquiries into the rural districts—
until he did so, his exertions would be open to suspicion.
After a few words from Mr. M. PHILLIPPS, leave was
given to bring in the Bill, and Mr. LABOUCHERE ex-
pressed a hope that the second reading would be fixed
for an early day.
Mr. HUME postponed his motion on the subject of
lighthouses.
Mr. T. DUNCOMBE then brought the subject of the
espionage exercised by the Post-office under the atten-
tion of the House, and complained of the conduct of the
Secret Committee, which had last year sat to consider the
subject. The Honourable Gentleman concluded
an able, eloquent, and witty speech, by moving—
" That a Select Committee be appointed to inquire
into the mode in which letters have been detained,
opened, and re-sealed at the General or at any pro-
vincial post-office, and also into the circumstances under
which every warrant for that purpose has been
issued by any Secretary of State, from the Ist day of
January, 1840, to the present time, the said Committee to
report their opinion thereon to the House, and also whe-
ther it is expedient that the practice should be con-
tinued:—That the report and evidence of the Secret
Committee of last session relative to the Post-office be
referred to the said Committee."

Sir J. GRAHAM defended the conduct of the Govern-
ment and the course pursued by the Secret Committee.
An animated discussion ensued, and, eventually, the
debate was adjourned till Thursday, with an understand-
ing that it should stand the first question on that day.
The House adjourned a►t Half-past Twelve o'clock.

We really blush for the humiliating aspect under
which the Government of this country must be al-
ready regarded by foreign nations, on account of its
admitted shameless tampering with the sacred trust
of the Post-office department—and the Old-Bailey-
like, contemptible, special pleading on which, at this
time of day, a British Administration comes forward
to justify such delinquencies on its own part and on
that of its predecessors. In reference to the tone of
last night's debate on Mr. Tuompa DUNCOMBB'S
motion for the appointment of a Select Committee of
Inquiry into these transactions, we almost fear, too,
that we shall have reason to blush for the weakness
of a British Legislature, that seems far more disposed
to become a " particeps criminis," by throwing the
shield of its protection over Sir JAMES GRAHAM, than
to act with a dignity and an honesty worthy of its
better days and recollections. With what unmingled
suspicion and contempt will our Continental nei;h-
hours, and our American detractors be justified in
regarding our habitual pretensions to fair deal-
ing and integrity, when, in the highest
councils of the empire, the breaking of private—
aye, and of public or foreign diplomatic seals—the
felonious acquisition by third parties of a knowledge
of the contents which those seals were meant expressly
to protect from their sight;—the transmission to cer-
tain official and other quarters which the writers of
the intelligence thus basely purloined expressly in-
tended that it should never reach—the clandestine
refolding, and false or fabricated re-sealing of such
violated papers—and the base, scandalous conspiracy
of all the parties, high or low, connected with the
most contemptible juggle of the whole felony
(namely, the forwarding the letters thus abused,
without notice or avowal of what has been done, to
the party addressed, for the very purpose of falsely
suggesting to him their undisturbed condition, in
order to entrap him into acting upon the assumption,
that his own eyes first peruse, since the original dis-
patch of the communication, what his correspondent
has written to him ;) when these are the vile arts which
Sir JAMES GRAHAM and Sir ROBERT PEEL are not
ashamed to stand up in their places to justify. For
our own parts, deploring the melancholy fact that
Mr. MAzzusr has been able to establish so signal a
case of unpardonable turpitude against more than