The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1833-08-09 00:00:00

breaches of the peace, should these ends appear otherwise unat-
tainah.e ; at tue same time the committee would strong.y urge
the most cautious maintenance of those limits, and sotemoiy
deprecate any alyroach to the employment of spies in the or-
dinary acceptance of the term, as a practice most abhorent to
the fcctings of the people, and most alien to the spirit of the
constitution."

STAFFORD BOROUGH DISFRANCHISEMENT.
Sir T. FREMANTLE moved for and obtained leave to bring
in a bill for the disfranchisement of this borough.

POST OFFICE lEREGULA
Mr. R. WALLACE commenced his address by saying that the
Postmaster-General, or some one on his behalf, bad, in order to
discover a fraud, committed a felon,/ in the opening of letters.
He should prove this before he sat down. lie had had two
interviews oo the subject of his motion with the Postmaster-
General, who had received him with great kindness, but he found
that no adequate remedy was proposed for the evil of which he
complained. There were some means adopted at present of get-
ting at the contents of letters, a practice which, if sanctioned or
continued, must violate that secrecy and that confidence on which
the public retied in placing their letters in the Postoffiee. He would
read to the house some extracts from the volume which was before
him. It was a report from the commissioners of revenue in 1829.
It was an able and searching report, and made many very use-
ful suggestions as to the Postoffice, but, so far as he could learn,
they had not been attended with any effect; neither had the
previous recommendations Made in the reports of 1783 and
1i97, though very wise and salutary. The report spoke of the
facility of the great and quick communication afforded by the
Postoffice, which it said might be classed amongst the elements
of profitable commerce. It also referred to the Postoflice as of
importance as a branch of the public revenue. He admitted
that if well managed it would be a profitable branch of revenue;
but he contended that it was managed with meanness and par-
simony, which greatly diminished the revenue that would accrue
under a better management. The whole establishment should
be placed on a different footing. The house had in the presence
of the First Lord of the Admiralty, of the Secretary to the
Treasury, and other individuals connected with many public
departments, the advantage/of making inquiries on the spot as
to matters connected with those departments; but with respect
to the Postoffice they had no such advantage, as. there was no
public officer in that house who represented it. The hon. mem•
bar next adverted to the great powers vested in the Postmaster-
General, as stated in the report to which he had before referred,
and contended that such extensive powers. ought not to be
vested in any one in idual. No individual ought to have the
power of arranging Tripsts at his discretion, and of employing
or dismissing public servants at his pleasure. (Hear, hear.)
It further appeared that among his other extensive powers the
Postmaster-General had authority even to regulate the amount
of postago on letters. The next department he should mention
was the secretary's office. The salary of the secretary was £3OO
• a-year—a sum, however, which was raised by various Compen-
sations, fees, and emoluments, to £4,565. The
_duties of the
secretary's ce comprised almost an entire delegation of the
powers of the Postmaster-General. The hon. member pro-
ceeded with his extracts from the report of 1829. By that it ap-
peared that the remuneration of the clerks of the Postoffice
consisted partly of salaries and in part of allowances and emolu-
ments of a different description. One of these sources of emo-
lument was the secretary's fund, of which £750 a-year was paid
to the revenue and the surplus to the secretary's clerks. The
amount of emoluments connected with the Postoffice in Eng-
' I land and Wales, and derived from various sources, was £39,000

a-vear. In some departments the remuneration was very cola
siderable, while. in others it was trilling. Such irregularities
and such a system of extra remuneration ought not to be per-
mitted. In his opinion, the whole system of the Postoffice
required revision. The charges of solicitors connected with
the Postoffice were not governed by any known table of tees.
The hon. member deprecated in strong terms, as improper and
unconstitutional, the practice of Post-office solicitors requiring
the private correspondence of gentlemen to be submitted to
them for the purpose of prosecuting the writers. In such cases
the authority of the Postmaster-General was made subservient
to the interests of the solicitor, who took on himself to institute
proceedings when he saw fit. The result of this was, that the
public purse was brought to bear against individuals under the
exercise of an irresponsible power; notwithstanding which,
however, the penalties recovered were trifling, probably because
proceedings were frequently brought against poor persons. The
hon. member next adverted to the inland office, in which there
were six clerks of the roads, paid by salaries and perquisites
arising out of the sale of newspapers and from other sources.
A petition which could not be received had been that day
brought before the house, complaining of grievous exactions on
the part of the clerks of the roads in Ireland in the exercise
of the powers intrusted to them. The report stated, and every
thing he had heard or seen confirmed the opinion, that the
Postoffice ought to be conducted on more liberal principles.
The hon. member next alluded to the parsimony of the Postoffice
in not sending expresses, on the arrival of the J amaica and Oporto
packets at Falmouth, after the despatch of the regular mail. It
was not expecting too much to require that the Postoffice should,
upon such occasions, imitate the conduct of the newspapers, and
despatch the intelligence. by post chaise. The conductors of the
public journals displayed no such parsimony as the Postoffice.
.The hon. member then referred to the allegations abroad that
parcels were broken open by the Postoffice, to the manifest
inconvenience and injury of the mercantile community. To
mention no other inconvenience, the mixing up of samples,
which might thus occur, might occasion the most serious conse-
quences. He believed the law was clear that such parcels
should not be opened, and he had been informed that the great-
est commercial establishment in the city had bearded the secre-
tary and solicitor of the Postoffice, by declaring that they
would continue to send letters in boxes, leaving it to the Post-
office to prosecute if it pleased. The next point he should men-
tion related to ship letters. In 1815 it was found impossible for
the Postoffice to collect a revenue from the home postage of
letters going to the colonies; and there . was an understand-
ing that in future such letters should be sent out of the
country free of postage, on the proviso that letters coining from
the colonies should pay. 2d. a piece more than formerly; or
Bd. instead of 6c1., which latter was the old charge. The
practice was pursued up to a recent period with advan-
tage; but it was now broken in upon, and letters could
not be sent with the same ease and frequency as heretofore.
One of the reasons for objecting to letters -being sent by private
opportunities arose out of packets having been provided to con-
' vey communications to America and the colonies. But the
provision-was very inadequate ; the worst class of vessels in the
known world were his Majesty's packet-ships. (Hear.) They
were dangerous, slow, and unsatisfactory. - The speed of the
American packets was much greater. It was not uncommon
for the sailing of the packet from Jamaica to be announced here
via New York, in consequence of the slosimes of the one, and
the speed of the other conteyance. The same defective and
mischievous Postoffice system prevailed in the colonies as in
the mother country—a system of sponging upon the commercial
community by ,unfair charges of commission and exchange upon
newspapers and letters. He objected to the mode of charging
on double letters, which was infinitely inferior to the Frenc h
system of charging by weight. The latter practice avoided all
pretence for scrutiny and examination, winch were the grand
mischiefs of the English system. He was satisfied that it was
utterly impossible for anyparty to express his sentiments by single
letters so as to be secure from observation in the Postoffice,where
an effsctual method of examining the contents of letters existed
b y means of strong gas-lights,and a particular description of shade.
Ile had thought till recently that an unsealed letter would have
been as safe from inspection in the Postoffice as upon the table
of any member of that house. Now, however, he was of a dif-
ferent opinion. He held in his hand copies of acorrespondence
between the noble Postmaster-General and himself, in which
the noble duke declared that he would do his utmost to put an
end to the evils complained of. He believed that the noble
duke had been to a certain extent successful, but he complained
of the system, which allowed such proceedings to be repeated at
any time under the noble duke, or any other Postmaster-Generals
He had received a communication from the chairman of the
Chamber of Commerce of Greenock, complaining of the abuses
of the Postoffice, and a memorial had been forwarded on the
subject. In consequence of this he communicated with the
Postoffice, and the representative of the Postmaster-General
at Edinburgh distinctly avowed that there was "a necessity
for examining every letter that passed through the Postoffice,"
and that " each postmaster had printed instructions directing
him to ascertain whether letters had been legally conveyed, or
whether any attempt had been made to evade the postage." A
letter was sent to Mr Ayton, a banker of Greenock, by the
Postoffice solicitor, requiring him to give up a certain letter.
That letter he (Mr. Wallace) now held in his hand; it was
written by a parish clerk from a place about ten miles from
Greenock, summoning Mr. Ayton to a meetines • the clerk car-
ried the letter in his pocket to Greenock, acid it into the
Postoilice, and it was delivered and a penny postage charged
for it. Upon this transaction it was that the solicitor of the
Postoffice sought to inflict a penalty on Mr. Ayton. There was
another letter from Glasgow, upon which penalties to the
amount of £570 were sought to be recovered against J. Reed
and Co., simply in consequence of the clerks of the Postoffice
having examined and discovered the contents of the letter.
Mr. STANLEY asked whether the right of examining letters
was not expressly disavowed by the noble Postmaster-General,
and whether the hon. member did not, say that he was satisfied
with that?
Mr. WALLACE had told the Postmaster-General that he
should be satisfied if a stop were put to the practices complained
of, at the same time he thought that as the law now stood the
Post-master-General did not possess sufficient power to do so.
The next letter he should refer to was addressed to James Scott
and Co., wine-merchants, and it was folded in that sort of man-
ner that it was absolutely impossible its contents should be
known (as they were known at the post-office,) unless the seal
had been violated. In conclusion, he thought it necessary to
state, that unless he ieceived an assurance from government of
their intention to take the subject up, he should in the next
session move for a select committee to inquire into the state of
the post-offices of Great Britain and Ireland. The honourable
member then moved for returns of all instructions or directions
from lawful authority under which postmasters were authorized
to open or unfold teams, or apply strong lamp lights for the
purpose of ascertaining or reading the contents of letters fastened
by wafer or wax, or unfastened; for returns of all informations
laid by the Postoffice in Great Britain or Ireland against I:er-
sons for having illegally conveyed letters from the sth of July,
183'2, to the sth of July, 1833; the dates of all such informa-
tions; the prosecutions commenced in consequence of them;
the names of the parties prosecuted, or threatened with prose-
cution; the names of the persons to whom letters had been
written by solicitors of the Postoffice on the subject of such in-
formations; the amount of money paid under the proceedings;
the expense of prosecutions; the amount received by solicitors
of the Postoffice on their own behoof; the slims charged to the
public; the names of the informers; the amount of flues and
penalties levied, and how disposed of.
Lord ALTI-lon P said that he did not mean to object to the hon.
gentleman's motion ; at the seine time he must say that. a great
portion of it might have been omitted, as the documents for which
it called were documents that never existed.. Time hon. gentleman
was aware that the Postmaster-General had disavowed ever hav-
ing given any authority to deputy-postmasters in the country to
open letters in order to ascertain where'they were dated. But
the hon. gentleman handed in in proof a letter ricross the table,
and he said that it was impossible that the place froireviimence
that letter was dated could be ascertained without opening the
letter. Now, without breaking the seal or opening that letter,
but in conseuence of the awkward manner in which it had been
folded, he, (Lord Althorp) simply by looking into it, could as
easily as possible read time letters "Dublin," whence the letter
was dated. ( Hear.) But the Postmaster-General had, as the hon.
gentleman was aware, disavowed having given to deputy-post-
masters authority even to look into letters in that way in order
to discover their dates. The hon. gentleman, however, must see
that the date of this letter might be discovered-without opening it.
The notice which the hon. member had placed upon the paper
had not certainly led hint (Lord • Althorp) to. expect such' a
statement as that which he had now made to tfse house, for that
notice was for " copies of the instructihns under which post-
masters claim a right to unfold or open letters in all or any of
the postoffices of Great Britain and Ireland." It was scarcely
to be supposed that in bringing forward such a motion as that the
hon. member would have gone into a general statement as to
the whole conduct and management of the Postoffice. There
was not the slightest object to be gained in moving for such in-
structions, as no such instructions had ever been given by the Post-
master-General, seeing that they would be instructions to com-
mit a felony. The hon. gentleman had referred to the report of
the committee of inquiry in 1829, to show the abuses that ex-
isted in the management of the Postoffice. Now, he believed
that a large portion of this recommendations contained in than
report had been since carried into effect. With reference to the
complain tmade with regard to the Postoffice at Greenock, Le