The Sun. — 1844-07-02 (London, England)

SYSTEM. (From the Ten Towns' Messenger.) We do not at all wonder at the interest, as well as jeaousy, with which all parties in and out of Parliament, have regarded the letter-opening question, which was the subject of a debate and division in the House of Commons on Monday night. In the debate, Sir James Graham, who tried to wrap himself still closer round in the mantle of dignified reserve, State policy, and Government prerogative, was rather roughly handled, and in the division he came very shortly off, 44 being the whole majority he could muster in a House of nearly 400 ! That Sir James Graham is an unpopular Home Secretary, there never was much doubt ; the present division shows with how much distrust and suspicion he is regarded. There is no point on which an Englishman is so sensitive as a letter. To read another's letter, or open another's letter, is regarded, and very justly, as a moral felony. There is, however, no use in disguising; and it was not attempted to be tdisguised, that such a license must of necessity, for the safety and pro tection of the State, be vested in the Government, and such a license must not be interfered with or questioned. This right, however, which no ono in his senses would interfere with or question, if it  2, 1644  were only acted upon in very rare instances, and those of exigency and importance, and with the greatest discretion and delicacy, all of which extenuating or rather justifying circumstances seem to be wanting in the present case, which is brought before the House as a very fair subject of complaint. We do not know anything about the foreigner in question. M. Mazzini, who has had 70 letters detained and opened, and with a petty cunning carefully re-sealed—all of which he declares are perfectly guileless ; but whether there was a necessity or not for opening his letters, there was no necessity for the want of strightforwardness and honesty in the way of dealing with him ; and there is a necessity, in spite of all Sir James Graham or his friends may urge—there is a necessity for that which public faith and public decency require, namely, an explanation of the affair—a partial, if not a full explanation, which is now altogether so doggedly, so discourteously, so disdainfully withheld. (From the Liverpool Times.) Probably no discussion that has yet taken place in Parliament has damaged the Government so much as the debates on Monday and Tuesday nights, on the subject of the alleged Post-office espionage ; and deservedly so ; for Ministers have degraded not only their own, but the national character, by practices abhorrent to the feelings of Englishmen, and inspired by motives of the most humiliating kind. Well did Mr. Sheil say, that in this most shameful case the public opinion was altogether against the Government. We believe that they have committed moral suicide; that after this deplorable act of Sir 'Tables Graham, they can never face their countrymen on the hustings a second time with any chance of success. A hundred party defeats would not have ruined their reputation so utterly as their unblushing avowal of a systematic breach of public honour and confidence, and their hardened unconsciousness that they were doing. anything wrong in committing an act which, in private life, would send a man to Coventry for the rest of his days. The Home Secretary and his colleagues stood upon their right to exercise this extreme and delicate power, forgetful of the maxim, Summum jus, summa znjuria, and that, although they might be shielded by the strict letter of the law from personal responsibility, they were not the less guilty of perpetrating a consummate wrong, and most despicable meanness.  For what could be more infamous than that a dictatorial power, paramount to all law, and only in • tended to be exercised in extremities—ne quit quid detrimenti republica cupiat —should, in ordinary times, be used as an engine to crush an unfortunate and inoffensive exile, not plotting against the social order of this country, but obnoxious to foreign despotisms on account of his efforts in favour of the " good old cause," which Englishmen, since the days of the glorious revolution, have been accustomed to honour ? Still more intolerable is it that this power should be expanded into a systematic abuse of the confidence reposed in the Post-office by private individuals in general, and that no Englishman can hereafter indulge in the boast that, unlike other countries, the spy system is unknown here—that the privacy of his letters is sacred from all eyes except these for whom they are intended. Sir J. Graham has dispelled that proud illusion for ever. The Englishman's house may be his castle, but his letters are not his own secrets. We must hang our heads and confess that, in this respect, we are no better than our neighbours, so long as a Tory Government continues in office. For, differing from our contemporaries, we believe that the whole Cabinet share the disgrace, and are equally responsible for this mean and arbitrary practice. In this instance Toryism only betrays the old sympathy fur Holy Alliance principles, the slavish subserviency to foreign despots, and the remorseless persecution of Liberals of all countries whiCh characterised it in the palmy days of Sidmouth and Castlereagh.  IMPErctAL