7 JUNE 1845, Page 13

MALICE PREPENSE IN POST-OFFICE PETTIFOGGING.

LORD BROUGHAM justifies the opening of letters at the Post- office by the detection of crime. Lord Denman does not admit that justification, because the amount of crime detected by that means is not sufficient : it is, he says, a question whether it is worth while to commit the wrong and keep up all the odium for the sake of opening eight letters a-year. That is a practical re- ductio ad absurdum ; but still it leaves the real question untouched. A mere tangible or practical advantage is no sound warrant for a moral wrong, either in justice or reason. You might extenuate any breach of honour on such a plea : Sir James Graham might detect a good deal of crime if he were to keep spies and eaves- droppers in pay, or to go himself under the disguise of a clergy- man to is the spy ; but though he were to discover a crime a day, it is not at all certain that the State would benefit on the whole transaction—finding out the crime to punish, but having. a base example to lower the general standard of morality, and thus to incline the balance of the popular disposition more on the side of wrongdoing. It is, on the contrary, all but certain, that with . such an arrangement for the repression of crime, the amount of crime would actually be greater. Lord Stanley was indignant with Lord Radnor's bill to " regulate " the dirty work at the Post-office, because, as he said, it contemplated a spy-system, by requiring informations to be laid against a person before his let- ters could be opened. That was not quite ingenuous ; for the bill proposed to avow the author of the information ; so that, although tardily, the accuser would have been confronted with the accused. But is it not strange to see one who justifies the violation of a seal shocked at the employment of a spy ! There is no doubt that, personally, Lord Stanley would as soon break open a letter : as listen to a conversation for the purpose of turning informer—he would sooner cut his throat than do either. No "practical advan- tages" would reconcile him to the ineffable shame of being detected in either act. His morals as a man are higher than his morals as a minister; that is, he will not in person do what he thinks it no shame to teach by example to the whole people. Perhaps, indeed,. he may not reject the proposition even in that shape, and may think that a little disgrace is a useful distinction between the mere man and • the gentleman. Few would concur in such a plea. And the de- linquency in question is especially base : it is not like that to which it is often likened, the seizure of papers in a man's house or on a man's person, not only because it is done covertly, but because the Post-office is for the occasion the trusted servant of the man. The Post-office forces itself on the public as an agent : if it permitted a rival, there is no doubt that a private post-office 'which did not open letters would be preferred by the public. But we must employ this avowed and unblushing delinquent, who is singularly justified in adding breach of a special trust to the treachery of a secret spy.

It is a strange aggravation of the absurdity, to say that Go-

vernment must have the power of seizing letters, because it car- ries the lettere and may therefore be messenger for a traitor. If it be so punctilious, let it abandon the office of letter-carrying. But to avow an unconquerable propensity to break open a letter, merely because it happens to be in your hand and you think the breaking-open convenient, is to acknowledge that the embezzler's temptation justifies his dishonesty. It may be said, indeed, that it is not the mere repression of crime in individuals that is the main object, but the safety of the State. Here we return to the empirical treatment of the ques- tion, which is so absorbed in the satisfaction of tracing a few de- linquents as to forget the vast but vaguer field of national morals. The safety of the state may seem to be insured at any one parti- cular moment by using any means whatsoever to detect a traitor; but in the lone. run it cannot be insured by any thing that tends to lower the level of the national integrity. The country in which no official gentlemen would venture to resort to the mean- ness of opening letters would be safer from plots and conspiracies than England, where we find the Legislature justifying the mean- ness. It is true, indeed, that you could at no time realize any tangible results of that higher kind of morals. You can handle and read a traitor's letter ; you can seize the traitor, unpocket his papers, see his dark lantern, and touch his gunpowder with your fingers ; all so many satisfactory evidences that you have per- formed the detection of crime in the country. You could never certify the detection of a virtue in the country by so gross a pro- cess. Seize the virtuous man—impound under a general warrant his lists of subscriptions to charities, or his schemes of benevo- lence—finger the gold that he intends for the benefit of mankind; and what do you prove ? Scarcely even that you have realized Diogenes's joke ; for your virtuous prisoner may be a Pharisee. It is the crassest misapprehension to suppose that you can settle and define everything, or that all those things which you can settle and define are the only things of practical importance. Some things suffer even by the attempt to settle and define them —such as many virtuous qualities, which become pragmatical os- tentation when you attempt to reduce them to precise rule. Per- sonal courage is debased by too nice a watch for its display ; and it flourishes generously in many a licence which the law cannot venture to recognize. Statecraft and lawmaking cannot devise rules for everything. In questions where vague and impalpable results are at issue with such distinct and tangible results, it is the office of "principle " to work out the decision ; and no prin- ciple can be reconciled with the treachery, breach of trust, and falsehood, involved in the practice of opening letters.