The following Post-office order has been issued at Dover.
" Agent's-office, Dover, Dec.15. " Whereas it has been represented to the Comptroller of the Foreign 1.4et office, London, that notwithstanding, a minute of the Postmaster-General, that no agent, captain, mate, or others employed in the service of his Majesty's packet-boats, shall convey any newspaper, English or foreign, to or from foreign putts, except such as are legally conveyed in the mails committed to their charge, newspapers are so conveyed, in contravention of such minute,-Take notice. that any persons employed in this service who may he found so acting will be reported to the Board forthwith, as offenders against such rules and regulations, and as liable to his Grace the Postmaster-Gefieral's
serious displeasure. " G. HART, Agent."
Upon this order the Times, to which it had been sent by a Corre- spondent, makes the following just remarks.
"Now, the first question to be asked is this-has the revenue suffered from the above condemned practice of fetching and carrying newspapers across the Chan- nel? If our correspondent be rightly instructed, the public revenue has suf- fered nothing from the journals alluded to not being 'enclosed in the mail-bags, because by journals which have uniformly been so enclosed the revenue has never gained a shilling. Who, then, has pocketed the charges paid on such "legal " conveyance? Our correspondent declares (and we are told the thing is quite notorious) that the Clerks in the Foreign Post-office have the proceeds of such charges for their " perquisites." Here is pretty work ! The public heard a go xl deal some time ago, both here and in Ireland, about certain magnates, caged Clerks of the Roads, sitting up an opposition shop to the regular newsmen, and by their control over the mail-coaches, and their connexion with post-offices, getting their own parcels of newspapers forwarded, when those transmitted by the newsvenders were carefully kept back, so as to confer upon the menial ob- jects of Post-office favour the power of ruining, or much injuring in their means • of livelihood, an industrious, useful, and most deserving class of tradesmen; and it is to perpetuate the like dirty monopoly in the hands of theofficial underlings offthe Post-office--a monopoly from which the country does not derive a single sixpence of advantage-that the name and authority of his Grace-the Duke of Itiehmand are employed by the Packet-agent at Dover, for no purpose, as we *aid before, of protection to the national revenue but simply to obstruct all in- terchange of intelligence between the People of England and their Continental neighbours, save only through that sing!e toll-bar at which all the contributions aevied are for the use and enjoyment of a set of officers already paid out of the public purse in the shape of salary for whatever services they can perform. " We more than once stated at the time of the late negotiation between the French and English Postmasters-General for a more easy and economical trams. issiun of newspapers between these countries, that the failure was in no degree ascribable to the .French Post-office, and was in as small a degree creditable to that of England. The &space and canker of our public business is the bum- burocracy of England,-the sitting portion of each department, w,hich is left behind (as Addington was by Mr. Pitt) upon every change of Administration, which nestles, and burrows, and propagates, and perpetuates itself, and becomes identified at last with the routine of the office, and hands down the clerk-craft frets. age to age, giving to ordinary official transactions a certain superficial semblance of what is called "regularity," but rendering the substance of things im- pervious to every principle of amendment which would exact the slightest shock to prejudice or disturbance of habit, or, worst of all, the most distant sacrifice of emolument, from those patriarchs of the back-stairs and writing- desk-your tribe of under secretaries and confidential clerks. These immove- ables, these adscripti glebe, these nominal serfs, are the real tyrants of a Minis- try. The race ought, like other vermin, to be effectually, though gradually, weeded. It will be found that if old forms are best preserved by them, ther are, for the must part, inveterate enemies to all substantial improvement. issiun of newspapers between these countries, that the failure was in no degree ascribable to the .French Post-office, and was in as small a degree creditable to that of England. The &space and canker of our public business is the bum- burocracy of England,-the sitting portion of each department, w,hich is left behind (as Addington was by Mr. Pitt) upon every change of Administration, which nestles, and burrows, and propagates, and perpetuates itself, and becomes identified at last with the routine of the office, and hands down the clerk-craft frets. age to age, giving to ordinary official transactions a certain superficial semblance of what is called "regularity," but rendering the substance of things im- pervious to every principle of amendment which would exact the slightest shock to prejudice or disturbance of habit, or, worst of all, the most distant sacrifice of emolument, from those patriarchs of the back-stairs and writing- desk-your tribe of under secretaries and confidential clerks. These immove- ables, these adscripti glebe, these nominal serfs, are the real tyrants of a Minis- try. The race ought, like other vermin, to be effectually, though gradually, weeded. It will be found that if old forms are best preserved by them, ther are, for the must part, inveterate enemies to all substantial improvement. " Great things were expected from the Duke of Richmond, when his Grace. v as first appointed to the Post-office; but the accumulation of jobbery kat reached a magnitude wii:c'n we fear, has proved beyond his strength to ecipe. with. There is a Viceroy over him-nay, a couple or more." The Times may have expected great things from the Duke of 114=- 310ND ; but we believe it ought to have anticipated just what has takes:. place. The Whig Ministers, in opposition to the Report of the Com- mission of Revenue Inquiry, not only, as we stated last week, con- tinued the office of Postmaster-General, but augmented the evil by- conferring it on a moo of high rank, and malsng that man a Cabinet Minister into the bargain ; thus rendering it more difficult than ever tn exert a proper control over his department. If it be true that the Duke of RICHMOND is unable, even supposing him to be willing, to cope with the accumulation of Post-office .jobbery, why is he not dismissed, as utterly unfit fbr the duties of his place ? His dismissal at all events should not be delayed a day-a more vigorous successor should be ap- pointed, until the Report of the Commission is acted upon, and the office is entirely abolished.
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