THE STATIONERY JOB—THE VALUE OF OFFICIAL DECLARATIONS.

THE Report of the Stationery Committee furnishes another incon- testable record of facts, which prove how uniformly, for many years past, the public good has been sacrificed to aristocratic avarice of power and profit. In this light we regard it as a valuable and in- -structive document., It holds out to us another warning against trusting the' Meli under whose domination the old system of cor- ruption flourished : it teaches us the folly of placing unlimited confidence in any body of Ministers, however untarnished their 'character may have been : it also exhibits in a strong light the worthlessness of the most solemn Ministerial asseveration of facts.

As respects Sir JOHN KEY, the public will learn little from the Report which they were not before aware of. It is proved that he is the principal, if not the sole contractor for the stationery, which his brother was nominally bound to furnish ; and Sir JOHN himself is compelled to make the degrading confession, that, in order to obtain the office of Storekeeper for his son, he had the baseness to tell Mr. CHARLES Woon a deliberate lie. The Com- mittee let Sir JOHN KEY off easily enough. As he has resigned his seat, they make no remark on that part of the affair which re- lates to his contract; and merely give a summary of the evi- dence, without comment, respecting the lie which he told Mr. Woon. Sir JOHN KEY reminds the Committee of what they must all know perfectly well—that the law which renders it penal in a Member of Parliament to hold a contract from Government, has been so repeatedly evaded, as almost to have become "a dead letter ; and they appear to have arrived at the not unfair conclusion, that it would be extremely hard to make a solitary example of this unlucky stationer. Then, with regard to the misstatement of Master KEY'S time of life, the Committee, we presume, could not forget certain notorious facts, which were lately brought before Parliament, when the subject of naval promotions was under dis- cussion. It was then admitted, that the practice of falsifying the ages and terms of service of naval officers, in order to procure them certain rewards and advancements, had been systematically adopted fur years. To ba sure, this was a regular mode of decep- tion practised by a certain department of the Government upon the nation—not by one gentleman upon another. No one per- son, therefore, was stigmatized by it so directly as Sir Josue KEY has been by his individual meanness. But still, to have marked him out for punishment for an offence which others in high places had been allowed to perpetrate so often with impunity, would have been invidious. He thus owes his escape (for the present at least), not to his innocence, but to the secret consciousness in the minds cf his judges that he was no worse than many others who had never been called in question. We said that the Report proved, that the public good had in the Stationery Office been sacrificed to undue influence. In that office, it appears that, besides the Comptroller and the Storekeeper, there are fifteen clerks and warehousemen, with salaries varying from SOL to 3001. per annum. All these men are nominated by the Treasury. The Comptroller, the responsible man, and head of the department, has " nothing earthly " to do with their ap- pointment. They appear to have been chosen by the TreaSury, upon group& altogether independent of their qualifications for their respective posts; Thus, one of the clerks is recommended by Mr. CANNING, because he lived on the estate of one of his re- 1atives ; another by the Dutchess of DORSET; and the Comptroller,

" Was Sir Matthew filiccant the immediate predecessor of Mr. Lawrence?"

" Sir Matthew 131oxham was one of the parties in consequence of whose Con- duct the Treasury thought it neces.ary to undertake that investigation." (Mean- will never deprive him of it. But what a paltry subterfuge it is! ,, I should think age o u . latthew Bloxam when he entered the office?" But Lord ALTHORP said, that to institute proceedings against Mr. CHUB.on. Mr. LAWRENCE, the Storekeeper, whose resignation CH, has to thank " his patron," Lord LONSDALE, for the Earl, would have been premature and irregular, on the part of his situa.t

the House. Granting that this is the ease, we see nothing to hin- opened the way for Master KEY'S appointment, was a bookseller der the Government from depriving this law-breaker of his high ofCanterbury, in very bail health and extremely unfit for the

offices as conservator of the law—of his Recordship and Lord- place ; but he was appointed by Mr. LUSH( NGTON, the Secretary of the Treasury, and Member for Canterbury. The following ex- tract from Mr. CHURCH'S evidence will exhibit the natural con- sequei.ces of this shameful system of patronage and corruption.

" He had heen an Alderman and hanker in the city of London?" " Yes, and Member of Parliament for Maidstone."

After stating that Mr. BURDON, who preceded Sir MATTHEW BLOXAM, was connected with MAGNAY and Company, who were large contractors at that lime for stationery, Mr. CHURCH was asked- " Who was Mr. Lawrence's immediate predecessor ?"

" t acted for a short time in that capacity : I succeeded Sir Matthew Bloxam."

" Was Mr. Bunion immediately before that?" Yes."

" Will you go further hack ?"

" Yes, and the history is unfortunate. The two or three first Storekeepers were all turned out fr misconduct of some kind or other. The office itself was constituted in 1736; and certainty, the people appointed on its formation did job at no small rate. I think two or three of them got dismissed."

When, however, Mr. LAWRENCE resigned, Mr. CHURCH must have thisight that a new order of things had commenced ; as, for the first time in his life, he was actually consulted respecting the necessary qualifications fur a successor to the of of Storekeeper. He accordingly appears to have written a very sensible letter on the subject, to Mr. Wocnis secretary,,Mr. ARntierNor,—laying particular stress upon the propriety of not appointing any one connected with the stationery business. He afterwards warned Mr. ARBUTHNOT, to whom he hail been referred respecting this business by Mr. Woon, that the "office was much watched ;" that great care was necessary in making the appointment ; and referred hiM to a paragraph in the Age newspaper, in which Sir JOHN KEY'S attempt to obtain the Owe ter his son was plainly exposed. He alien wards heard nothing more about the matter till Master KEY was appointed. It t hus appears, that Mr. CHURCH'S advice, though asked fur, was utterly disregarded, and that the appointment was made on private or Parliamentary grounds after all—just in the old thshion. The letters of Mr. CHURCH to Mr. ARBUTHNOT, of Mr. WOOD "0 Sir JOHN KEY, and in fact almost every writen document reliving to this tansaction, were destroyed by the parties concerned in it,—an ugly circumstance.

It appears that Mr. (Airmen had nothing whatever to do with Mr. Key's appointment; and yet it will be in the recollection °feur readers, that both Lord ALTHORP and Mr. STANLEY threw all the blame of the transaction on his shounlers, and declared that it was his doing; although Mr. Woon, when he gave orders to his se- cretary to have the appointment regularly made out, said, "We are going to do this in spite of CHURCH." Who can place the least reliance on Mr. STANLEY s statements in Parliament after this ? Of course we do nut mean to insinuate that he would deli- berately say what he knew to be false; but let any man peruse iris speech on Sir II. HARDINGE'S motion—his laboured attempt to exonerate himself and Lis colleagues from blame, at the expense of the only man, as it would appear from the evidence, who acted a straightforward part in the matter—and then say whether his offic'al declaraticurs as the ever-confident mouthpiece of the Cabinet, ought to be regarded hereafter with more trust than the light words of a professional pleader ? Mr. CHARLES WOOD also failed to act the manly and proper part Why did he not in his place in Parliament contradict the misstatements of his colleagues, as he certainly knew them to be mistaken in making them ? Mr. CHURCH told Mr. ARBUTHNOT, that the ap- pointment would make " a devil of a row ;" and had some con- versation with that gentlemen respecting the fact of, Sir Jour* KEY'S being concerned in the stationery contract. But both sumed, that of course Mr. Woon, who had been cautioned in this

and had actually seen the paragraph in the Age, must know what every body else knew; and they thought therefore' that it would be too " delicate a subject" to speak upon. The public will derive benefit from the exposure of this affair;

and will see the propriety of not trusting too much to the repute.; tion for political purity, which the friends of Ministers so eagerly claim for them. It is perfectly clear that the Treasury were wiP fully both blind and deaf on this occasion. Mr. CHURCH has much reason to complain of their conduct towards him. The eagerness with which they sought to make him their scapegoat was shameful.