employers more. I know that there is a
Table of Fees hung up in all consular
offices; but several of the items specified
in it leave very large margins. Consular
servants sometimes profit by these, so do
sea-captains. By permitting fees also, we are
lending our authority to the system of
passport: exactions which we have not scrupled
to condemn elsewhere. The fees in places
like Constantinople and St. Petersburg are an
abuse quite startling.  They amount to
thousands of pounds a year. And I know of one
English  consulate in America, where the
salary is two hundred pounds a year, and the
fees one thousand six hundred pounds.

Now, this is merely deceiving that excellent
public servant Mr. Hume. If a
consul is worth one thousand six
hundred pounds a year, let him have it by all
means, but let him have it openly. Do not
permit him to figure in the list as reciving
but one-eighth of his actual pay; for this is
an insult to Mr Hume's understanding, and
may reasonably surprise him into rough
measures. To conclude this branch of my subject,
consular fees have been allowed to become a
hoary abuse; and they are a disgrace to the
service, for it is an uncourteous supposition
to assume that English gentlemen would not
do their work properly unless paid by the
piece.

Having said thus much on the one side, I
have now to make a few observations on
the other. Consuls are subject to several
offensive regulations; and somebody at the
Foreign Office has drawn up a list of
questions for them to answer on the first of
every January, which would put to shame
a school-boy of ten years old.

Then it is not proper to tell a body of
English gentlemen (as the Consular Instructions
do thrice) that they shall not correspond
with respectable people in their own country
on any subject they may understand
sufficiently to make their ideas valuable. A
man's ideas are his property. If they are
sound and practical, they cannot be known
too widely; if they are otherwise, he will
soon grow tired of offering that which nobody
will receive.

I see, with perfect astonishment, that the
Consular Instructions forbid all correspondence
on public affairs with so respectable a
body as Lloyd's, to whom trustworthy news
is of the highest importance. I confess that I
am unable to understand why a consul
should not be free to work in off hours in the
trade he understands best, as well as any
other man. It will be quite time enough
to punish him when he slights his official
duties.

Truths cannot be known too widely, or
guaranteed by authority too respectable. The
public ought not to be obliged to feed on
falsehood, and be sneered at for their
ignorance, if on the one side there are persons
in their pay able and willing to teach them,
and on the other, they are desirous to learn.
It is from the idle communications of people
who know nothing, that a general and absurd
system of mystification is kept up; even
Downing Street can have no possible
guarantee for the soundness of its information
about a country, when it is content to receive
it only through the fuddled wits of some
silly old gentleman, who may be, and often is,
most miserably mistaken.

It would be ungraceful, and I believe
sincerely, wrong in fact, to suppose that Her
Majesty's Government ever demand or offer
anything to a foreign state which ought not
to be known as widely as possible for the true
interests of all parties. One thing is quite
certain, that in our days no act of any government
can be entirely concealed; and as the
case stands, we are always getting the wrong
side of things, and so starting at shadows.

We ought not to be compelled to blunder
on in the dark, till the meeting of Parliament,
about public events affecting the prosperity
and happiness of thousands; and at last to
receive only some explanation sufficiently
unsatisfactory from a Minister who may not
always have rightly understood the
communications made to him.

I am unable also to perceive why we the
public, should be obliged to take the uncontrolled
statements of a Fiddlededee or a Tweedledum
about any important event; even if Government
has been so unwise as to appoint
such persons to serious employments. Let
us, at all events, hear what people have
to say who are placed in positions equally
favourable for judging. A man should not
be hopelessly snuffed out because he is in a
petty post. We should be always ready
to hear everybody who has anything to
say, by which we may perhaps be saved from
a national imprudence. If petty officers can
show proofs of notable abilities, the door
should not be closed to them, and the advantage
of their judgment and capacity lost to
us because they are petty officers. They
should not be soured and rendered useless by
seeing noodles of ancient family walking
constantly over their heads, until they are
rendered bald by the soles of those noodles'
boots.

In a word, let us not endeavour to
imprison the mind of a clever man because
he is a petty officer. Let the race be fair
among all public men; and as the press is
the people's parliament, where all have a
voice, let all be heard who are worth
hearing.

The only possible advantage of the other
system is, that persons like Lord Fiddlededee
may be allowed to get into scrapes without
being found out in time to save us from the
consequences of their folly; and indeed our
surprise is great, that while in England all
affairs of importance are honestly submitted
to the consideration of both houses of Parliament,
abroad, we are content to confide them