And at the same time, to carry still farther the principle of religious toleration, or rather of religious equality, he induced the Parliament to found a new university, consisting of three colleges, one in each of the three provinces of Ulster, Munster and Connaught (Leinster, as having Trinity College and Maynooth, being regarded as already sufficiently provided with university education), which should be open to students of every religious denomination, and at which, while every kind of secular education, both literary and scientific, should be given, the stirring up of religious controversy and animosity should be guarded against, by the absence of any theological professorships. He did not, indeed, design that the still greater benefits of religious education should be withheld from the pupils, but he proposed to provide for that object by confiding their religious education to the care of the clergy of each persuasion, some of whom in each town which was the seat of a college-Belfast, Cork, and Galway-might be trusted for willingness to superintend it. It was hoped that one fruit of this scheme, and that by no means its least valuable result, would be that the association of pupils of various creeds in their studies and amusements from an early age would lead them to maintain, in their more mature years, the harmony of which the foundation had thus been laid in their youth; and that thus the religious animosities which were the principal obstacle to the prosperity of the country would be softened, and in time extinguished. And this object has been achieved to a great extent, though the disfavor with which the Roman Catholic Church regards any educational system which is not under the superintendence of its priesthood has prevented the scheme from attaining the full development which was hoped for. The number of students of each of the principal sects-the Church of Ireland, the Roman Catholics, and the Presbyterians-steadily increases.[263] Members of each religious body are among the professors in each college, and all accounts represent the most perfect harmony and cordiality as existing throughout the whole body.
Yet, important as was the principle contained in these measures, none of them, perhaps, caused such excitement at the moment as an exercise by the government of what was, in point of fact, one of its most ancient, as well as most essential, powers: the occasional opening of letters which passed through the post, in compliance with a warrant of the Secretary of State. England had at all times been the refuge of those unquiet spirits who, in pursuit of their schemes of rebellion and revolution, had incurred the displeasure of their own governments, and had too easily found accomplices here. And in the course of the summer some notorious offenders of this class found a member of the House of Commons to present a petition, in which they complained that some letters which they had posted had been stopped and opened by the officers of the Post-office. The member who presented the petition appears to have fancied it an unprecedented and wholly unlawful exercise of authority; but Sir James Graham, the Home-secretary, not only at once avowed that the statement was true, and that he had issued his warrant for the opening of the letters mentioned, but also showed that the power to issue such an order was reserved to the Secretary of State in all the statutes which regulated the proceedings of the Post-office. The clause in the act which conferred the power had been originally framed by Lord Somers, a statesman certainly as little open as any of his time to the suspicion of desiring to encroach on the rightful liberty of the subject; and it had been exercised from time to time in every reign since the Revolution. It was a power intrusted to the Secretaries of State for the public safety, and exercised by them on their own responsibility. The practice and its justification were assailed in both Houses of Parliament by members of the extreme Liberal party; but, though no distinct motion on the subject was made, the general feeling of both Houses was plainly evinced, that it was a power which might at times be highly useful for the prevention of crime, or for the hinderance of conspiracies which might be dangerous to the general welfare and tranquillity, and that the constitutional responsibility attaching to every minister for every official act was a sufficient security against its being improperly used.[264]
And it will, probably, be generally admitted that this was the statesman-like view of the subject. There is no doubt that the practice in question does infringe the great constitutional right of every individual in these kingdoms to absolute freedom of communication with his friends. But the most important and the most cherished constitutional rights must possess something of elasticity. It must be necessary at times to go back to the original object for which those rights have been conferred and secured. That original object is the safety and welfare of the whole body corporate-of the entire nation. And if that safety and welfare at times require the sacrifice, a wise ruler will not hesitate to demand it of the people, or to impose it on them for their own good. So another principle of the constitution is the absolute freedom of action for all the subjects of the sovereign; yet that principle is infringed by more than one statute: Factory Acts, which limit the hours of even voluntary labor; Education Acts, which compel the parent to a certain line of conduct toward his children; each in their way substitute another rule for that entire freedom of action which, as has been said before, is the fundamental principle of the constitution; but they make the substitution on the reasonable ground that the course of action which they compel is for the benefit, not only of the individual constrained, but of the whole community of which he is a member, and for whose welfare all laws and constitutions exist.
One of the grounds of complaint against the exercise of this power, which had been alleged by some of the opponents of the government, had been that Sir James Graham's conduct had been dictated by an unworthy subservience to some of the despotic sovereigns of the Continent. The fact was indignantly denied in the House of Lords by the Duke of Wellington; and in the course of the session a remarkable proof was afforded how little influence such motives had on the decisions of our government, when they acquiesced in the passing of a bill which was a virtual repeal of the Alien Act, which had existed for more than half a century, and of which more than one Continental sovereign would certainly have desired the retention. Of late, indeed, it had been so modified, that practically it had become little more than a dead letter; and now, in 1844, without being formally repealed, it was virtually abrogated by an act which enabled all foreigners to obtain letters of naturalization, which conferred on them every right of British subjects, except those of becoming members of Parliament,[265] or of the Privy Council.