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so modified, that practically it had become little more than a dead letter; and now, in 1844, without being formally repealed, it was virtually abrogated by an act which enabled all foreigners to obtain letters of naturalization, which conferred on them every right of British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.

Generally speaking, few governments had enjoyed more of the confidence of the nation than Peel’s did in 1844; yet in this year it was exposed to two remarkable mortifications.  The charter of the East India Company, as framed by Pitt in subsequent events, which has led to the entire extinction of the political power of the Company, makes anything beyond this brief mention of the transaction superfluous at the present time.