The measure now impugned (the transmission, namely, of certain provincial and foreign letters through London on the Sunday) is not an isolated one. It is but one part of a more general scheme. And what is the object of that scheme, as described in the minute referred to? {5} _The reduction of the Sunday duties of the Post Office_. _The securing of the utmost possible amount of Sunday rest to all connected with the Post Office_. What, again, was the first part of the same measure? What was that earlier step, taken by the same persons in the same direction, of which the present change is a consequence? _The total suspension of all money-order business on Sunday throughout England and Wales_. And what are some of those ulterior measures, to which the attention of the originators of this is next to be directed? _The deferring of work now done on the Sunday till after midnight_. {6a} _The reduction of Sunday work_, _even at the chief Office_, _considerably below its present amount_. {6b} _Important measures of relief to the rural messengers and rural receivers on the Sunday_. {6c} What, finally, is the declared object of the _present_ alteration? _Further relief from Sunday labour in the provincial Post Offices_; _and thus_, _the diminution of Sunday work in the department as a whole_. So far from its being correct to state this as a merely accidental result of the measure, it is its very object and purpose, to which all else is subordinate and subsidiary. Ought not these considerations to preclude at least a precipitate sentence of condemnation? May we not be permitted to learn the object of a measure from its author? Are we justified in imputing to any man, I do not say, motives which he disavows, but motives of which he professes the very opposite, and against which his own previous and subsequent acts obviously militate? But the change, however well meant, may be practically injurious. It may cause more harm than it obviates. It may introduce more Sunday labour than it supersedes. This is, of course, conceivable. It is just possible, doubtless, that an able and experienced officer of this department of the Government may be found, on this one occasion, so unskilful or so short-sighted, as to have effected, not _less_ than he proposed, but the very _opposite_ of that which he designed. But is it so?