§ Mr. FIELDasked the Home Secretary if he will furnish a Return showing for the past financial year how many warrants he has issued authorising the opening of letters in the post; how many of these warrants are still in force; how many letters have been thus opened; whether the letters thus opened are afterwards delivered to the addresses; whether the addressees are told that they have been opened; what use is made of the evidence thus obtained, and by whom; whether he has sanctioned the procedure adopted," and what is the statutory or other authority for using it?
§ Mr. GLADSTONEThe power of the Secretary of State to order by warrant under his hand the opening, detaining, and delaying of post letters is recognised by Parliament in section 56 of the Post Office Act, 1908, which reproduced, without 539W alteration, the earlier statutory enactment contained in 7 Will IV. and 1 Vict., cap. 36, section 25. The power can be exercised only by the Secretary of State directly, and where it is used to trace the perpetrators of serious crimes, it is for obvious reasons undesirable to give any public statement of the action taken. I may, however, state that it is sometimes used for the purpose of intercepting grossly indecent literature and lottery circulars coming from abroad. In 1908-9 one warrant was issued to stop indecent literature, and one to stop lottery circulars, and under the latter a large number of closed circulars were stopped and destroyed. No notice is sent in such cases to the addresses.