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Untitled Article
vice . The inventor , however , was for a long time debarred from employment avowedly by tbe routine of the Adrniralty , whose engineer set bis Bice against novelties . Now , if the account of tbe public expenditure were rendered uniform , simple , and perfectly intelligible , instead of being complicated by all kinds of diversities in the different departments and utterly unintelligible , then any official auditor , any member of the Government charged with the duty of checking the
expenditure , any select committee of the House of Commons , any Joseph Hume , would be able to lay his finger on evidences either of investment prevented , or of needless outlay continued ; and the very body of the national expenditure would be diminished . The same principle applies to everything which is bought for the public service ; applies , indeed ,, to a large part of the outlay of 600 , 000 , 0001 . annually . By degrees , also , economy would push its inquiries into
compartments of tlie taxation which are now precluded from scrutiny . For example , no small proportion of tbe sum expended in clothing for the army and in officers' salaries is created not only by expensive equipments , which are unnecessary , but by the customary payment , of prices that are in their nature arbitrary , fictitious . A year ' s income is expended on a suit of clothes for an . officer , and no small proportion of the price is entirely gratuitous , not represented by value received . The sash , for example , to go across his
shoulder , which may cost 4 d . or 5 Z ., or more , is in reality , as almost any handloom weaver of Stockport could inform the Chancellor of the Exchequer , not worth , in the silk , excellent as it is , nor the work , excellent as that js more perhaps than 25 s . or 30 s . The very first step towards saving some millions annually to the tax-payers of this country is the uniformity of accounts , the want of which has prevented this coiuitry , like many a country gentleman , from knowing either its income or its outlay . '
But large as that reform would be , it sinks into insignificance when we compare ifc to the first political consequence of the system proposed by the committee . It would naturally alter the financial relations of the Government to the Parliament and the people . At present , Government communicates with the Parliament through the Treasury , whose subordinate is the Chancellor of the Exchequer . There are functionaries whose business it is
to check the receipt , transfer , payment , and audit of the public moneys ; but of what value are they ? The business of the Controller of the Exchequer is purely routine ; ' Ministerial , ' as it ia sarcastically called . The Paymaster-General ia a political officer , who really doea his duty by deputy ; and a large amount of hia work is routine , much of his account being so completely in arrears that it is a matter of history rather than business . The Audit Office also arrives at its work so
long , after date ,, and . under such checks and control by the superior departments—for it ia inferior in grade as it is in power—that its work , too , is simply Ministerial , formal , —the labour of filling up forms and writing signatures . The . Treasury , which rides over the whole of thes e inferior offices , is the depository alike of official patronage and of supreme executive power in the person of its c First
Lord . ' Here , then , are the moans of check and account , all under the thumb of the principal Executive officer of tho Government , —the man who communicates with Parliament , who can pay ita members with patronage ,. and whose whipper-in does exercise very persuasive influences . That is the present state of things . Iho plan proposed by the select committee , at which Sir I \ bajsgis Tiiobniiili
Bajhn g was chairman , and Sir James Graham a very active member , is entirely different . The value of the public moneys , without any confusion of account , would be paid into the Exchequer , which would be responsible for the right transfer of those moneys to the Paymaster-General . The Paymaster-General would not do bis duty by deputy , would not be a political officer , but would be bound to execute tbe work of his
department with striot regularity , under the cheek of a daily account within each department , of a monthly adjustment , a quarterly account , and a complete winding up at the end of the year . The Audit-office would have for its President a permanent Minister of the first rank ; and instead of presenting its reports to the Treasury , ifc would
communicate direct with Parliament , laying the accounts before a select committee appointed by the Speaker . Tlie Board of Audit would have the appointment and removal of its own officers . It would thus constitute a branch of the Executive to a considerable extent independent of the political Executive , and in strict relations with the Elective
Chamber . The first result would be to remove from the Treasury a money responsibility which is not very compatible with its public functions ; but while the change would diminish the power of the Treasury for evil , it would unquestionably render that department much more independent of the drudgery of the executive business , much more free to shape its measures on purely political grounds , and much stronger in position to discuss its measures on their own merits with both Houses of Parliament .
Still we have scarcely attained the full measure of the reform .. Any bill based upon the report of the committee would restore to the House of Commons a power of which it has long been deprived ; "would reconstitute it for financial purposes the supreme inquest of the nation . Through the Select Committee appointed by the Speaker—the Speaker himself being independent of the party- —the House of Commons would recover the rie-ht
of entering the offices of the Executive devoted to finance ; of overhauling the accounts , and checking the receipt , transfer , appropriation , and expenditure of every farthing of the public money . The office of Member of Parliament would itself be a . more important , trust than it now is . The Speaker would be a more powerful functionary than the present Chairman of the Commons . The constituencies would be rnoro
careful in selecting members that might receive such independent power . Tho members themselves would more deliberately view the qualities of a Speaker thus enabled to select financial inquisitors to control the Executive Government . And through the House of Commons , this same power , recovered from the portion of the Government
which is more immediately under the royal and noble influence , would be restored to the great body of tho Commonwealth , it appears to us that no point in ' the People ' s Charter , ' except the extension of the suffrage to every freeborn Englishman , equalled in importance this seventh ' point' constructed by tho select committee .
Untitled Article
PROGRESS OF THE INDIAN REBELLION . Ekom Calcutta upwards the Sepoy insurrection , throwing oub branches westwards and southwards , follows a carving line to Delhi , a distance of about thirteen hundred milos . Beyond that capital it had originally extended into the Punjab ; but tho Punjab has been tranquillized , and a large weight of troops gathered from beyond tho Sutloj must have pressed by this time upon the insurgent forces
below . If , then , we trace the struggle from its nearest point towards the sea , up the valleys of the Ganges and the Jumna , the public will he enabled to take a bird ' s-eye view of our military progress and that of the rebela . It is quite useless to write odes and palinodes ' and it is puerile to persist in carving every item of intelligence so as to fit it into 'the
views we put forward a fortnight ao-oJ All mere speculating , whether encouraging or gloomy , is useless . We are calculating upon total uncertainties . It is as rash to declare that Lucknow must have fallen ere this , as that , ere this , Delhi must have been captured . "Whatever happens , the gamblers in x ) rophecy will deserve no credit on account of their predictions .
Tlie lower valley of the Ganges , when the last intelligence left Calcutta , was free from the actual presence of the rebellion . Over four hundred miles of country , as far as Patua , there were no regiments in mutiny ; but the rebellion had been , brought "within the limits of Bengal Proper by the neglect of the Government and the unaccountable conduct of the Brigadier- General at Dinapore and Arrah . At the latter town , after the night repulse of the little English force that had been led into ambush , were about twelve
Englishmen and forty Sikhs , who defended a . house against a swarm of mutineers . After several days of heroic resistance they were relieved b y Major Eyre , who , after a long and brilliant march , came up with the enemy , defeated them , rescued the forlorn garrison at Arrah , and , to some extent , retrieved the fatal blunders committed at Dinapore . We may now hope that Patna has been secured against an attack . Passing on to Dinapore itself , we find that the Euglish had turned the scab , for the time , agaiust the mutineers , and were in a position of strength and safety .
. Nevertheless , there were the remains of four regiments in rebellion , portions of which were on the march towards Allahabad and Benares , where a plot liad been discovered , and where the armed Hindoos were ready to plunge into the insurrection . We await with anxiety the next intelligence from that quarter , especially as we are nob clearly informed of Major Eyhe ' s movements after his distinguished achievement at Arrah . Ho seems to have come doAvn from Buxar—on
the highway guarded by Chunar — and if determined upon rendering assistance at Benares ,, would have to retrace his steps in that direction . Beyond Benares , whore Raj ghat had been fortified , the next station of importance is Allahabad , which has escaped outrage , and where vast accumulations of military materials exist . Au entrenchinont had beeu constructed for the defence of the town ; stores of all kinds had been collected in abundance , and so far the line of communication , if reunited between Patna and
Diaapore , would be unbroken , further up , ^ c come upon the traces of Havelook ' s march , which , not only by the Commauder-iii-Cliief , but by independent military men of all ranks , is acknowledged to have been a splendid operation . His conduct may bo traduced by personal animosities , but we shall hold him iu honour until all that wo liavo already heard has been discredited by irrefutable evidence . Whether upon a , grand highwayor among tho rice-Golds or
snipe-, swamps , by night or at tho scorching Indian noon , Havelooic , like another Hanniua ^ , kept liis column together , fought and advanced , advanced and fought , and drovebefore him tho immenaely superior jitnnnc-i' 3 of the cnomy . following him beyond Cjiwuporo , twenty-two miles distant from l ^ uclcnow , wo arc lost in an iuoxplicablc nm / . o ot datca and ruraoup » . lio wan iu full march for Luckuow Avhon tho aickneaa of his me 0 >
Untitled Article
926 THE lEADEH , [ No . 392 , Septembeb 26 y 1857 .
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), Sept. 26, 1857, page 926, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2211/page/14/
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