The Press. — London, England, 1857-05-30 00:00:00

,?„,„ bt ~i• ~; r • . Lao. 4' No. 213.—V0L.V. LONDON, SATURDAY, MAY 30, 1857. STAMPED ....SIXPENCE. UNSTAMPED..FIVEPENCE /(4t Alress. Stationeryoffice cost the country the sum of 30,0001. LONDON, SATURDAY, MAY 30, 1857. Wa must acknowledge, that we have been perfectly amazed at the revelations in Lord MALmEsauftv's exposure of the astounding extravagance of our Civil expenditure. We read the Noble Earl's speech with the attention due to hts rank and consideration as a practical statesman ; but it is only when we have the returns actually in our hands that we can fully estimate the value attaching to Lord MALMESBURY'S most impor tant statement. The astonishment we feel pervades every rank of society. The middle classes have the Noble Lord's speech by heart, and there is reason to believe that the patriotic ten-pounders, who exult in " Sir Ben jamin the Magnificent" having at last got a title, are beeinning to frown and get sulky at finding what Sir BENJAMIN'S most particular friends have been doing with the public money during the last ten years. Nothing, however, shows the effect of Lord MALMESBURY'S speech more strongly than the tone taken by Lord JOHN RUSSELL in his speech on Monday night. The Noble Lord talked of " the frightful increase in the Civil expendi " ture of late years." Whenever Lord JOHN RUSSELL sees a rising cause, the Noble Lord at once makes a desperate plunge to get the management of it, and talk out its exciting generalities. Whether it be " Reform " or "Justice to Ireland " on one side, or " Papal Aggression" on the other, so that it be stimu lating and popular, Lord J RUSSELL will always try to get hold of and extract '• popularity " from the question. It has been said that " Lord "JOHN RUSSELL is always landing at Torbay to " deliver some ideal Englishman from a griev• " ante." But to us the Noble Member for London seems as if he were always rushing to a platform to say something sharp or striking, in order to carry off the honours of the struggle from those who had borne the heat of the day. In the present instance the Noble Lord did not say a word about " frightful expenditure " until after the facts of Lord MAL3teseenv's speech had been fermenting in the public mind for ten days ! Lord JOHN RUSSELL also forgot to ask himself who was in office during the last ten years? The Tory party had a few months of power, and the friends of " Reform " and " Progress" held power during the period of this "frightful increase of the Civil expen diture." It is not the first time that Lord JOHN RUSSELL, in trying to snatch a first posi tion for himself, in presence of the public eye, has deeply committed his friends. His testi• mony, however, in the case so powerfully made by Lord MALMESBURY we are willing to accept. He is " Queen's evidence " upon the " jobbery of Liberalism." Waiving these points, we shall at once pro ceed to illustrate some of the positions taken up by Lord MALMESBURY. Last week we showed the extraordinary expenditure on the royal parks, and we quoted returns to prove that when the Conservatives were in office the expenditure was less than while the Liberals were in power. We shall now go through the tables seriatim The returns made in obedience to the order of the House of Lords of 16th February confess to the follow ing figures. " Civil Services, usually termed Miscellaneous " :- 1846 X3,482,486 18)6 6,7.24,2,50 That is to say, on the last ten years, as ad mitted by the returns (p. 3), there has been an increase in the Civil expenditure to the enormous sum of 3,241,764/. ! _ And yet gentlemen. with faces quite inno cent of " the jabbery of Liberalism " (though several of their supporters and constituents have not their hands clean from this excessive expenditure), attempt to say that Lord NIALMESBURY took an exaggerated viow of the case. They hold debate, forsooth, on the question whether the eldest Royal child of the most illustrious daughter of the House of Brunswick ought to receive a moderate mar riage dowry of 40,0001, and 8,0001. a year, and they have sac by complacently while in the last ten years the increase in the Miscellaneous Estimates has reached THREE MILLIONS AND A QUARTER! Let us now see how this prodigious outlay has been incurred. Turning to " Class 2 " (pp. 4,5), under the head of " Salaries, &c., Public Department," we come to the modest item of " Stationery," which has progressed at a pace by no means corroborative of its name. In fact, one might surmise that some " fast " officials must have rule over the manage ment of those innocent little " &c., &c." In 1846, the charges for " Stationery " reached 249,0701., and in 1856 they rose to 458,2751., being an increase of 209,1991. But we may be told to " recollect the war." We do so, and we reply that the whole charges of stationery to be debited to the country are not included in this table of " Miscellaneous Estimates." We answer; besides, that it is utterly impossible that an army in the Crimea and a fleet in the Baltic could possibly have augmented the demand for public stationery to the enormous rate of eighty-four per cent. on whathad been paid in 1846. Let it be recollected that officers and men of both services, and their correspondents at home, paid for their own postage, and for their own private sta tionery. How is it possible that such an enor mous increase of eighty-four per cent. could have legitimately occurred in the public stationery merely upon the official correspon dence of the war? The other departments of the State consumed rather less stationery during the war than at other periods. The orders, counter-orders, and replies, could never honestly have mounted up to such a sum as is charged in this account. A quarter of a century has not elapsed since in this department of " Public Stationery " there were considerable frauds, and we must say that we should like to see a more particular account of these prodigious " &c., &c.," which figure in this return. The positive increase is set down here, but we must add that the relative increase is still greater. Has not there been a great falling off in the quality and style of the stationery used in the public depart. ments ? So far as our own observation goes, we should say that the quality , of the paper used in expediting Her Majesty & Service has decidedly become inferior, and our opinion on the matter is confirmed by other ob servers. It is worthy of notice, also, that the We now proceed to the "third class," tabu lated under " Law and Justice," and our readers may prepare to be amazed. In 1838 the country was charged under this head with the sum of 591,9141, and the charges mounted in 1850 to the enormous sum of 2,257 083/. ! In round numbers, since 1838, there has been an increase of nearly a million and three quarters of money in this one department ! We know how troublesome lung rows of statistics are to the eye. and we shall put the matter as simply as we can before our readers. We shall take two dates, and contrast the expenditures under this head. We shall first take 1816, the year when the Conservative party left °thee, and the last year : Law and Justice. 1848 X880,089 1856 The difference is truly enormous, and the balance against the country on this head, counting for the last ten years, shoAs the prodigious sum of 1,376,991/. ! It is indeed most extraordinary to reflect how the Liberals in office are sure to mis manage the finances of the country. We are perpetually forced to remember that the Whigs never possessed a financier since WAr.por.E. They broke down in 1841 oa a financial question, and the middle classes deserted them when the Money Market became de ranged. People find it a hard task to shout for " progress " when the Funds are going down, and the empire getting into diffi culties. But, certainly, after the lessons read. to the Whigs in 1841, one might have sup posed that they would have been more cautious than to neglect the department of the public service on which they lost the confidence of the people of England. Accident brought them into office again in 1846; and no sooner were they in Downing street than their reckless financial mismanagement re commenced. Year after year they have crammed on the expenditure under this head, until it has reached the present portentous dimen sions. And now, when the Earl of NIALMESSURY has roused the attention of the Legislature and of the whole country to this great subject, the Whigs begin to quake, and they know not what to do or to say. They feel that Lord JOHN RUSSELL has again committed them with his hard and hasty words. It is not the first time that " Johnny has upset the coach ;" and the "frightful increase of the Civil expenditure" is a back-handed stroke, long to be felt by the friends and colleagues who jobbed, intrigued, and vacillated along with himself during ten years. The fundamental rottenness of the Whig system is by evidence of the most sin gular kind fully revealed, as we shall show on another occasion, by this identical table of expenditure under the Justice." Its systenuc glare of a flashy phil appeals to platform _ tical results, its habitual and last, not least, ; modes of thought an( pletely exposed to put manner by which these " Law and Justice " hay. shall, in detail, convic( and mischievous With, " Law and Justice." system is positively a complete squandering he head of " Law and vatic jobbery, • ,s- iilanthropy,.• . e,-.• ... sympathies t et, , , •)1,ie1 .: ,;,' tual reekleseif e • - • , its utterly' :.., , • ~ tit lnd action, •,gifil '•`.:. • • , iblie view in' • . l et i.t, topjlirr 4 ~.. ~, ese vast inn • •• . P r •gx l k . •• k, p go ,,, c lave been i•••,• . - l' ' g .o‘ C t the Whigs • •4p• - - nders under this . •. • • We shall show that their