The Press.
London, England, 1853-07-09 00:00:00

ACCOUNTS.

Tim form of our financial aeeounts, as given
quarterly, is framed as it' purposely to puzzle
the uninitiated ; and we venture to aver that
there are few, even among the trained officials
of the present Government, who could undergo
an examination as to the object, ►weaning, and
effect of that mysterious ar►ay of figures which
issues from the Treasury at the expiration of
eacl► quarter.
But the age of red-tapeism ought to be at
an end. L► the administ►ative reforms in-
tended by the late CHANcia.Lon of the Exenr.-
411Elt, we believe the simplification of this
system of accounts was comprised ; indeed, he
had actually commenced it in the course he
proposed in reference to that disputed ques-
tion, " the repayment of advances ;" and we
doubt not that a new, elder, intelligible system,
divested of all official mystification, would
have been established by him► from the cont-
mencem►ent of the present financial year.
Unfortunately, the country is now suffering
under a plague of tapeism. Tapeism is the
principle--and the only one—of the present
Government. Tapeism is the bond, the only
bond, of union among them. We must wait
patiently till this plague shall in mercy be
removed.

The present quarterly accounts, therefore,
we must deal with as we find them. " Grati-
fying result" is, of course, the first idea that
suggests itself to our mind, and is expressed
by our pen. The phrase is hackneyed : it will
be found in the remarks of all our contempo-
raries; and not unnaturally, for " increase"
and " surplus" are the predominant features
in the aecounts just published.
In the ordinary revenue of the year ending
July, IM7Oi, there is an increase of upwards of
1,200,0001. as vmpared with the year ending

SATURDAY,

July, 1852, and in the quarter of nearly
900,0001. ; and we find the words, " the SUE-
plus" and " surplus consolidated fund," with
long arrays of figures, near the bottom of the
account.
This, no doubt, is very gratifying : our
revenue, at present, is steadily increasing.
Mr. DisasEm's anticipations in 1852 have been
inure than realised. But it will not fail to
occur to our readers►, if this be so, if the in-
crease of our revenue has enlarged our means,
could there have been a more favourable
opportunity for revising the admitted injustices
of our income and property tax.? And if that
increase indicates activity and prosperity
among our manufacturing and conunercial
interests, an activity and prosperity confirmed,
no doubt, in every respect by the returns of
the Board of Trade, could there have been a
less fitting time for oppressing with increased
and most vexatious taxation that great interest
in this country at whose cost, or through whose
loss, this commercial activity and prosperity
has been brought about ? And, at such a time,
has the wisdom, and knowledge, and caution►
of the paragon Financial Minister been exhi-
bited in operating. unsucceslfully, upon a con-
siderable portion of the public funds?
We shall return to this subject next week,
and advert to the effect upon this prosperous
condition of things likely to arise from the
measures proposed by Mr. GLADSTONE and his
Government.

THE CROWN OR THE COMPANY?
A FERBLE despotism is a political impossibility.
An irresponsible department in a constitutional
state is a dangerous anomaly. And a central.
ised administration, which increases by its
complicated and cumbrous machinery the na
bind tendency of centralisation to produce
delay, cannot be justified without strong cause
shown for its existence.

Such a despotism is the East India Com-
pany. Such a department is the Directorial
Board ; and in the double administration of
which each half by its operation impedes, in•
stead of assisting, the other, we have the ex-
treme of delay combined with the minimum
of deliberation.

This last assertion may be doubted, but it
is true. For what is everybody's business pro-
verbially becomes nobody's business ; and a
responsibility and a duty which are equally
shared between two, not always friendly, de-
partments are remarkably apt to be evaded by
both. Mere dilatoriness, moreover, in post-
poning a decision tends to produce haste in
deciding at the last moment. And, above all,
Parliament, believing, or professing to believe,
in the theoretical system of mutual check and
control, holds itself exempted from the duty
of interfering in the administrative affairs of
India. On these three grounds, therefore—
divided responsibility, indefinite postpone-
ment of all matters not urgent, and freedom
from parliamentary control—we utterly deny
the plea usually advanced by the Company's
advocates, " that it discusses fully and ma-
turely the subjects brought before it."
In regard of delay, we have Mr. MEISILL'S
evidence of last year before the Commons,
that in ordinary cases a despatch from India
is not answered until after an interval of six or
eight months ; it being notoriously the Indian
custom to send home not merely general sum-
maries of local proceedings, but specific details
respecting every act of the local executive,
which acts are in very many cases invalid
until sanctioned by the authorities of Lead.
enhall-street. Compare this with the working
of other great departments. In the Home-
°Rice few despatches remain unanswered
forty-eight hours ; in the Foreign and Colonial
°tikes nothing. except an unusual pressure of
business, prevents a reply being sent to the
minister or governor demanding one, by the
next out-going until, or, at the very outbule,

JULY 9, 1853.

within a fortnight. Yet the Foreign and Co-
lonial departments have only the minister, his
under secretaries. and the clerks ; while the
two Indian offices are managed by a minister.
two secretaries, twenty-four directors, and an
immense auxiliary staff. The existence of
needless and injurious delay, then, cannot be
denied ; nor has auy valid excuse ever been

offered for it.
But a graver doubt remains yet unsolved,
notwithstanding Parliamentary questioning
and Ministerial replies. " Who governs India
" —the Board of Control or the I hrectors ?"
" Neither," answers Mr. MACAULAY ; " the
" Governor-General manages matters ti►r him-
" self, and the home Administration, though
" they often disapprove his acts, rarely
" reverse them." And Mr. MACAULAY is MI
apologist of the double Government! He
proves that it is innocent of imputed offences,
by demonstrating that it does, and that it can
do, nothing. He pleads for its retention until
tered, by showing its utter inefficiency. We
should like to see in what spirit Mr. MACAULAY,
the Edinburgh reviewer, would have dealt with
an author who argued thus. Other Ministers,
men more practically versed in affairs, have
given di&rent replies. Mr. Prrr said, at the
first founding of the Board of Control, " There
" was no one step that could have been taken
" previous to the passing of the act of 1784, by
"the Court of Directors, that the Board had
" not now a right to take by virtue of the au•
" thority vested in it by that act." So,
likewise, Mr. DUNDAS—" Without the whole
" powers of government, the Board of Control
" would be a nugatory institution." And—
passing over other testimony—we have it from
the historian MILT., that " The real, sole govern-
" Mg power in India is the Board of Control ;
" and it only makes use of the Court of Diree-
" tors as au instrument, as a subordinate office
" for the management of details, and the pre-
" paration of business for the cognisance of
" the superior power."
Can authority be stronger than this? The
Directors, it is true, have the power of pry► -
testing ; but their protests cannot be made
public, and are, of course, so much waste paper.
The Directors, it is trite, initiate a good deal
of routine business ; but so does the head
clerk of a government office. In this respect,
so far as we can see, Sir C. Woon's nominees
are no better off than their popularly-elected
colleagues. They have the show of power, but
not power. They are appealed to on all public
occasions as supplying a check to the Minister,
but they do not in reality supply any such
check. Hence the danger. Parliament dele-
gates its functions to them ; those functions
they do not exercise ; and the president—gene-
rally, as in the present instance, a Minister
whom either age or incompetence has rele-
gated to this, the penal station of the Cabinet
—governs India, at once inexperienced and
uncontrolled. Can any arrangement be worse?
To the abolition of this illusory government,
and the substitution of an effective Crown-
appointed council, only one valid objection can
be taken. It is said—and the argument is
urged by no less an authority than that of the
Westminster Reniew:—" You are destroying an
" old English institution, the tendency of
" which is to lessen the direct power of govern-
" meat, and you propose to substitute a bureau-
" cracy." We admit the fact. India must, in
the Present state of English knowledge and
opinion, be governed by a bureaucracy. This
is not abstractedly desirable ; but to us it
seems inevitable. The question is not between
bureaucracy and representative government :
it is between bureaucracy ably conducted—
openly acknowledged—answerable for its acts
to Parliament—and bureaucracy which excludes
ability, disavows responsibility, works in the
dark, and, receiving no ostensible pay, lays
itself (with permission of the authorities) in
the corrupt use of patronage. Which of these
two is the preferable alternative ? or, rather,
which of these two is the lesser evil?