Northern Times.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1857-09-22 00:00:00

' the pay departments, and the desirability of
keeping the cash balances of each department as
small as possible, are set forth, and properly too,
seeing that they refer to the main source of the
financial discrepancies and irregularities formerly
complained of. To their recommendations we
do not at present see any plausible or solid
objection. In concluding their recommendation
on this point, the committee say—" the Pay-
master-General should cease to be a political
officer, discharging his duty by deputy ; he should
become the active and efficient head of the pay-
office, performing his duty in person." No
doubt this announcement may startle many of
our readers who were not aware that the high-
sounding office of Paymaster-G-eneral was merely
one of name, the real duties of which were per-
formed by deputy. This is a recommendation
which the friends of the Financial Reform Asso-
ciation will gladly accept a 3 a step in the right
direction. The council of that excellent body
have battled hard to extinguish a system which
keep 3 in most of the public departments one
official for ornament and show, and another fur
real service.

If there is one branch of the public service
more than another which requires a vigilant and
efficient president, it is that office to which is
entrusted the proper distribtvion of the money
required for the service of the country. The
next recommendation of the committee is, that
the payments of revenue should, as far as possible,
be made direct into the exchequer. This, we
should suppose,, is meant to curtail the expense
of collection, Bc_!. They also advise that the
monies received by the pay-olice should be trans-
ferred into the exchequer account with as little
delay as possible ; and further, that a statement
of the receipts and payments included in the
deposit account should be laid annually before
Parliament.. These proposals appear doubly
useful and important. They shadow forth what
should be done. but which has hitherto been
neglected. We see that the committee insist
that the system of keeping the public accounts
by "double entry'' should be adopte I in all the
departments. The mention of this matter sug-
gests the lamentable inefficiency w!lich has
prevailed in consequence of the lax system of
account keeping ad )ptel in the Government
Offices.

We are glad to see that the committee are very
emphatic upon the question of audit. This is as
it ought to be, seeing the lamentable conse-
quences which-have arisen from deficient audit,
or no audit at all, in more than one public com-
pany. The mode of audit, the parties who audit,
and their mode of election, show that the com-
mittee regard it as a matter of vital importance.
The audits are to be subjected to an annual
revision of a committee of the House, to ba
appointed by the Speaker, thereby making the
examination and auditing of the national accounts
a great fact, and not, as at present, a mere form,
or, in other words, a governmental sham. The
remaining points noticed and urged for adoption
relate to the mode in which, votes for the Civil'
Service should be taken, the necessity of founding
the annual accounts of income and expenditure
on actual receipts and payments, and the regu..
lation of the treasury chest fund, out of which
are provided the means for carrying on the public
service. As we have already remarked, the
Report is a valuable one, and only hope it may
find favour with the House, so as to.be speedily
adopte 1 in the chief points of its reaornMen-
dation,

CLERICAL firebrands in any country are dangeron
members of the community. It was only a few
days ago that we had to comment upon the
proceedings of certain pers )ns in Belfast, and
to stigmatize their pertinacity in insisting upon
their rights to preach in the public streets, al-
though the fact of their doing so had led to
serious riots and loss of life.

Since noticing the Belfast riots, and the repre-
hensible conduct of certain of the clergy therein,
information. has reached us from the far West,
sta:in,g, that certain Clergymen in the City of,
ainnecticnt have thought fit to get 'up al,
remonstrance, and protest against the conduct of
Mr. BUCHANAN, the President of the United States.
The cause of this unusual proceeding, on the part
of the Connecticut Divines, arises from the fact
that Mr. BUCHANAN has deemed it his duty, as
the Chief Magistrate of the United States, to put
an end to the riot and bloodshed, which has
prevailed for some time past in the territory of
Kans7s, and to employ a portion of the United
States triops in that important and necessary
service.

Now, we have not the slightest hesitation id
slying, that these protesting memorialists hive
mistaken their mission in thus stepping forward
to stigmatize the conduct of their President
for sending Governor AVALicza with a competent'
army to put down the marauders with which the
Kansas territory is overrun. Mr. BUCHANAN is
doing nothing more than fulfilling the recorded
wishes of the- Congress of the United States.
Nevertheless, this conclave of would-be statesmen
think otherwise, and term the action of the
executive as a breach of the principles of the
American Constitution, to compel the people of
Kansas to obey laws which they never framed.
and rulers which they never elected. As well
might soma twenty or thirty persons in Liverpool
get up a remonstrance against our effort to put
down the Mutiny.
Now, no matter how zealous Professor Stumm.;
of Connecticut, and his thirty-nine supporters,
may be, of religious and political matters, they
mistake their mission if they fancy that it becomes
them to put themselves forward as " shining
lights" in political questions. Wo have great
repugnance to Parsons, of any grade or creed,
mingling in the political controversies of the day;