The Sun.
London, England, 1865-08-16 00:00:00

The Public Accounts.

The standing " Committee of Public Accounts,"
nominated by the House of Commons at the com-
mencement of every Session, for the examination of
the accounts showing the appropriation of the sums
granted by Parliament to meet the annual expendi-
ture, commenced last Session an inquiry into the
mode of accounting for the receipts in public de-
partments not forming part of the chief branches of
public revenue. Following the example of charity,
the (committee began with the fees of their own
House, which have to be all paid over to the con-
solidated fund, the clerks and officers of the House
being paid by salaries and not by fees. The system
is explained clearly enough. From an examination
of the Votes, and from the daily returns made by
the committee clerks of business done, Mr. Broome,
the accountant and receiver of the fees, makes out
weekly accounts of the fees due from the several
Parliamentary agents, collects the amount every
Tuesday, enters the sums received in a cash-book,
and in the evening goes through the list with Mr.
Rose, the clerk of the fees, who takes a copy of it.
Next morning Mr. Broome takes to the Bank of
England the checks he has thus received, and
pays them into the account of the Commission-
ers for Regulating the Offices of the House of
Commons. Two days afterwards Mr. Rose,
who keeps the pass-book, takes it to the bank,
and gets the amount entered as received. The
weekly amount varies from £1.,000 to £lO,OOO. The
points to which the attention of the committee
seems to have been turned are these :—That neither

he money nor the acgount goes through any third
office : that there is no check upon the accuracy of
the committee clerks' return ; and that there is no
audit except that at the beginning of every Session
the Speaker goes through the accounts of the pre-
vious Session, and sees that the amount of foes
certified by Mr. Broome as received by him was
paid by him into the Bank. Another of these minor
branches of revenue comprises the fees received at
the Home-office. There are considerable fees on
the frocking of Bishops ; £7 13s. 6d. on the conge,
and again on the letter recommendatory, on the
Royal assent, on the restitution of temporals, and
on the homage ; the same on the appointment of a
dean, canon, or archdeacon ; £l6l 12s. 6d. on the
creation of a Prince of Wales, £79 10s. on the crea-
tion of a duke, fees on the creation of every peer,
baronet, or knight ; £lO 2s. 6d. on a warrant for
change of name, £l3 12s. 6d. on change of name
and arms, and so on. The fees produce a little
over £l,OOO a year. They are received by Mr.
Knyvett, the chief clerk, and paid over by him to
the Paymaster-General at the end of every quarter.
When there is a stamp duty the parties hand Mr.
Knyvett the money to pay for it, and he procures
it from the Stamp-office. There is a record
kept by a clerk showing every appointment,
and Mr. Knyvett states that it would be
easy to ascertain the correctness of his account by
seeing how many creations, &c., there had been in.
the quarter. But he says, " there is no actual audit,
the whole matter is left to him." The passport
branch of the Foreign-office is another department
which engaged the attention of the committee. The
amount received for fees is brought at the end of
pt ha the
sd
thea y t o
officel Csa
loanr
Tens gahna
dm
e, x
pt he n
se e
schieficsl earcke,o u
nwho
are examined by Mr. Hammond, the Under-Secre-
tary of State, and he says, " The other day I ac-
counted to Mr. Hammond for the whole of the fees
received on account of the passports which had been
issued since 1856." -Formerly there was a large
surplus in hand, but it has been " worked down" to
about £BOO since the reduction of the fees on pass-
ports, and now the receipts are but about £7OO a
year, and it would seem are nearly absorbed by the
expenses. The Treasury do not recognise these
fees as public money, and refuse to give pensions to
persons employed in the Passport-office, as not being
paid out of public moneys. The Passport-office, its
expenses and salaries, do not appear upon the esti-
mates in any shape whatever, and Mr. Hammond
denies the right of the Exchequer to any surplus
from these fees. The Privy Council-office also had
some attention from the committee. Mr. Har-
rison, the chief clerk of the office and deputy
clerk of the Council, states that fees amounting to
£BOO or £l,OOO a year are received in the depart-
ment of the Judicial Committee, but it is a separate
department. At the end of every quarter the
amount is brought by the registrar in a lump sum
to him as the chief clerk of the office, and he pays it
to the Paymaster-General. Mr. Harrison says he
exercises no check or audit over the receipt, and he
holds himself utterly irresponsible for its being the
pearroemaymkoeupnt t. ;
Tbuhterhee
isk nnoowesx tt
rhaenaecocuosu
an
ut sd
iatr
we verywhat-
ever t.
ever of his own accounts. He has to pay some•
of
exam thine e ritchee aancdc o hen
tl 'Bl, a bk ue st
tsimlea l
clerksgen e rianl
tehxep eonffis ecse
that is all. The committee report that they are of
opinion, generally, that the system of accounting
for these receipts is not satisfactory ; but they think
that their inquiries should be prosecuted further
next session into similar branches of receipt before
any general recommendation should be made re-
specting them. In the meantime they think the
evidence they have taken should receive the atten-
tion of the Government. There is a great number
of public offices in which moneys payable to the
Exchequer are received—the Gazette-office, the
police courts, the General Register-office, the Joint-
stock Companies Registration-office, the Judgments
Registration-office ; there is the Treasury solicitor
in regard to intestates' estates, the secretary to the
Lunacy Commissioners, the secretary of presenta-
tions to the Lord Chancellor, consuls abroad, the
directors of prisons, the Controller of the Sta-
tionery-office, and, indeed, such a list as it would
be wearisome to read.

_. _.,~

--41.

i~

-
ROUSES.—Messrs. TOPLIS and ROBERTS
have numerous furnished and unfurnished TOWN,
/Suburban, and Country RESIDENCES to LET or SELL.
Particulars forwarded for three stamps, upon stating exact
requirements and rental. Offices, 2, Conduit-street, Regent-
street, and South Kensington, facing the Museum. ,

ROYAL' PRINCESS'S THEATRE.
Sole Lessee and Manager, Mr. Geo. Vining.
THIS EVENING, a new Farce, by Mr. David Fisher,
entitled HEART-STRINGS AND FIDDLE-STRINGS.
Atter which, ARRA II NA FOGUE : Messrs. Dion Bondi-
eault, 3. Brougham, 1L Vandenhoff, D. Fisher, D. Murray;
Mrs. Boucicault and Miss M. Oliver.
To conclude with AN AMPLE APOLOGY.
Commence at 7.

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HIGH WATER AT LONDON BRIDGE.
This DAY.—Morning, 9h. 20m.—Afternoon, 9h. 59m,
To-Monuow.-Morning, 10h. 45m.—Afternoon, 11h. 26m,

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LONDON, WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 16, 1865.

If the wise men of fifty years ago could have
looked forward to the present day they would have
seen a good many things to surprise them. No
doubt many of the more prescient spirits of those
days foresaw many of those changes of thought, and
feeling, and progress which some of them have lived
to see. They could hardly, indeed, have anticipated
the wonderful development of our material wealth
or our manufacturing industry, though they would
not have doubted that education and toleration
Would work many marvels. But if they could by
one sudden glimpse have taken a coup d'ceil of the
existing England of 1865 as contrasted with the
England of 1815, they would have thought it a very
strange place indeed. What with the iron network
of railways, which, not content with traversing the
highways of the provinces, is now fairly intersecting
the metropolis, the electric telegraph up in air and
down in water, the tubular bridges, the tunnel
through the Alps, and all the other marvels of the
day, our unenlightened ancestors would be pretty
well puzzled. But it is probable that none of the
wonders they would catch a glimpse of would startle
them more than a very simple though felicitous pro-
ceeding which is now being carried on. An Eng-
lishman of 1815, with the thunders of Waterloo still
booming in his ears, and the glories of Trafalgar
and the Nile still fresh in his memory, would have
been amazed, incredulous, and, perhaps, shocked
at the spectacle of the Channel Fleet sailing
amicably for the French Coast. Yet this
astonishing event has been very naturally brought
about to the full satisfaction of both countries. A
graceful interchange of courtesies is an appropriate
celebration of the fifty years' peace between the
two leading nations of the world, and if Waterloo
was not quite the conclusive affair that our grand-
fathers believed it to be with regard to the Impe-
rial dynasty of France, we may at least hope that it
was a final exhibition of the enmity which had
existed in one form or another for many genera-
tions. Nous avous change tout cela, as our sprightly
neighbours themselves have it, and the better un
derstanding between the two countries is undoub

edly to be reckoned among the gains of our modern
civilisation. Fifty years ago the English child was
brought up to regard the French as his natural
enemies, and the hero of their popular idolatry as
something akin to a demon, while the French in
their turn were certainly not better informed re-
specting ourselves. There have been two important
elements in bringing about a clearer comprehension
and a kindlier feeling—steam and education. The
one has so shortened the distance between the two
capitals that the one is kept constantly informed of
what goes on in the other, and men of either nation
can pass to the other without fatigue or delay. The
postal communication is cheap, rapid, and accurate,

so that a very large correspondence is regularly
carried on. Few of the better classes think them-

selves qualified for mixing in society until they have
at least visited France. The diffusion of education,

again, has not only made the French language
familiar to twenty times the number who could
formerly ask or answer a vocabulary question, and
by doing so introduced the chiefs of their literature
to an intimate acquaintance ; it has made history
so much better known, and politics so much more
generally interesting, that Englishmen of ordinary
intelligence can no longer look on the French as
aliens and enemies. They recognise in their
struggles and their sufferings Some of
y sympathise
fetures of their own great story, the leading
The
in the ardour, sincere though often mistaken, with
which her great men have striven for an ideal
liberty •

they mourn over her sorrows and her

losses, even while accepting the moral which

they point. The very debates which excite an
interest in the one capital are in a few brief hours
circulated, in substance at least, in the other ; it is

impossible, therefOre, for either nation to misunder.

stand the other so completely as it formerly did

It is well for the peace of the world and for the

interests of humanity that it is so, for of them it

might truly be said—
" Like fabled gods, their mighty war
Shook realms and nations in its jar."
And if the whole Continent were convulsed with

the struggle in days when their supremacy over
other nations was less assured than now, what
would be the chaos produced by a battle of the
giants in these times? It would have one certain

effect--it would throw back all pacific reform, all
internal improvement in Europe, and would pro-
bably hinder the slow but progressive march of the
less civilised nations towards a clearer day. Hap-
Pay., no such catastrophe threatens our epoch. The
raceful interchange of national courtesies at

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Queen's, and Rutland Gates, Queen's-gate and Peters-
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Elva ston-place, Cromwell-road, Onalow and Thurloe Squares,
BoWits. &c. Messrs TOPLIS and ROBERTS have RE SI-
LENCES to SELL and LET in these and surrounditg
localities. Offices, 2, Conduit-street, Reg
South and
South Kensington, lacing the Museum.

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