The Sun.
London, England, 1865-05-30 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIO JOURNALS

TIMES.—The first thought which arises in the
minds of men on reading the revelations of the
management of the Patent-office found expression
in the inquiry, Are similar abuses possible elsewhere ?
The career of Mr. Edmunds, we may hope and be-
lieve, cannot be paralleled in other branches of the
public service ; a rare mixture of cool unscrupulous-
ness and audacity is necessary before such a success
as his can be achieved ; but we are all interested. 'in
knowing whether a man of the genius of the noto-
rious ex-Clerk of the Patents could find in any other
public department equal facilities for appropriating
to his own use, without check or fear of detection,
moneys received in virtue of his office. If such a
department can be found, it is high time that it be
reformed. Its continued existence in its present con-
dition is unjust to the taxpayer, who is the ultimate
sufferer by every defalcation, and unjust to the men
engaged in it and exposed to such temptation. Un-
fortunately, it would seem that the Chancellor of
the Exchequer believes similar delinquencies to those
of Mr. Edmunds to be possible. The committee of
the House of Lords sought to discover from Mr.
Gladstone the nature of the checks to which the
several departments'of the public service are sub-
jected, and he gave an answer which showed that
he at least was not satisfied with their efficiency.
The career of Mr. Edmunds himself is a striking
illustration of the mischief of the present plan of
intrusting a man with uncounted money and of
never coming to a reckoning with him. Repre-
hensible as the arrangement was under which Mr.
Edmunds entered upon his office, there is no
reason to suppose that he intended at that time to
make up his salary by the improper method he
afterwards adopted. His first payments to the
Exchequer corresponded apparently with the sums
he received. When he found that his ac-
counts were never audited, his payments became
irregular and deficient in their amounts; and when
the affidavit verifying his statement of receipts was
no longer required, the payments became still
more irregular, and then for 12 years ceased alto-
gether. There was a gradual decline under the
influence of temptation until the offender became
perfectly callous. But, as our contemporary the
Economist has pointed out in an article which will
be found in another part of our impression of to-
day, the whole system was bad from the beginning.
Even when the affidavit was regularly tendered,
before the Masters in Chancery were abolished, and
the duty of Mr. Edmunds to verify his accounts be-
fore one of them was overlooked, there was no audit.
The statement produced by the Clerk of the Patents
was drawn up by himself, and he swore to its cor-
rectness. No one had the power, even if any one
had the inclination, to verify its items. When the
affidavit was made it was taken to the Controller of
the Exchequer, who was authorised by an Act of
Parliament to receive the sums stated in the balance-
sheet which the affidavit verified. The Controller
was a mere receiver, bound to account for such sums
of money as were paid to him, but he had no autho-
rity to require payments to be made, or to examine
the correctness of the accounts which were tendered
with them. As for the Treasury, it is the duty of
that department to spend the money which comes to
it, but not to inquire after what may not be forth-
coming. Such, at all events, appears to be the
view of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, although
it must be confessed that Mr. Gladstone's explana-
tions of the relations between the Treasury and the
Exchequer are extremely obscure, especially when
it is remembered that he is an officer in both de-
partments. The Exchequer, according to Mr.
Gladstone, is an entirely distinct and independent
office, having no relation whatever with the Treasury
except such as rests upon law or known usage. It
is not very easy to discover what relation could
exist between the public offices not coming within
this exception ; but whether it was the duty of the
Treasury or not to see that some amount was an-
nually paid into the Exchequer by the Clerk of the
Patents—and the fact that the discovery of the de-
falcations of Mr. Edmunds was brought to light by
the Solicitor of the Treasury supports the notion
that it was the duty of that department to see that
some sum was paid--it is clear that there was no
machinery whatever provided by which Treasury,
Exchequer, or Master in Chancery could discover
whether the sum paid was or was not that which
ought to be accounted for. The Clerk of the
Patents had to answer to his own conscience, and
to that alone, for the correctness of his annual
statement, and had he been content with making
some sort of annual return, reserving to himself
only a share of the spoil, it does not seem that the
deficiencies in his payments would ever have been
detected. It is not necessary to point out the
glaring defects in the management of the Patent-
office. The Clerk of the Patents was allowed to
receive all the moneys paid into the office, and to
deposit them at his own bankers, to an account the
existence of which was known only to himself and
them. The statements he tendered during the first
years of his office were drawn up by himself with-
out any • check besides his own affidavit of their
accuracy. Such arrangements as these give every
facility for malversation. The important points
are, however, whether anything like them can be
found in other public offices, and how should such
abuses be rectified. We do not think it desirable
or even prudent to attempt an immediate answer to
the second question. The different departments in
receipt of public moneys differ so much among
themselves that it would probably be found impos-
sible to lay down a single rule for their control.
Our well-informed contemporary has ventured to
propose simple remedies to cure the maladministra-
tion of the several public departments ; but it can-
not be concealed that the writer has confounded
together things essentially distinct from one another,
and has discovered blots which are not really open
to criticism. There is a constant danger in questions
of this kind of rushing from one extreme to another.
At one time it is found that considerable power
lodged in one department leads to an abuse of it,
and there is an outcry for preventive checks ; at
another, the checks are found to interfere with the
prompt action of the several services, and there is a
cry for greater power, even though coupled with risk
of its abuse. We are not convinced that the Treasury
has proved itself worthy of the unchecked supremacy
the Economist would accord it. At present, indeed,
we are satisfied that what is wanted is more infor-
mation on the relations of the public departments
to one another. Everything tends to show that
the best-informed men are very imperfectly ac-
quainted with the functions of the different depart-
ments and the control which one office has over its
neighbour. Take the following answer of the
Chancellor of the Exchequer in this very matter of
the Patent-office •, he said, " The root of the mis-
chief lies in this Act of Parliament, and not only in
this Act of Parliament, but in a rather wide-spread
system, under which there are vast sums of money
in the country in various categories for which the
public would be ultimately responsible, and with
regard to which, nevertheless, the Treasury has no
power whatever. Language of this kind emboldens
us to confess our own ignorance. It seems tolerably
certain that the root of the mischief cannot be at
once in a particular Act of Parliament and in a
wide-spread system, and we should be very glad to
know for certain to which to attribute to it. The
scandal of the Patent-office will not have been in
vain if it excites a searching inquiry into the con-
stitution and relation to one another of the several
public establishments, as a first step to putting
them on a better footing.

HERALD.—Mr. Andrew Johnson, President of
the United States, appears to be a man with a
sublime faith in his star, and unlimited confidence in
the resources at his command. • In a democratic
ruler, a man whose boast it is that he is sprung
from the dregs of the people, and did not know
how to read or write until he was middle-aged, we
must expect some disregard of precedents fitted only
for ancient and aristocratic regimes; we must look
for tome shortcomings in the little matters of
courtesy which are customary between the rulers
of civilised countries, which do not disdain to be
governed by men of education and refinement.
But we did expect in this President some mea-
sure of that rough common sense which is seldom
wanting in those who have contrived to make
their way in the world. Having inherited a
shortlived triumph, which no merit or clever-
ness of his own had any share in achieving, Mr.
Johnson demeans himself as if the nation over which
he presides, now that the South is conquered, were
facile principes in the world, and acknowledged as
such by all. Because she has barely had the best of
it;in a domestic war, Which has emptied the coffers
and drained to the last drop of blood the veins of
America, is she prepared, by way of mere bravado,
to throw down the glove in mortal defiance of Chris-
tendom ? Andrew Johnson is determined, we are
told, to put Mr. Davis to a cruel and ignominious
death. By this act he will call down upon his head
the just execration of every civilised community.
But as this may not suffice to excite them to active
opposition, Mr. Johnson has rushed into the readiest
occasions of quarrel with the two most powerful
empires of the Eastern world. By permitting the
enlistment of armed volunteers for Mexico, he is
levying constructive war upon the state which has
been so recently created by the Emperor of the
French, and through her upon France herself. M.
de Montholon at Washington is put off with puerile
excuses and evasive answers while the " emigrants"
are embarking ; the Emperor Maximilian, in alarm

for his throne has sent off an envoy in hot haste to
Paris ; there is a ferment in the French,capital such
as has never been known since the days of 180
which preceded theltalian war ; the newspapers have
been bidden to keep silence, but men talk of nothing
else on 'Change, and the Emperor has been hurried
back from his tourin Algeria. An. invasion of Sonora,
by a swarm of Yankee filibusters is momentarily ex-
pected, and the Government of Washington, which
has never recognised Maximilian, but still regard.
Juarez as the President of the Mexican Republic,
cannot reasonably object to the .legality of such
.a
proceeding. The insolent defiance which the Ameri-
can Government hurled some time since, by a reso-
lution of its Legislature, at the Emperor Napoleon
111., seemed harmless and stupid at the time, but
has now, inopportunely, found its practical inter-
pretation. The American people do not wish an
empire in Mexico, and they offer to undertake its
overthrow on their own account, now that their
hands are united by the disbandment of their armies.
Their government cannot and dare not oppose their
will. The inevitable consequence of this collusion
with a piratical enterprise must be, sooner or later,
war between France and the United States. Andrew
Johnson is not satisfied with this prospect of pro-
voking France to arms. Outdoing Erosistratus, he
wishes to make himself conspicuous as the arch-
incendiary of a universal bonfire. He has chal-
lenged England as well as France. Among the
i
earliest acts of his Government was the renewal, n
a most precise and categorical form, of the demand
which had only been hinted at by the Administra-
tion which preceded him, of compensation for the
losses caused by the Alabama and her consorts.
This preposterous claim was submitted to our Go-
vernment by Mr. Adams about a month ago.. It
was made peremptorily, and peremptorily declined
by Lord Russell. It was renewed in similar terms
about ten days ago, and about a week later Lord
Palmerston admitted its reception, and stated that
there had not yet been time to reply to it. The re-
lations between the Governments were still, he said,
of the most cordial kind. The belated traveller,
gasping at the sight of the highwayman who con-
fronts him with a modest demand for his money or ,
his life, is naturally on the most amiable footing with
him until he knows whether the pistol is likely to be
discharged or not. We have reason to know that
Lord Palmerston was either straining a point or spoke
ironically when he described the relation between the
two Governments as friendly. The Americans
threaten us with war in case we do not promptly .
accede to a demand which is about the most
absurd and the most unreasonable that was ever .
preferred by one nation against another. We
cannot believe that even our Whig Ministers,
with their known readiness to truckle down to
strong Powers, would consent under any
circum-
stances to undergo a humiliation the very suspicion
of which would cause an outburst of 'indignation
in the country which would reduce to a minimum
the short term of office which remains to Lord Pal-
merstonand his colleagues. Lord Palmerston has
been twice ousted from office on accusations of over
subserviency to the Emperor of the French. It is
one thing that he should do what in him lies to
serve a potentate who has proved himself a true and
faithful friend of this country ; it is another thing
that he should ". eat dirt" at the bidding of a trucu-
lent parvenu, who has emerged from his tailor 0
shop to dictate terms to Europe. It is unnecessary
that we should point out the absurdity of this
Ala-
bama claim. Neither this vessel, nor any of Its
consorts, the Southern cruisers which were built In
England, left our shores so equipped for service on-
to come strictly within the terms of our Foreign
Enlistment Act. Even had they done so it would
have been our business, not that of the Americans;
Their builders and equippers would have committed
an offence against our municipal law, but Ile'
against international law, which distinctly allow° •
rmo
us to furnish armed vessels to belligerents. -Li:
Americans themselves have frequently asserted this
right, and acted upon it during the revolt of the
South American colonies from Spain, and in the
war between Russia and the Powers of Wester'
Europe. Our Government has already categori-
cally refused to entertain this claim, and cannot
now reconsider their resolution without stultifying,
themselves. Andrew Johnson must rest content
with this decision, and accept this rebuff, or he must.
prepare himself at once to enter the lists against tns
two great Powers which humbled the Colossus of
the North. France or England, singly, are a match
for any Power in the world. No state now exist-
ing can withstand their united strength. The feel-
ingi
that while united they are irresistible shon."
make them firm in their dealings with semi-barbs'
rous Governments. If there is one thing more clear
than another as to the policy which it behoves them
both to follow in the future, it is that in all ques-
tions concerning America they should act in con-
cert. The reckless people of that country have ane
eye upon Canada and Mexico, and believe that if
they can attack them singly they will fall an east
prey. It is to our interest to baulk them in this
ambition by resisting in unison the blow that may
be first aimed at the territory held by ourselves er
by our neighbour and ally. When menaced let us
resist together, and America will quail. When
attacked let us strike together, and strike hard, se
that this phantom of a resuscitated Republic may
vanish again, and disappear once and for ever from
the face of the earth.