The Sun.
London, England, 1870-02-10 00:00:00

flit bIYN, LONDON, THURSDAY EVENING, rEBItUARY 10, 1870,

bad been going about from Department to Depart-
ment, interviewing clerks, and gathering informa-
tion to fit him fur filling the vacant place of Minis-
ter Washburne. He therefore bristled -with figures,
and kept the attention of the House keenly alive.
He contrasted last year's estimates for the Navy
yards with this; and the result shows a startling
increase. Still, if weight is to be attached to Gen.
Porter's evidence, Mr. Dawes, in quoting it, quoted
the Secretary's reasons for the increase. At the
same time in showing that some £80,000,000 ster-
ling had been expended during the war on a navy
of which nothing was now left, Mr. Dawes justified
his own onslaught. He showed that the Secretary
proposed an expenditure of $3,607,304 against
$451,000 last year, lie said that the Secretary, in
his estimates, promised $2,000,000 in coal alone,
whereas the total cost of coal for the last two y..ars
had been $150,000; and having thus demolished
Mr. Robeson, he turned on Postmaster-General
Creswell. This achievement in mathematics, ob-
served Mr. Dawes, is only equalled by the latter,
who proposed to save $5,000,000 a year by abo-
lishing franking, while the franked matter
would not produce $200,000. The estimates for
the next fiscal year contain appropriations of
$24,625,173 for public works against $5,493,000
last year, yet the Administration of Andrew
Johnson had been condemned and overthrown on
the charge of profligacy in expenditure :—" Andrew
Johnson, in the last year of his Administration,
bad estimated that he could carry on the Govern-
meet fie $303,000..000. end that amount had been
\Vint .1;.1 their ow„
Administration estimate that it would carry on the
Administration of the Government for a year for?
—5311,097,174; an increase of over $28,000,000
beyond the amount required by Andrew Johnson,
and an increase of $49,628,537 over the amount
appropriated for the present year. But this in- '
eluded an error of ovlr $7,000,000 in th- footing
up of the Post-office Department, winch would re- ,
duce the increase to $42,000,000. But be believed
that not entering into the estimate was the little
sugar-plum of $BOO,OOO for League Island ; and
back of it also were the Bay of &maim and the
Island of St. Thomas, at $7,500,000 in gold, and
back of it too were the millions that would be added
by the Senate to the appropriation bills as they
passed the House. In this House alone the pledge
of the Republican party was to be redeemed." Not-
withstanding its professions of economy, the Exe-
cutive had increased the expenditure in all the de-
partments except one—" The exception was the
poor, unpopular Attorney-General, and he hoped
it was not because of that remarkable trait in his
character, and it was contemplated at the other
end of the Capitol to relieve him from further pub-
lic service and drive him into private life." Mr.
Dawes desired to tell his friend from Maine that is
was the pennies that he had overlooked in his vain
search for the dollars, taken in taxing spikes, cord-
age, and rigging, that made the shipping of Maine
and the commerce of the country decline. It was
by a reduction of expendituree alone that the people
could be relieved from their burden of taxation
and the public debt paid.
This speech created a sensation, for Mr. Dawes
is a leading Republican of the New England stripe,
and the attack riveted the delighted attention of
the Democrats, and split the Republicans in the
feelings it generated. The country in a inesure
sustains any man who honestly and with a single-
minded purpose proposes to fill Mr. Washburne's
vacant place, and many who are careless as to poli
'icel party are earnestly desirous to enforce rigid
economy on the Executive. The President did not
conceal his antiornic;e, nor hesitate to censure
the iejestice. Where tie remarks were correct the
Itult lay in Congress, not in the Executive, for if
Congress decrees that sueh and such action shall
be taken. that departments most estimate the ex-
pen,es and demand the appropriations, and the
question then isnot " were these measures necessary as
applied to the Executive," but " were the means the
Executive proposed the best and most economical
`or their ac._:,nnplislitnent." Where Mr. Dawes at-
tacked the mtasures, he attacked Congress, not the
Executive ; where he attacked the means and
figures he was for the most part incorrect, and this
the beads of Departments will presently prove by
publishing the facts. The speech, however, serves
the party purposes of the annocrats, and it has
been distributed over the country as a campaign
documen t.—Angle-Amectican Times.

MISCELLANEOUS NEWS.

TIIZ 'WELSH P'AS'TING GIRL.

The case of the unfortunate Sarah Jacobs is to be
thoroughly gone into. The Government have resolved
pon the completest possible investigation. The
Daily News says the Treasury has already given
instructions for the prosecution of the father of the
girl, and also of the self-constituted committee who
combined to keep her without food. Mr. Giffard,
Q.C., will be the counsel for the Crown. The pro-
secution of the committee will be a warning against
undertaking dangerous inquiries for the benefit of
science.