The Sun.
London, England, 1861-03-23 00:00:00

—and, finally, to the absence for a long while past
of any practical
.means whatever for effectually
checking the expenditure both at the dockyards and
throughout the maritime department generally,
owing to—what, in the name of fortune, is it sup-
posed to be owing to, in this nation of shop-
keepers, in this later and greater Carthage, in this
commercial chief among the Powers of modern
civilisation ?—owing to the want of accurate
accounts ! " The system of accounts," say the
Commissioners, " is elaborate and minute, but, so
far as we can judge, its results are not to be relied
upon for any practical purpose." There is every
care taken, in point of fact, to give the minutiae of
these accounts, yet the result continues in spite of
them to ensure nothing less deplorable than a
thriftless and profligate expenditure. It is, for all
the world, like the realisation upon an enormous
scale of that whimsical little burlesque woodcut
by the late THOMAS HOOD illustrative of the old
adage, " Take care of the pence, and the pounds
will take care of themselves." The Unfortunate
Wight surprised by a sudden gust while making
up his accounts at the open lattice—hastily clapping
his hands upon the piles of halfpence while the
bank-notes are flying out of window as upon the
wings of a whirlwind !

The suggestions next thrown out by the Royal
Commissioners in their Report with a view to the
ensuring henceforth of greater efficiency in the con-
trol and management of the Dockyards, and
with a view also to the reorganization of the
whole Naval Department, now number up to the
extent of no less than 20 in the first section of the
Report alone—the Second Head of the Report,
relating to the purchase of stores and mate-
rials—the third to the revision of the
Naval Accountant-General's Department the
last section of all relating to the par-
ticular expenditure involved in the alteration
and transformation of the ships of the Royal
Navy of England. Suggestion Al,as it may
fairly be designated, is to the effect that " A
Minister for the Navy Department " should
henceforth be appointed. Nearly the whole
difficulty would at once be removed as to the
want of anything like a clear and well
defined responsibility. Upon that maritime
Minister of the Crown, Secretary of State, or
whatever else he might be designated, would
devolve the entire responsibility of the Naval
Department. Parliament, or the nation, through
Parliament, would hold him entirely and directly
responsible for the control and management of the
dockyards. The country would at last be well rid
of that old anomaly—squatting astride like the
Old Man of the Sea upon the shoulders
of the 15'indbad among the Nations—the old
bugbear-anomaly notorious as the Board of
Admiralty. The Commissioners propose again
that the Dockyards should be looked upon hence-
forth as nothing more nor less than large
manufacturing establishments for the build-
ing and repairing of the ships of her
MAJESTY'S navy that the naval Minister
of State should have the power of nominating a
Controller-General, perfectly acquainted with
and perfectly qualified to manage such vast and
important establishments. Several of the sugges-
tions then following in the report relate to the
definition of the relative powers entrusted to this
Controller-General and to the next subordinates—
selected, these last, by him under the approval of
the Naval Minister of State—the Superintendents
of the different Dockyards. These Superinten-
dents having in turn the privilege accorded to
them of selecting the officers in each dockyard,
saving and excepting only the officers in the ac-
countants' and in the storekeepers' departments.
The Storekeeper-General to be selected by the
Minister of State, but to be under the Con-
troller-General—the Storekeeper-General him-
self choosing the officers in his own
department, Ex uno disee omnes—in regard
to all the various suggestions thrown out in this
report by the Royal Commissioners. Enough has
been here given, however, already to illustrate the
character and tendency of these suggestions—
more than by judging simply ex pede
ilerculem. We have begun, in fact, from the head
downwards : and from that " head and front" (not
of their offending), the public will be disposed to
judge well of this elaborate result of the lengthened
labours of the Dockyard Commissioners.

The KOSSUTH inquiry has advanced one little
step. It left off last time with Sir RICHARD
MAYNE. He it was who gave Sir G. C. LEWIS
the note; and the question was who gave it to
him. The answer is—" a policeman." Whether
Al, or X 21, we are not told. It might be any
one of those longcoated personages with shining
hats, who are never to be found when wanted, but
who in this case, as in so many others, are but too
ready with their services when not wanted. " A
policeman "—well, a public functionary at any
rate; Sir RICHARD MAYNE can tell us, therefore,
not only who he is, but how the functionary under
his orders got the note; how the official who
could not read a word of tie Hungarian
language was made aware of the nature
of the document ; who, in fact, suggested to
the policeman what the note was, and enabled him
to procure it. We can now learn whether the
Austrian Ambassador applied to an English police-
man and paid him for his services, whether he was
a detective creeping into the office under the garb
of a workman, or whether Mr. X. Y. Z. paid some
workman to get the note for him.
Sir G. C, LEWIS'S explanations do not at all touch
the original fraud by which the note was surrep.
titiously obtained. He said Mr. DAY showed Sir
R. MAYNE two sheets of the notes, and that Sir
RICHARD might have seen them in the
printing-office if he had wished—that thdre
was no secrecy in the printing. True, but
it would appear that there was honesty in the print-
ing. It is not even hinted that Mr. DAY parted
with one of the notes himself; we are convinced
Mr. DAY would never think of giving to any
third party a specimen of anything he was doing
for a customer, and which had not been made public.
Without inquiring of M. KOSSUTH, how could
Mr. DAY tell that it was not essential to KOS-
SUTH'S object that he alone could issue them?
Sir G. C. LEWIS might ask in vain of Mr. DAY
for a copy of anything he was printing for a
customer, if the customer were the humblest
tradesman, without that tradesmln's consent. Thus
far, then, the last answer only requires another
question and answer, which will certainly not be
wanting. We shall persist in asking yet—Who
;tole the note !' We shall ask that question till some
one shows us that he came by it honestly. We put
the question, publicly,before it was put in the House
of Commons, and we shall continue to put it till
Mr. DuscomßE obtains a full and frank confession
from the Home Secretary.
Mr. DUNCOMBE had, however, other counts in
his indictment of British Ministers for Austa ianism.
One was placing the Foreign-office at the service
of Austria, by sending the note there to get it
translated. When translated, we should say that
the complaisance of sending it to the Austrian
Ambassador and of troubling the law officers of the
Crown
WAS a great deal more than, Engli4hraea Will
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