Whatever the amount of the financial reductions contemplated by Ministers,
it is plain that they will not satisfy public opinion unless they go to the extent of searching out needless expendi- ture and castigating the public accounts of all unjustifiable out- lay. It is no argument to say that because the expenditure was so much in 1835, it should only be as much now ; it is equally il- logical to say that because we want more service in 1849 we can- not get it for less money than we spent in 1835. The question does not turn at all upon the gross totals of the sums expended, but upon the ratio of return for outlay ; and retrenchment is not to be sought in the rude lopping of round sums, but in thorough exploration and readjustment both of expenditure and service. Such a process would be quite possible. Military men have shown to some extent what might be done in the Army. This week, a Naval officer, who writes in the 2Iforning Chronicle under the so- briquet of " Jack Easy," enumerates, currente ealamo, so many items of reckless expense which clamour for reform, as to suggest a belief that very considerable sums might be saved by a searching revision of the system.
