In the first place, let us set ourselves right with these same Financial Reform Associations, so that no charge may be brought against us of factious opposition to salutary improvement. We have perused several of their tracts with great care; but, being tolerably familiar with their statistics already, we have not acquired any large stock of additional information. They point, however, to many things which are most undoubted abuses. That a reform is necessary in many civil departments of the state, has long been our expressed opinion. Money is not only misapplied, but the revenues which ought to be drawn from some portions of the public property, find their way into private pockets, and are not accounted for. We do not doubt that the dockyards are largely jobbed, and that the nation suffers considerable loss by a partial and nefarious system of private instead of public contracts. We are no admirers of sinecures, of unnecessary commissionerships, or the multiplication of useless offices. The department of Woods and Forests is an Augean stable, which requires a thorough cleansing. It is notoriously the most inefficient and the worst served of the public boards, and it has permitted and winked at peculation to an extent which is almost incredible. We desire to have the public accounts better kept, and some security given that the officials will do their duty. We wish to see patronage fairly and honourably exercised. We wish to see abuse corrected, curbed, and abolished. And why is this not done? Simply for this reason--that we are cursed with a government in every way unfit for their charge. The present ruling family party have not among them a vestige of a public virtue. Jobbing with the Whigs is not an exceptional case--it is a living principle. It is more to them than the liberty of the press: it is like the air they breathe; if they have it not, they die. They keep their adherents together solely by the force of jobbing. Look at their Irish Trevellyan jobs, their commissions, their unblushing and unparalleled favouritism! Never, in any one instance, have they attempted to save a shilling of the public revenue, when, by doing so, they would interfere with the perquisites of some veteran servitor of their order. We know this pretty well in Scotland, where jobbing flourishes all the better because we are denied the superintendence of a separate Secretary of State--an office which is imperatively called for. The present is undeniably a time for the exertion of strict economy in every department, and yet ministers will not vouchsafe to commence it in their own. During the last two years, various offices which are not hereditary, which are notorious sinecures, and which are nevertheless endowed with large salaries, have become vacant; and, in every case, these have been filled up by Lord John Russell, on the broad ground that the government could not afford to dispense with such valuable patronage.