JB_160_032.xml

Title: [1820 March 4 Official Economy or Necessity]

Description: 1820 March 4

Official Economy or Necessity of Reform

Opulence or <...>

not antiseptic

Of /From/ this assumption one consequence deduced by him is /the man

of ,10,000 a year is/ - that because reduction to ,100 a year would to him be

absolute /utter/ ruin, and reduce him /his mind/ to a state of wretchedness,

restriction to ,100 a year would in the instance of a man whose expenditure had not

been used to exceed that sum be productive of a sensation of distress as intense or

not much less so

Another is - that because he /Dives/ would not forfeit or risk his

character /reputation for probity/ for the sake of ,50 a year being half the amount

of [...?] income, therefore neither would he for ,5,000 a year being half the amount

of his own income

In conclusion - in point of theory /speculation/ the plain truth of

the matter is that in respect of the strength of propensity, desire and endeavour

there is not much difference between the man in /on/ the highest and the man in the

lowest degree /level/ in the scale of opulence. But that in so far as any cause of

difference can be found, it is on the side /part/ of the most opulent that in so far

as the strength of it is measured by the absolute quantity of the money which, at the

expence of others a man will endeavour to possess himself of /acquire/, the

propensity desire and endeavour is likely to be most strenuous - to be less

effectually repressed by any arrangements that can be devised:

that therefore in office so far as concerns abstinence from undue profit the chance

of good behaviour on the part of the Office-bearer is the greater, the less the

quantity of emolument which he is content to accept as retribution for the burthen

submitted to in <...> of the obligations <...>charging

<...> of it

JB_160_034.xml

Title: [1820 March 4 Official Economy or Necessity]

Description: 1820 March 4

Official Economy or Necessity of Reform

Opulence or <...>

not antiseptic

Another reason for reducing all official emolument to a minimum is

this - that with the quantity of the emolument attached to the Office the quantity of

influence applicable to sinister purpose in general - and in particular to the

purpose of obtaining support in case of malversation encreases.

Of this bad effect from excess emolument the mischief is exemplified

in the most manifest and striking manner in the case of the Monarch in a Monarchy.

The greater the quantity of the mass of good things in all shapes he has at his

disposal, the greater the quantity of evil he is at once disposed and enabled to do

in the course of his endeavours to raise the quantity of his own felicity to the

highest pitch possible

As in that highest stage so in each inferior stage /level/ in the

scale /united scale/ of power and opulence

Thus it is that under the British government /Constitution/ for

example in all the superior Offices, responsibility in the penal sense is a perfect

mockery a mere empty name

JB_164_264.xml

Title: [[clxiv. 264] 1820 Aug. 22 Emancipation]

Description: [clxiv. 264]

1820 Aug. 22

Emancipation Spanish?

Summary?

?.5. Corruptive influence

Means of reducing

6. To the occupant the value of a lucrative office of an office with emolument attached to it is as the emolument directly, and as the exertion and time necessary to the exercise of it without reproach, inversely.

7. Power is of itself so incontestably an object of general desire, that, until it is established that no individual competent to the exercise of the functions of the office will charge himself with them, no emolument ought to be attached to it.

8. The pleasure attached to the exercise of the functions belonging to an office, is the natural reward appertaining /portion of reward attached by nature/ to that office. Where /To an office, in relation to which/ the natural reward is sufficient, no factitious reward ought to be attached. The Natural reward is received and enjoyed, without any expence at the charge of others: factitious reward can not be received in any shape but at the expence of others.

To the function exercised by the delivery of those suffrages by which the office of representative of the people in the supreme assembly is filled the reward naturally attached is sufficient. In no instance to the exercise of this function has any factitious reward been ever annexed.

9. In so far as a liking to the exercise of the function of an office affords presumptive evidence of aptitude in relation to the exercise of those same functions, evidence of such aptitude is afforded by every man who, without factitious reward in any shape is content to charge himself with the obligation attached to it: and if there be two candidates, one of whom is content thus to charge himself gratis, while the other will not unless it has a mass of factitious reward attached to it, and there be no other evidence in favour of either candidate, this presumptive evidence is conclusive.