JB_160_043.xml

Title: [1822 Feb. 17. Thoughts on Official]

Description: 1822 Feb. 17.

Thoughts on Official Economy

Rudiment to the 1st part. (ab intra?)

1 Function for which extra aptitude is necessary per[?] the list with

the several shapes in which the aptitude is required

including British India

2. do ab extra? - i.e. pecuniary. Every power left at command of

functionary for his own use is waste and corruption.

In regard to the Official Establishment in general - and the several

Offices contained in it in particular, that which the greatest happiness of the

greatest number /principle/ requires is that on the part of the Official person in

question there be the greatest degree possible of appropriate aptitude, relation had

to the service proposed to be obtained /rendered/ by the community from the execution

of the Office, and this at the least expence possible to the public purse: in other

words that the burthen pressing /thereby imposed/ upon the people /subject many/ in a

pecuniary shape shall be the lightest possible.

Here then throughout the whole of the Establishment are two [...?]

objects between which there is the most intimate connection, and in a certain degree

a conflict and competition - on the part of the functionary appropriate aptitude: on

the part of the people at large, exemption from unnecessary burthen in the shape in

question which is a pecuniary one.

In every situation be it what it may aptitude with reference to the

service for the rendering of which it is that a man is placed in that same situation

say appropriate aptitude may be seen to be composed of three distinguishable elements

and thence to be divisible into /of/ so many distinguishable branches: namely

appropriate moral aptitude, appropriate intellectual aptitude and appropriate active

aptitude

Division of offices into those requiring no aptitude but pecuniary

i.e. moral and those requiring extra intellectual and active aptitude.

149_205.xml

Title: [[cixl. 205] 1822 Feb. 18 Copied]

Description: [cixl. 205]

1822 Feb. 18 Copied

Official Economy /Constitutional Law - Official Establishment/

Means of ascertaining /obtaining/ by an instrument the maximum of aptitude on the part of the functionary and the minimum of pecuniary burthen to the people 1. For offices requiring pecuniary trustworthiness without extra intellectual or active aptitude, 1. power of depredation minimized: thus quantity of public money at command, and plenitude of command over it minimized: fidejussors as near as may be to the maximum of the amount at command. 2. For Offices requiring extra talent or say appropriate active aptitude Public exhibition, with Do Examination in so far as applicable.

Mode of ascertaining the minimum of official emolument necessary thence of expence:

Emolument a fixt salary: thereupon sale by auction of the Office: tenable either for a term of years, or rather for life subject to displacement for misconduct specified and proved add perhaps in some instances, for aggregate inaptitude in the judgment of certain persons, but in this case not without reimbursement of the purchase money. Call this the Economical Auction

Objections to the Economical Auction. 1. Exclusion of the unopulent classes: 2. extension of venality. 3 extra probability of misconduct in the shape of depredation, for want of pecuniary responsibility, and by reason of the sharpness of the aptitude for crime in a proportion encreasing with the degree of indigence

Objection 1. Exclusion of the unopulent: thence violation of the principle of Equality.

Answer

1. From the rejection of this preservative against misrule, evil to the greatest number, great: viz. [...?] of contribution and the matter of wealth raised by it expended in waste, and thence operating as matter of corruptive influence: swelled pro tanto the amount of the mass of the matter of patronage. Mass of pecuniary emolument saleable say &1,000,000 a year: saving £200,000 To reject this instrument is to impose £200,000 a year on opulent and unopulent, for the purpose of turning and the profit-seeking industry of the unopulent from other channels into this.

2. The bar opposed to the unopulent is not an insuperable one, like the bar opposed under some governments by want of nobility. By raising himself to a degree of opulence adequate to the purchase of the office, the most unopulent man may acquire it.

3. The rejection of this instrument of frugality would exclude the use of a main security for, and thence instrument of, appropriate aptitude; namely relish for the business: the less the emolument, in other words the more a man gives for the office the greater the relish - to him who gives nothing for it it may be an object of disgust: of disgust not surmountable but by the extreme of indigence.

4. The access proposed to be left to the unopulent will not secure their entrance or render it so probable to them as to the more opulent, the greater the opulence the greater the means of access to patrons who of course belong to the opulent class.

JB_160_039.xml

Title: [1822 Feb. 17. Thoughts on Official]

Description: 1822 Feb. 17.

Thoughts on Official Economy

All burthens thus imposed ought to be provided for out of the estates

of those by whom they are imposed.

A fee for expedition is a bounty on delay

1. Of every useless Office the existence is a grievance

An office may be useless in either of two ways:

1. Where to those who are charged with the attendant no benefit at

all is produced by it

2. Where though a benefit is produced by it, the benefit falls short

of being equal to the attendant burthen.

Gift a list or samples

2 Of every needless Office the existence is a grievance An office may

be said to be needless where though it can not be said to be in the nature of it

useless, it is rendered needless because the service /function/ which requires to be

rendered is to a sufficient amount rendered without it. The individual Office though

it belongs to a useful species is not itself of any use, or is not of any adequate

use.

In every species of Office the business of which is capable of being

executed by a single hand in a manner not less apt than if a number of hands greater

than one were placed in it the several individual offices filled by the whole number

of persons more than one / minus one/ /deducting one/ are

individually taken useless Offices

In every species of office the whole number of hands excepting one

are proved by experience to be needless and thus useless in every species of office,

in which without known prejudice to the servive in any assignable shape are known to

be under any other government the business is known to be performed by a single

functionary

Compare on this occasion the several English Boards with the single functionaries employed in the Anglo-American United

States

3 Of every pension of retreat given at public expence the existence

is a grievance. Quere as to exceptions.

4. Of every pecuniary gift given at public expence, under the notion

of remuneration for extraordinary service, otherwise than in pursuance of previous

invitation to all for the rendering of the service, or after a public trial as in

case of punishment, the existence is a grievance.