date

[clxiv. 265] 1820 Aug. 22 Emancipation
[clxiv. 265]

1820 Aug. 22

Emancipation Spanish?

Summary?

?.5. Corruptive influence

Means of reducing

10. There are two modes of reducing the quantity of factitious reward annexed /found attached/ in the shape of emolument to an office: one is the substracting from the sum of money representative of the emolument: the other is requiring from the functionary for the use of the public a sum of money for a lease of the office determinable either by the end of his life, or at some earlier period. The first may be termed the direct; the other, the indirect mode.

11. To reduce /For reducing/ to its minimum the quantity of factitious reward, /thus/ in the shape of emolument, thus attached to an office, there is but one mode, which is that by auction - the biddings being the sums which each bidder is content to give for the office so circumstanced.

12. In relation to the functions of an office, appropriate /all/ aptitude may be reduced to one or other of two modes: appropriate moral aptitude, and appropriate intellectual aptitude

Of moral aptitude the most conspicuous and important mode or shape is pecuniary trustworthiness. A deficiency of it, manifested by an act of unlawful appropriation is termed peculation, and is proved, by, and in proportion to, the quantity of unallowed pecuniary emolument, which, by the powers or other means attached to the office he contrives to possess himself.

13 To peculation the most obvious temptation is that which is afforded /applied/ by the lawful possession of money or moneys worth in virtue of the office. For security against it a remedial /an/ arrangement commonly provided is the obligation of finding bondsmen: persons who in the event of such a transgression on the part of the fuctionary, consent to be obliged to make good the deficiency.

14 A more simple and immediately effectual arrangement in the case of a functionary who in virtue of his office has public money lawfully in his possession /hands/ or power is /consists in/ the reducing to its minimum the quantity of that which he has in his hands, and the time during which he has it in his hands.
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  • Title: [[clxiv. 266] 1820. Aug. 22]
    Description: [clxiv. 266]

    1820. Aug. 22

    Emancipation Spanish?

    Summary?

    ?.5. Corruptive influence

    Means of reducing

    15. Every man who in virtue of his office has not the means of maintenance in a manner suitable to the situation in which he is placed by that same /such his/ office will be disposed /inclined/ to committ peculation for the purpose of supplying himself with the means. True: and so will every man who has those means.

    If ever there was a man whose official /functionary who in virtue of his office had the/ means of maintaining himself in a manner suitable to the situation in which he was placed by such his office, it was George the third. In the course of his sixty years reign nine times was this functionary guilty of peculation: ? the proof of it is in those Acts of Parliament under and by virtue of which at the expence of the people whom the peculation plundered the debts were paid by the authority of those who had shared in the plunderage. By Act of Parliament every King of England is the Most Excellent of men: and a title commonly given to that man was that of the best of Kings.

    For attaching vast masses of pecuniary emolument to official situations, which by many individuals possessing no less appropriate aptitude than those by whom the largest mass of factitious reward would be required the common pretence is the securing the functionary against peculation in the case in which it is supposed to be necessitated by the want of a sufficiency of pecuniary emolument attached to it. Thus is peculation committed in the first instance on pretence of preventing peculation which never would have been committed.

    ?H. of C. Debates, 1820
  • Title: [[clxiv. 263] 1820 Aug. 22 1822 Aug]
    Description: [clxiv. 263]

    1820 Aug. 22 1822 Aug. 9.

    Emancipation Spanish? /Constitut. Code/

    Summary?

    ?.5. Corruptive influence

    Means of reducing

    FF. Securities for Official Aptitude enumerated. (Superseded)

    In a government in which either Monarchy or Aristocracy has any share, the only means for reducing to its minimum the efficiency of corruptive influence are as follows /may be thus enumerated/.

    1. To exclude all /altogether/ factitious dignity altogether

    2. In regard to operative power in contradistinction to elective To reduce to its minimum the quantity of it.

    3. In regard to offices, considered as being in the hands of the functionary himself, to reduce to its minimum the value of the quantum of emolument in his hands, as also the number of the functionaries

    4. In regard to offices considered as being at the disposal of a patron, to reduce to its minimum the number and value of the offices so disposed of: namely by raising to its maximum the number and value of those which are at the disposal of the people at large, delivering their votes by free and genuine and to that end by secret suffrage; always understood that it is not to the filling of every official situation in this mode that a promiscuous multitude can in respect of appropriate information be competent.

    5. To provide for the giving by all possible means publicity to whatsoever connection there may be /may have place/ between the representatives of the people individually taken on the one part, and the possessors of lucrative offices and other such good things in the hands of the Monarch or the Aristocracy, on the other: subjecting /obliging/ them for example, on certain occasions to make answer to any such question as shall be put to them in relation to those points.
  • 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.