date

[clxiv. 266] 1820. Aug. 22
[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
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  • Title: [[clxiv. 265] 1820 Aug. 22 Emancipation]
    Description: [clxiv. 265]

    1820 Aug. 22

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    ?.5. Corruptive influence

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    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.
  • Title: [1822 May 5 Const Competition]
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  • Title: [1820 June 10 Emancipation Spanish]
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