1820 July 30

Emancipation Spanish

Summary

In Spain the possibility of an eventual removal of the ruling few by

the suffrage of the subject many being provided, but the feasibility of it being

involved in clouds, corruptive influence may overcome or be overcome according to

circumstances. In the mean time the less the quantity of the matter of corruptive

influence is that finds itself in the hands of the ruling few the less will be the

force with which it is capable of acting upon their conduct: the less on all

occasions, and in particular on the occasion of any such breach of trust, as should

produce a sufficient warrant to the subject many,to give exercise and effect to that

saving power of removal which the Constitution, in profession at least, has lodged in

their hands.

Proportioned to the magnitude of the expenditure to which the dominion in question

by the possession and pursuit of it together gives existence, will be the quantity of

emolument, emolument received in an immediate shape and emolument received through

the medium of patronage taken together, which it will place at the disposal of the

ruling few. But the greater the quantity of this corruptive matter they have in their

hands, the greater the force with which they will find themselves fixt in their seat,

and secured against every disposition on the part of the subject many, to carry their

saving power of removal into exercise. And this security they will find themselves in

possession of to a great degree without need of any act done by any person in any

such express view. And thus it is that in proportion as in the financial department

it /this/ acts as an instrument of impoverishment, in the constitutional department

it will act as an instrument of corruption: in its character as an instrument of

impoverishment, its effects will be confined within the pale of the wasteful and

destructive expenditure to which it gives birth: but in the character of an

instrument of corruption its poisonous effects will pervade the whole system of

government, contributing by the whole of its amount to the reducing to a dead letter

the power of removal provided for the people in words and perhaps in intention, and

to a virtual representative democracy substituting a compound of monarchy and

aristocracy, which every day of its existence will be advancing towards that state of

irresistible and uncontroulable despotism under and by which as in England the

interest of the subject many will be sacrificed to the interest of the ruling few

without measure and without shame.
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    Description: 1820. July 25

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    Corruptive influence

    All those external instruments of human felicity that are or appear

    to be in their reach, act /operate/ /in proportion to their quantity act/ on public

    functionaries in the character of instruments of corruptive influence. The greater

    the proportion is of the whole mass to the whole mass of the national property the

    more efficient is their operation in that character. The Spanish Monarchy like all

    other Monarchies the which have representative systems combined with them the Spanish

    Monarchy teems with useless places, needless places, overpaid places and sinecure

    places: it teems with factitious dignities constituted of and kept up by /and no

    otherwise kept up than by/ the [...?] of the subject many, constituting one of the

    instruments of corruption and operating as bounties upon worthlessness and depravity

    /breach of public duty/ in every shape bounties upon depravity in that shape in which

    it consists of the sacrifice of the universal interest to the particular interests of

    those by whom these instruments of imposture are bestowed Having now in combination

    with it a representative democracy the whole mass of the external instruments of

    felicity at the disposal of the ruling few representatives of the people and others

    /amongst the rest/, will be employed in the exercise /application/ of corruptive

    influence to the purpose of engaging them to swell to the utmost possible pitch the

    amount of official emolument and thence of official expenditure and of the taxes by

    which it is defrayed. Even Setting aside the mass of money power and factitious

    dignity attached to the possession or endeavoured acquisition of Spanish American and

    the other distant dependencies, the quantity of the matter of corruptive influence in

    the hands of the Monarch and his advisers, the Monarch being irremovable, will

    suffice, and that to a certainty sooner or later to engage a constant majority of the

    Cortes in a constant breach of trust constantly operating in augmentation of the mass

    of the external instruments of felicity and corruptive influence shared among the

    ruling few
  • Title: [[Wrapper enclosing clxvii. 267-76]]
    Description: [Wrapper enclosing clxvii. 267-76]

    Rid Yourselves

    Originally under .3. Creoles unwilling

    Cause of aversion 5.

    Letter 17 or 24 5. To the Interests of the ruling and influential few in Ultramaria the dominion would be particularly adverse.

    Ultramaria injured.

    [clxvii. 267]

    1820 Aug. 30

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    .2. Creoles unwilling

    2.4. Subrulers intolerable

    Well now - this state of things suppose it to have place in any one of the provinces. When the expence of this military force is defrayed which, by the supposition, the population of the province being hostile, could not be defrayed from any other funds than those created by taxes and paid in Spain, where would be the expected saving in the amount of those same taxes? But sooner or later does it not appear unavoidable that, if any such taxes in the one quarter for the saving of taxes in another be \ZS\ upon, sooner or later, it can not but have place in all the provinces?

    . .2. to Subrulers unendurable A.

    So much as to the prospect of profit to subject many and ruling few in Spain in so far as depends submission on the part of the subject many in the Ultramarian provinces, or rather the subject many and the ruling and influential few taken together.

    Now as to the prospect of profit to subject many in Spain in so far as depends on submission on the part of the ruling and influential few - the ruling class in these same provinces.

    From official emolument from official situations with the profit /emolument power/ and honour attached to them but more particularly the emolument (for upon power and honour alone how preeminent /transcendant/ so ever man can not live) from this source can any adequate benefit in any shape adequate to the probable expence as above be reasonably be looked for in Spain by the ruling few?

    The answer ventured /hazarded/ has already been in the negative. With exceptions to a certain extent /but/ constituting a small amount in proportion to the whole, antecedently to the change the whole /great/ mass of official emolument afforded by /attached to the duty of which are performed/ offices possessed in the Ultramarian provinces had in fact and practice been conferred to Spaniards: to men altogether unknown in the provinces in question, and sent out from Spain for the /undisguised/ professed purpose of receiving that emolument in the provinces at the expence of the inhabitants.
  • Title: [[xxxvi. 25] 1821. April 25]
    Description: [xxxvi. 25]

    1821. April 25

    First Lines

    Constitutional Finance

    In a limited Monarchy, the Financial Department has for its actual end the opposite of frugality, waste - the maximum of waste.

    In this species /Under this form/ of Government, this waste has three objects:

    1. Personal gratification to the several appetites of the ruling one and the sub-ruling influential and opulent few. This object, in so far as regards the appetites of the ruling one, it has in common with absolute monarchy.

    2. Corruption: exercise of corruptive influence for the purpose of securing corrupt obsequiousness on the part of those whose declared duty, and professed endeavour it is, to keep applied to the respective powers of the Monarch and the sub-ruling portion of the Aristocracy those limitations which they respectively acknowledge: corrupt obsequiousness to the effect of causing them to forbear the keeping actually applied those several limitations, thus rendering the Government in form and pretence limited; in effect to the benefit of the ruling one, and the sub-ruling the influential, and the opulent few, and to the sacrifice of the greatest happiness of the greatest number, absolute.

    3. Delusion. In /To/ so far as the waste applies /employs/ itself, by means of corruptive influence, to the production of corrupt obsequiousness, on the part of those self-acknowledged and self-professed trustees for the whole community, it employs itself in rendering them, and, in so far as it produces its intended effect, it actually does render them, by so much inferior, in respect of public virtue and good behaviour - in respect of benevolence, and that beneficence which is the fruit of benevolence upon the most extended /largest/ scale, inferior to the rest of the community taken at large - inferior to the subject many - inferior to the vast majority of the whole population of the country. In the same proportion as those in whom /on whose part/ corrupt obsequiousness is produced, are rendered inferior in these respects, those by whose corruptive influence this corrupt obsequiousness is produced, are rendered, in at least an equal degre, inferior,

    In

    in a word, with reference to their several functions, appropriate moral aptitude.