[xxxvi. 36]

1821. June 1 st

First Lines

Constitution Finance

Pensions of Retreat

th.

In the first place, these source of waste and corruption - Pensons of retreat, may be stated as being altogether needless: and to say that what is thus disposed of is given needlessly /needless/ is to say that it is given in waste.

Allowances is thus made may either be made with certainty, in virtue of general rules applied to all individual cases, or incidentally for special cause assigned in each individual case. To the first case, preferably at least if not exclusively apply the observations following.

Labour applied directly to a man's own use, or indirectly in exchange for an /equall/ equivalent given by an individual in return for it, is one source of subsistence: labour employed for an equivalent in the service of government, that is of the public at large, is another source. In the first case, generally speaking, no such allowance of reward after service has ceased has place. First, in the case of him whose subsistence is derived from dealings with the public at large, as in the case of a wholesale or retail trader, a Master Manufacturer, an artizan, or a Manufacturer, it is impossible. In the case of habitual service rendered by contract to an individual, there is no custom for it. The case of incapacity produced by age or disease, is a case equally open to expectancy in both instances. From the time of his embarking in his profit - seeking occupation, a man makes for all such contingencies such provision as his means enable him to make, and his prudence disposed him to make. For the securing to individuals any such extraordinary supply at the expence of the public there is, if there be any difference, less demand in the case of an occupation pursued by the rendering of service to the public for hire, than in the case of him whose subsistence, as above, is derived from commercial dealings with individuals.