1821. Aug. 3 d.

Rid Yourselves

Lett 2. Interests concerned

not to be matched in any other country, in any age. If, therefore, the

usefulness of this part of the official establishment to

the whole nation taken together, were the only

consideration to be adverted to, here is a mass of constant expenditure, from which,

not merely might ample retrenchment be made, but of which,

according to the above principles, were these the only ones that bore upon the

subject, the entire aggregate might be struck off with

indisputable advantage, and without detriment in any shape.

According to the document above brought to view in the Introduction,

the expenditure belonging to this one head can not be much,

if any thing inferior, to the whole remainder of the

expenditure employed upon really necessary and nationally useful purposes.

But, the welfare of the individuals, of whom that class is composed,

forms as large a portion of the welfare of the whole community as does the welfare of

the same number of individuals taken together from any other class; and, to those

whose situations stand visibly exhibited upon the list of offices, require to be added all such individuals belonging to any productive classes, in so far as their subsistence is in

such sort dependent upon the consumption, of these consuming classes, that upon the

cessation of such consumption, their means of subsistence would either altogether, or

to a degree more or less considerable, be extinct. True it is - that of that which

would in case of the retrenchment in question be lost to this part of the community,

a great part would be gain to the whole of which they form a part. But, where the sum

of money, or money's worth is the same and the number of sharers the same, the good

produced by gain is far from being equal to the evil produced by loss. Moreover, of

all sudden transfers of capital from one branch of production to others, one

consequence is - a quantity more or less considerable of dead

loss.

You see the counterdemand, by which, in

this particular instance, the demand for retrenchment is

opposed and limited. Of this counterdemand the application,

it is to be observed, reaches no further than to the present

posessors of the situation in question, with the addition of such expectants, whose grounds of expectation as to acquisition are as firm as the grounds of expectation as to

retention are in the case of the possessor. The consequence is that, supposing the plea admitted, the list of

the portions of expenditure susceptible of defalcation, will be reduced to such

offices, as shall necessarily become vacant by the death of

the present possessors, with the correspondent list, if any such there be, of expectants, as above described.

II As to The Clergy. In considering, on the

one hand, the demand for retrenchment, on the other hand,

the room for it as applied to this case,- no assumption

need or ought to be proceeded upon, inconsistent with that, according to which,

whatsover may become of the worldly interest of this short

and