[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.