1822 Feb. 18

Thoughts on Official Economy

The Crown. The expression serves as an instrument of

delusion and for eluding of responsibility.

Of every Office so circumstanced that the holder of it - the

functionary the interest is in a state of opposition to the interest thence of the

happiness of the greatest number the existence is a grievance.

Offices worse than useless - Offices positively and purely pernicious

are 1. the Kingly or say Monarchical Office: 2. every Aristocratical Office - every

Office the holder of which as such possesses a share in Legislative, Administrative

or Judicial power without being displaceable immediately or unimmediately by the

suffrages of the people

1. Proof of perniciousness, interest opposite to that of the greatest

number

2. Disproof of the presumptive evidence of usefulness afforded by

custom - beginning in remote i.e. in early times. Take earliness of date for evidence

of ability to get in every instance to a state of things of which the existing

examples are to be seen in New South Wales etc

3. Monarchy pure Monarchy the original because the simplest form of

government. It had its origin in the necessity men were under of putting themselves

under the command of a single chief in the wars between one savage or barbarian tribe

and another. Thus arose on one part the habit of obedience, on the other part the

habit of command, and by the frequency of actual war and the constancy of preparation

for a state of war the habit of obedience and command was preserved from

interruption.

The children and next relations of the Monarch being naturally most

frequently in his society /company/ and in the largest proportion sharers in his

confidence, hence it is that the elective Monarchy naturally passed into a hereditary

one

But though this was the natural and in the first instance /in early

times/ the inevitable state of things, it follows not that it was the state of things

in the highest degree contributory to the greatest happiness of the greatest

number.