OF THE SALE OF OFFICES.If it be desirable that the public servants should be contented with small salaries, it is more desirable that they should be willing to serve gratuitously, and most desirable that they should be willing to pay for the liberty of serving, instead of being paid for their services.Such is the simple but conclusive train of argument in favour of the venality of offices, abstractly considered.
Such an arrangement is attended with another advantage.
A sum laid out in the purchase of an office renders the purchaser responsible in a higher degree than he would be, were he to receive a salary equal to, or even exceeding in amount, the interest of the money he has paid.
The loss of a salary paid by the public, is merely the cessation of so much gain; the loss of an office which has been purchased, is the positive loss of so much capital which the individual has actually possessed.The impression produced upon the mind by these two species of loss is widely different.The cessation of a gain is generally much less severely felt, than a loss to a corresponding amount.The gain which depends upon external circumstances is always precarious---it cannot be reckoned upon with certainty;on the other band, if an individual have purchased an office with his own capital, he looks upon it as absolutely his own; it comes to be regarded as a certain, fixed, and permanent source of revenue, and as identified with his original property, upon which be has always reckoned.
When a man purchases an office, it may be fairly presumed that he possesses appropriate aptitude for the discharge of its duties.Are there pecuniary emoluments attached to an office,---the office may be accepted for the sake of these emoluments.Are there no pecuniary emoluments,---the office can be desired only on account of its duties, or of the natural rewards of honour and power which are inseparable from it.Such, at least, is the ordinary state of things.it is, however, possible that such an office might be desired as a means of obtaining some hidden profit prejudicial to the public: but this would be a particular case, whose existence ought to be established by proof.
It is not by names alone that we can determine whether it be most advantageous for the public, that offices should without emoluments be given away, or when with emoluments should be sold: this question can only be determined by an accurate account, exhibiting the balance of the sums paid and received.If, however, there be any offices without emoluments, for which purchasers can be found,---were it possible to sell purely honorary appointments, offices connected with public pomp and show, it would be entirely consistent with good economy: it would be to convert a tax upon honour, unfelt by any one, but established in favour of the purchasers, into hard cash.A tax would thus be levied upon vanity.
The gain would be real, though the bargain, like that of the Lapland sorcerers, were only for bags of wind.
As it respects offices of which the emoluments are fixed, the question of economy is simple: the amount of the emoluments does not differ from a perpetual rent.But when an office is sold, the profits of which, whether received from the public or levied upon individuals, are uncertain in amount, this uncertainty causes a presumption against the economy of the bargain: it is disadvantageous to the public to be subject to uncertain expenses, and it is not probable that these uncertain profits will sell for so large a price as would willingly be paid for a salary equal to their average amount.
Again, as to emoluments derived solely from individuals.
These are a species of tax often created and alienated at the same time in favour of the office.The general presumption cannot but be unfavourable to taxes imposed under such circumstances.In former times, when the science of political economy was in its cradle---when taxes and the methods of collecting them were little understood---governments have frequently thus alienated large branches of the public revenue: tempt by an immediate supply, they either did or would not regard the extent of the sacrifices they made.
The history of French finance is replete with instances of this kind.The customs of Orleans, which were originally purchased by a Duke of Orleans for 60,000 francs , afterwards yielded to his posterity a yearly revenue of more than 1,000,000 francs.
The venality of offices in that kingdom had an exceedingly complex, and consequently exceedingly vicious, system.The offices conferring hereditary nobility especially mischievous, since this nobility a multitude of exemptions.They paid no taxes.Hence every creation of nobility was a tax, equal in value to the exemption granted, thrown upon those who continued liable to pay them.
