It is time that nations should be rational, and not be governed like animals, for the pleasure of their riders.To read the history of kings, a man would be almost inclined to suppose that government consisted in stag-hunting, and that every nation paid a million a-year to a huntsman.Man ought to have pride, or shame enough to blush at being thus imposed upon, and when he feels his proper character he will.Upon all subjects of this nature, there is often passing in the mind, a train of ideas he has not yet accustomed himself to encourage and communicate.Restrained by something that puts on the character of prudence, he acts the hypocrite upon himself as well as to others.It is, however, curious to observe how soon this spell can be dissolved.Asingle expression, boldly conceived and uttered, will sometimes put a whole company into their proper feelings: and whole nations are acted on in the same manner.
As to the offices of which any civil government may be composed, it matters but little by what names they are described.In the routine of business, as before observed, whether a man be styled a president, a king, an emperor, a senator, or anything else, it is impossible that any service he can perform, can merit from a nation more than ten thousand pounds a year; and as no man should be paid beyond his services, so every man of a proper heart will not accept more.Public money ought to be touched with the most scrupulous consciousness of honour.It is not the produce of riches only, but of the hard earnings of labour and poverty.It is drawn even from the bitterness of want and misery.Not a beggar passes, or perishes in the streets, whose mite is not in that mass.
Were it possible that the Congress of America could be so lost to their duty, and to the interest of their constituents, as to offer General Washington, as president of America, a million a year, he would not, and he could not, accept it.His sense of honour is of another kind.It has cost England almost seventy millions sterling, to maintain a family imported from abroad, of very inferior capacity to thousands in the nation; and scarcely a year has passed that has not produced some new mercenary application.Even the physicians' bills have been sent to the public to be paid.No wonder that jails are crowded, and taxes and poor-rates increased.Under such systems, nothing is to be looked for but what has already happened; and as to reformation, whenever it come, it must be from the nation, and not from the government.
To show that the sum of five hundred thousand pounds is more than sufficient to defray all the expenses of the government, exclusive of navies and armies, the following estimate is added, for any country, of the same extent as England.
In the first place, three hundred representatives fairly elected, are sufficient for all the purposes to which legislation can apply, and preferable to a larger number.They may be divided into two or three houses, or meet in one, as in France, or in any manner a constitution shall direct.
As representation is always considered, in free countries, as the most honourable of all stations, the allowance made to it is merely to defray the expense which the representatives incur by that service, and not to it as an office.
If an allowance, at the rate of five hundred pounds per annum, be made to every representative, deducting for non-attendance, the expense, if the whole number attended for six months, each year, would be L 75,00The official departments cannot reasonably exceed the following number, with the salaries annexed:
Three offices at ten thousand pounds each L 30,000Ten ditto, at five thousand pounds each 50,000Twenty ditto, at two thousand pounds each 40,000Forty ditto, at one thousand pounds each 40,000Two hundred ditto, at five hundred pounds each 100,000Three hundred ditto, at two hundred pounds each 60,000Five hundred ditto, at one hundred pounds each 50,000Seven hundred ditto, at seventy-five pounds each 52,500--------
L497,500
If a nation choose, it can deduct four per cent.from all offices, and make one of twenty thousand per annum.
All revenue officers are paid out of the monies they collect, and therefore, are not in this estimation.
The foregoing is not offered as an exact detail of offices, but to show the number of rate of salaries which five hundred thousand pounds will support; and it will, on experience, be found impracticable to find business sufficient to justify even this expense.As to the manner in which office business is now performed, the Chiefs, in several offices, such as the post-office, and certain offices in the exchequer, etc., do little more than sign their names three or four times a year; and the whole duty is performed by under-clerks.
Taking, therefore, one million and a half as a sufficient peace establishment for all the honest purposes of government, which is three hundred thousand pounds more than the peace establishment in the profligate and prodigal times of Charles the Second (notwithstanding, as has been already observed, the pay and salaries of the army, navy, and revenue officers, continue the same as at that period), there will remain a surplus of upwards of six millions out of the present current expenses.The question then will be, how to dispose of this surplus.
Whoever has observed the manner in which trade and taxes twist themselves together, must be sensible of the impossibility of separating them suddenly.
First.Because the articles now on hand are already charged with the duty, and the reduction cannot take place on the present stock.
