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1824. April 30
Constitutional Code§. Remuneration
☞ Insert. As these draughts for regard and respect
ought not be to give use for extra public service, still less
without do.
In an government they
do have evil.
Rationale
(a) Art 13 [arbitrarily conferred] that is to say otherwise than judicially
Reasons for this inhibition are as follows. They consist in are composed of an indication
given of the evil, or evil effects produced by the species of institution
thus inhibited. These evils are as follows.
1. Evil 1. Probable compleat destruction of a republican Constitution
such as the present: namely by the conversion of it into a Monarchical one.
1. Evil 1. The Either by a single functionary, or by a body of functionaries
much such collation if at all be made.
2. Made otherwise than
by a single functionary it could not be, without departure from one of
the most exclusively operating principles of the Constitution, namely single-seatedness
of in the several situations, with scarce any other exceptions than that
afforded by the two Legislatures Supreme and Subordinate. Lodged
3. Single hand therefore for the possession of such a function no other
could be found than the Prime Minister.
4. But if lodged in the
hand of a functionary so situated, and the rare case incidence of dislocation
excepted, situated seated therein for life, nothing more would in the hands
of a man of interference be requisite to enable him to require constitute
himself an absolute Monarch.⊞
⊞5. By the supposition, the
pretence on which the
matter of reward would
by this chief functionary
be conferred would be
that of
service rendered to the
in some extraordinary
shape or degree to the
public at large by the
each individual in
whom it was conferred.
But by the supposition
it being arbitrarily conferred
and not judicially
there is nothing to
its being in any an instance
employed in any
such endeavour to prevent
the public service: there is
nothing to prevent its being
employed in every instance
in the endeavour to promote
the particular and sinister
interest of this individual
at the expence of the universal
interest – its would being
therefore employed in this
pernicious way would therefore
be almost a matter of course.
6. By arbitrary power in this shape he would
be enabled bette by little to obtain power to an indefinite extent
power and at the same time money.
7. By the prospect, as occasion
served by acquisition and possession of the matter, of the matter of good
applied to the purpose of the matter of reward in this shape of the object of grand desire in
this shape, receivable by themselves, or what would come nearly to
the same thing by their respective connections connected with them
by the tie of self-regarding interest or by that of sympathetic interest,
little by little he would gain over to hiw own and
enlist in this his cause the Minister of the several Sub-departments,
in particular Election Minister, Legislation Minister, Army Minister, Navy Minister and Finance
Minister: not to speak of the Justice Minister, the rather, as by this supposition the power of dislocating than respectively,
or by the supposition howsoever modified is by the supposition
also in his hands: and by every such conquest, every other augmented facility would
would be facilitated given to every succeeding one.
10. In this case as
in every other case of corruption, to the production of the corrupt obsequiousness, invitation – proposal – nothing of that
sort, no concert, no explanation no communication in any
shape between corrupter and corruptee would be necessary: for the securing
of the requisite wishes, the desires, the endeavours relative situation
would of itself be abundantly sufficient.
11. As to the potency of the instance, But t'other day, by one King of
England one of his garters was sent as a present to another King: by the
King of England to the King of Portugal: sent it could not have been but
under the assurance of its being acceptable: a source of gratification at any
rate, if not an object of desire. But if to one Monarch an the implement of
this sort or if it constitutes course
a source of gratification
an object of desire, how
much stronger would not
the appetite for it be in the
situation of a one out of 11
or 12 Ministers of so many depa Sub-departments in under by which frugality is maximized, and for those and all other situations the relatively indigent the preference given over the relatively opulent?
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