An article which deserves the maturest consideration, and by means of which political institution does not fail to produce the most important influence upon opinion, is that of the mode of rewarding public services.
The mode which has obtained in all European countries is that of pecuniary reward. He who is employed to act in behalf of the public is recompensed with a salary. He who retires from that employment is recompensed with a pension. The arguments in support of this system are well known. It has been remarked 'that indeed it may be creditable to individuals to be willing to serve their country without a reward; but that it is a becoming pride on the part of the public to refuse to receive as an alms that for which they are well able to pay. If one man, animated by the most disinterested motives, be permitted to serve the public upon these terms, another will assume the exterior of disinterestedness, as a step towards the gratification of a sinister ambition. If men be not openly and directly paid for the services they perform, we may rest assured that they will pay themselves, by ways a thousand times more injurious. He who devotes himself to the public ought to devote himself entire: he will therefore be injured in his personal fortune, and ought to be replaced. Add to this that the servants of the public ought, by their appearance and mode of living, to command respect both from their countrymen, and from foreigners; and that this circumstance will require an expense, for which it is the office of their country to provide.'
Before this argument can be sufficiently estimated, it will be necessary for us to consider the analogy between labour in its most usual acceptation, and labour for the public service, what are the points in which they resemble, and in which they differ. If I cultivate a field the produce of which is necessary for my subsistence, this is an innocent and laudable action;Chapter he first object it proposes is my own emolument; and it cannot be unreasonable that that object should be much in my contemplation, while labour is performing.
If I cultivate a field the produce of which is not necessary to my subsistence, but which I propose to give in barter for a garment, the case becomes different.
The action here does not, properly speaking, begin in myself. Its immediate object is to provide food for another; and it seems to be, in some degree, a perversion of intellect that causes me to place in an inferior point of view the inherent quality of the action, and to do that which is, in the first instance, beneficent, from a partial retrospect to my own advantage.
Still the perversion here, at least to our habits of reflecting and judging, does not appear violent. The action differs only in form from that which is direct. I employ that labour in cultivating a field which must otherwise be employed in manufacturing a garment. The garment I propose to myself as the end of my labour. We are not apt to conceive of this species of barter and trade as greatly injurious to our moral discernment.
But then this is an action, in the slightest degree, indirect. It does not follow, because we are induced to do some actions immediately beneficial to others from a selfish motive, that we can admit of this, in all instances, with impunity. It does not follow, because we are sometimes inclined to be selfish, that we must never be generous. The love of our neighbour is the great ornament of a moral nature: the perception of truth is the most solid improvement of an intellectual nature. He that sees nothing in the universe deserving of regard but himself, is a consummate stranger to the dictates of general and impartial reason. He that is not influenced in his conduct by the real and inherent nature of things is rational to no purpose. Admitting that it is venial to do some actions, immediately beneficial to my neighbour, from a partial retrospect to myself, surely there must be other actions in which I ought to forget, or endeavour to forget myself.
This duty is most obligatory in actions most extensive in their consequences.
If a thousand men are to be benefited, I ought to recollect that I am only an atom in the comparison, and to reason accordingly.
These considerations may enable us to decide upon the article of pensions and salaries. Surely it ought not to be the end of a good political institution to increase our selfishness, instead of suffering it to dwindle and decay.
If we pay an ample salary to him who is employed in the public service how are we sure that he will not have more regard to the salary than to the public? If we pay a small salary, yet the very existence of such a payment will oblige men to compare the work performed, and the reward bestowed;Chapter nd all the consequence that will result will be to drive the best men from the service of their country, a service first degraded by being paid, and then paid with an ill-timed parsimony. Whether the salary be large or small, if a salary exist, many will desire the office for the sake of its appendage. Functions the most extensive in their consequences, will be converted into a trade. How humiliating will it be to the functionary himself, amidst the complication and subtlety of motives, to doubt whether the salary were not one of his inducements to the accepting the office?
If he stand acquitted to himself, it is however still to be regretted that grounds should be afforded to his countrymen which tempt them to misrepresent his views.