Military and Naval Fees

The power, which commonly accompanies the exercise of public functions, is a kind of salary, that often far exceeds the pecuniary emolument attached to them.

In a well-ordered state:

• law is supreme
• little is left to the arbitrary control of the ruler

There is little opportunity of indulging human caprice and domination.

Yet the discretion, which the law must inevitably vest in those who are to enforce it, and particularly in the ministerial department, together with the honour commonly attendant on the higher offices of the state, have a real value, which makes them eagerly sought for, even in countries where they are by no means lucrative.

The rules of strict economy would probably make it advisable to abridge all pecuniary allowance, wherever there are other sufficient attractions to excite a competition for office, and to confer it on none but the wealthy, were there not a risk

of losing, by the incapacity of the officer, more than would be gained by the abridgment of his salary. This, as Plato well observes in his Republic, would be like entrusting the helm to the richest man on board. Besides, there is some danger, that a man, who gives his services for nothing, will make his authority a matter of gain, however rich he may be.

The wealth of a public functionary is no security against his venality= for ample fortune is commonly accompanied with desires as ample, and probably even more ample, especially if he have to keep up an appearance, both as a man of wealth and a magistrate. Moreover, supposing what is not altogether im- possible, namely, that one can meet with wealth united with probity, and with, besides, the activity requisite to the due performance of public duty, is it wise to run the risk of adding the preponderance of authority to that of wealth, which is already but too manifest? With what grace could his employ- ers call to account an agent, who could assume the merit of generosity, both with the people and with the government? There are, however, some ways, in which the gratuitous ser- vices of the rich may be employed with advantage; particu- larly in those departments, that confer more honour than power= as in the administration of institutions of public char- ity, or of public correction or punishment. the monarch and the nation, who are the parties most inter- ested in good public administration, because it consolidates the power of the one and enlarges the happiness of the other, it is next to impossible for them to exert a perpetual and ef- fectual control. In most cases, this duty must of necessity devolve on agents, who will deceive them when it is their interest to do so, as is proved by abundance of examples. “Public services,” says Smith, “are never better performed than when their reward comes only in consequence of their being performed, and is proportioned to the diligence em- ployed in performing them.” Accordingly, he recommends, that the salaries of judges should be paid at the final determi- nation of each suit, and the share of each judge proportioned to their respective trouble in the progress of it. This would be some encouragement to the diligence of each particular judge, as well as to that of the court, in bringing litigation to an end. There would be some difficulty in applying this method to all the branches of the public service; and it would probably in- troduce as great abuses in the opposite way; but it would at least be productive of one good; viz., preventing the needless multiplication of offices. It would likewise give the public the same advantage of competition as is enjoyed by individu- als, in respect to the services they call for. In France under the old regime, the government, when ha- rassed with the want of money, was in the habit of putting up its offices to sale. This is the very worst of all expedients; it introduces all the mischiefs of gratuitous service; for the emolument is then no more, than the interest of the capital expended in the purchase of the office; and has the additional evil of costing to the state as much as if the service were not gratuitously performed; for the public remains charged with the interest of a capital, that has been consumed and lost. Not only are the time and labour of public men in general better paid for than those of other persons; besides being of- ten wasted by their own mismanagement, without the possi- bility of an efficient check; but there is often a further enor- mous waste, occasioned by compliance with the customs of the country, and court etiquette. It would be curious to calcu- late the time wasted in the toilet, or to estimate, if possible, the many dearly-paid hours lost, in the course of the last cen- tury, on the road between Paris and Versailles. It has been sometimes the practice to consign certain civil functions, such as the registry of births, marriages, and deaths, to the ecclesiastical body, whose emoluments, arising from their clerical duties, may be supposed to enable them to ex- ecute these without pay. But there is always danger in confid- ing the execution of civil duties to a class of men, that pre- tend to a commission from a still higher than a national au- thority. 44

Thus, in the governments of Asia, there is an immense waste of the time of the superior public servants in tedious and cer- emonious observances. The monarch, after allowing for the hours of customary parade, and those of personal pleasure, has little time left to look after his own affairs, which, consequently, soon go to ruin. Frederick II. of Prussia, by adopting a contrary line of conduct, and by the judicious distribution and apportionment of his time. contrived to get through a great deal of business himself.

By this means, he really lived longer than older men than himself, and succeeded in raising his kingdom to a first-rate power.

His other great qualities, doubtless, contributed to his success; but they would not have been sufficient, without a methodical arrangement of his.

In spite of every precaution, the public or the monarch will never be served so well or so cheaply as individuals. Inferior public agents can not be so narrowly watched by their superiors, as private ones; nor have the superiors themselves an equal interest in vigilant superintendence.

Besides, it is easy enough for underlings to impose on a superior, who has many to look after, is perhaps placed at a distance, and can give but little attention to each individually; and whose vanity makes him more alive to the officious zeal of his inferior, than to the real service and utility, that the public good requires. As to

of the Prussians; and, when the violent agitation of the French revolution pressed every resource of science to the aid of the armies of the republic, the enemies of France were obliged to follow the example.

Military and Naval Fees

When a nation has progressed in commerce, manufacture, and the arts, and its products have, consequently, become various and abundant, it would be an immense inconvenience, if every citizen were liable to be dragged from a productive employment and into national defence.

The cultivator of the soil works no longer for the sustenance of himself and family only, but also for that of many other families, who are either owners of the soil, and share in its produce, or traders and manufacturers, that supply him with articles he cannot do without.

He must, therefore, cultivate a larger extent of surface, must vary his tillage, keep a larger stock of cattle, and follow a complex mode of cultivation that will fully occupy his leisure between seed-time and harvest. 45 This extensive application of science, and adaptation of fresh means and more ample resources to military purposes, have made war far more expensive now than in former times.

It is necessary now-a-days, to provide an army beforehand, with supplies of arms, ammunition, magazines of provision, ordnance, &c., equal to the consumption of one campaign at the least. The invention of gunpowder has introduced the use of weapons more complex and expensive, and very chargeable in the transport, especially the field and battering trains. Moreover, the wonderful improvement of naval tactics, the variety of vessels of every class and construction, all requir- ing the utmost exertion of human genius and industry; the yards, docks, machinery, store-houses, &c. have entailed upon nations addicted to war almost as heavy an expense in peace, as in times of actual hostility; and obliged them not only to expend a great portion of their income, but to vest a great amount of capital likewise in military establishments.

In addition to which, it is to be observed, that the modern colonial system, that is to say, the system of retaining the sovereignty of towns and provinces in distant parts of the world, has made the European states open to attack and aggression in the most remote quarters of the globe, and the whole world the theatre of warfare, when any of the leading powers are the belligerents. 46

Still less can the trader and manufacturer afford thus to sacrifice time and talents, whereof the constant occupation, ex- cept during the intervals of rest, is necessary to the production, from which they are to derive their subsistence.

The owners of land let out to farm may, undoubtedly, serve as soldiers without pay; as, indeed, the nobility and gentry do, in some measure, in monarchical states; but they are, for the most part, so much accustomed to the sweets of social exist- ence, so little goaded by necessity towards the conception and achievement of great enterprises, and feel so little of the enthusiasm of emulation and esprit de corps, that they commonly prefer a pecuniary sacrifice to that of comfort, and possibly of life.

These motives operate equally with the owners of capital.

Wealth has, consequently, become as indispensable as valour to the prosecution of modern warfare; and a poor nation can no longer withstand a rich one. Wherefore, since wealth can be acquired only by industry and frugality, it may safely be predicted, that every nation, whose agriculture, manufacture, and commerce, shall be ruined by bad government, or exor- bitant taxation, must infallibly fall under the yoke of its more provident neighbours. We may further conclude, that hence- forward national strength will accompany national science and civilization; for none but civilized nations can maintain considerable standing armies; so that there is no reason to apprehend the future recurrence of those sudden overthrows of civilized empires by the influx of barbarous tribes, of which history affords many examples.

All these reasons have led individuals, in most modern states, to consent to a taxation, that may enable the monarch or the republic to defend the country against external violence with a hired and professional soldiery, who are, however, too apt to become the tools of their leader’s ambition or tyranny.

When war has become a trade, it benefits, like all other trades, from the division of labour. Every branch of human science is pressed into its service. Distinction or excellence, whether in the capacity of general, engineer, subaltern, or even pri- vate soldier, can not be obtained without long training, perhaps, and constant practice. The nation, which should act upon a different principle, would lie under the disadvantage of opposing the imperfection, to the perfection, of art.

Thus, excepting the cases, in which the enthusiasm of a whole nation has been roused to action, the advantage has uniformly been on the side of a disciplined and professional soldiery.

The Turks, although professing the utmost contempt for the arts of their Christian neighbours, are compelled by the dread of extermination, to be their scholars in the art of war.

The European powers were all forced to adopt the military tactics War costs a nation more than its actual expense; it costs besides, all that would have been gained, but for its occurrence.

When Louis XIV in 1672, resolved in a fit of passion, to chastise the Dutch for the insolence of their newspaper writ- ers, Boreel. the Dutch ambassador, laid before him a memorial showing that France through the medium of Holland, sold produce annually to foreign nations, to the amount of 60 million fr. at the then scale of price; which will fall little short of 120 millions (22,000,000 of dollars) at the present.

But the court treated his representations as the mere empty bravado of an ambassador.

But human intelligence will not stand still; the same impulse that has hitherto borne it onwards, will continue to advance it yet further. 48

The very circumstance of the vast increase of expense attending national warfare has made it impossible for governments henceforth to engage in it, without the public assent, express or implied; and that assent will be obtained with the more difficulty, in proportion as the public shall become more generally acquainted with their real interest.

The national military establishment will be reduced to what is barely sufficient to repel external attack; for which purpose little more is necessary, than a small body of such kinds of troops as can not be had without long training and exercise; as of cavalry and artillery.

For the rest, nations will rely on their militia, and on the excellence of their internal polity: for it is next to impossible to conquer a people unanimous in their attachment to their national institutions; and their attachment will always be proportionate to the loss they will incur by a change of domination. 49

To conclude: the charges of war would be very incorrectly estimated, were we to take no account of the havoc and de- struction it occasions; for that one at least of the belligerents, whose territory happens to be the scene of operations, must be exposed to its ravages.

The more industrious the nation, the more does it suffer from warfare. When it penetrates into a district abounding in agricultural, manufacturing, and commercial establishments, it is like a fire in a place full of combustibles; its fury is aggravated, and the devastation prodigious.

Adam Smith calls the soldier an unproductive labourer; would to God he were nothing more, and not a destructive one into the bargain! he not only adds no product of his own 47 to the general stock of wealth, in return for the necessary subsistence he consumes, but is often set to work to destroy the fruits of other people’s labour and toil, without doing himself any benefit.

The tardy, but irresistible expansion of intelligence will probably operate a still further change in external political relations, and with it a prodigious saving of expenditure for the purposes of war. Nations will be taught to know that they have really no interest in fighting one another; that they are sure to suffer all the calamities incident to defeat, while the advantages of success are altogether illusory.

According to the international policy of the present day, the vanquished are sure to be taxed by the victor, and the victor by domestic authority: for the interest of loans must be raised by taxation.

There is no instance on record, of any diminution of national expenditure being effected by the most successful issue of hostilities. And, what is the glory it can confer more than a mere toy of the most extravagant price, that can never even amuse rational minds for any length of time? Dominion by land or sea will appear equally destitute of attraction, when it comes to be generally understood, that all its advantages rest with the rulers, and that the subjects at large derive no benefit whatever.

To private individuals, the greatest possible benefit is entire freedom of intercourse, which can hardly be en- joyed except in peace. Nature prompts nations to mutual

amity; and, if their governments take upon themselves to interrupt it, and engage them in hostility, they are equally in- imical to their own people, and to those they war against. If their subjects are weak enough to second the ruinous vanity or ambition of their rulers in this propensity, I know not now to distinguish such egregious folly and absurdity, from that of the brutes that are trained to fight and tear each other to pieces, for the mere amusement of their savage masters.