MATTER OF REWARD---REASONS FOR HUSBANDING If it be proper to be frugal in the distribution of punishment, it is no less proper to be so in the distribution of reward.
Evil is inflicted in both cases.The difference is, that punishment is an evil to him to whom it is applied---reward, to him at whose expense it is applied.The matter of reward, and the matter of punishment, spring from the same root.Is money bestowed as a reward? Such money can only arise from taxes, or original revenue---can only be bestowed at the public expense:---truths so obvious, that proof is unnecessary; but which ought on all occasions to be recollected, since, all other circumstances being equal, to pay a tax to a given amount is a greater evil than to receive it is good.
Rewards, consisting in honour, it is commonly said, cost nothing.This is, however, a mistake.Honours not only enhance the price of services; (as we shall presently see,) they also occasion expenses and burthens which cannot be estimated in money.There is no honour without pre-eminence: if, then, of two persons, for example, who are equal, one profits by being made the higher, the other suffers in at least equal proportion by being made the lower of the two.With regard to honours which confer rank and privileges, there are commonly two sets of persons at whose expense honour is conferred: the persons from amongst whom the new dignitary is taken, and the persons, if any, to whom he is aggregated by his elevation.Thus the greater the addition made to the number of peers, the more their importance is diminished---the greater is the defalcation made from the value of their rank.
The case is similar with reward to power.
It is by taking away liberty or security , that power is conferred; and the share of each man is the less, the greater the number of co-partners in it.The power conferred in any case must he either new or old: if new, it is conferred at the expense of those who are subject to it; if old, at the expense of those by whom it was formerly exercised.
Exemptions given in the way of reward may appear at first sight but little expensive.This may be one reason why they have been so liberally granted by shortsighted sovereigns.It ought however to be recollected, that in the case of public burthens, the exemption of one increases the burthen on the remainder: if it be honourable to be exempted from them, it becomes a disgrace to bear them, and such partial exemptions at length give birth to general discontent.
The exemption from arrest for debt, enjoyed by members of parliaments are a reward conferred at the expense of their creditors.
Exemptions from parish offices and military services are rewards conferred at the expense of those who are exposed to the chance of bearing them.
The burthen of exemptions from taxes falls upon those who contribute to the exigencies of the state.
A privilege to carry on, in concurrence with a limited number of other persons, a particular branch of truce, is an exemption from the exclusion which persons in general are laid under with reference to that trade: the favour is shown at the expense of the persons who are sharers in the privilege.
If there be an instance in which any modification of the matter of reward could be conferred without expense, it will be found among those which consist in exemption from punishment.When an exemption of this sort is conferred, the expense of it, if there be any, is borne by those who are interested in the infliction of the punishment; that is, by those in whose favour the law was made, which the punishment was intended to enforce.But if, by the impunity given, the sanction of the laws be weakened, and crimes consequently multiplied, the pardon granted to criminals is dearly paid for by their victims.
The evil of prodigality is not confined to the diminishing the fund of reward: it operates as a law against real merit.
If rewards arc bestowed upon pretended services, such pretended services enter into competition with real services, He succeeds best, who aims, not to entitle himself to the gratitude of the people, but to captivate the goodwill of him at whose disposal the fund of reward is placed.Obsequiousness and courtly vices triumph over virtue and genius.The art of pleasing is elevated at the expense of the art of serving.
What is the consequence? Real services are not performed, or they are purchased at extravagant prices.It id not sufficient that the price paid for them be equal to that of the false services: beyond this, there must be a surplus to compensate the labour which real services require.``If so much is given to one who has done nothing, how much more is due to me, who have borne the heat and the burthen of the day?---if parasites are thus rewarded, how much more is due to my talents and industry?'', Such is the language which will naturally be employed, and not without reason, by the man of conscious merit.
It is thus that the amount of the evil is perpetually accumulating.The greater the amount already lavished, the greater the demand for still further prodigality; as in the case of punishment, the more profusely it has been dealt out, the greater oftentimes is the need of employing still more.
When by the display of extraordinary zeal and distinguished talents, a public functionary has rendered great services to his country,---to associate him with the crowd of ordinary subordinates, is to degrade him.
He will feel in respect of the fund of reward, in the same manner as the disposer of it ought to have felt.He will consider himself injured, not only when anything is refused to him, but when anything is bestowed upon those who have not deserved it.
A profuse distribution of honours is attended with a double inconvenience: in the first place it deteriorates the stock; and in the next, it is productive of great pecuniary expense.When a peerage, for example, is conferred, it is generally necessary to add to it a pension, under the notion of enabling the bearer to sustain its dignity.
