Should he who has the disposal of the reward assert---``Iam acquainted with an individual more competent than any other to perform the service in question, and with whom no one can be placed in competition''---his assertion is exposed to this dilemma: upon a fair trial of skill, either this person will stand first, or he will not: if he stand first, the competition is not to his prejudice, but redounds to his honour; if another excel him, the advantage of a free competition is proved.Partiality is either mischievous or unnecessary.
We next consider the question as it affects the interest of those who might be admitted as competitors.
Reward in its own nature is a good : all competitors think so, and that a balance of good remains even after deducting the evil of that labour, whatever it be, which is expended in the performance of the service, or they would not be competitors.He who has the disposal of the reward thinks so, or he would neither offer it, nor be so anxious as he sometimes is to secure it for those to whom he wishes to give a preference.
But when there is no special reason to the contrary, why should not all the members of a state have a chance of obtaining the goods to be distributed in that state? To exclude any man from any chance be might have of bettering himself, is at best a hardship: if no special reason can be given for it, it is injustice, and one of those species of injustice which, if administered on pretence of delinquency, would openly bear the name of punishment.
It may be objected, that if a free competition were allowed, ``the number of competitors would be very great, while the reward being confined to one, or to a very small number, one only will be paid for his labour; the lot of the rest would be lost labour and disappointment:
that the public would be losers by their labours being diverted from service of greater utility, and that the service would, without this competition, be performed in a sufficient degree of perfection, or if performed in any higher degree, would be of no further use.''
The following considerations may serve as a reply to these objections.Where there is nothing more than the mere loss of labour to those who can afford to lose it, or of any thing else to those who can afford to part with it, the possible amount of mischief, be it what it may, can afford no sufficient reason for narrowing competition.
If there be the pain of disappointment after trial, there has been the pleasure of expectation before trial; and the latter, there is reason to believe, is upon an average much greater than the former.The pleasure is of longer continuance; it fills a larger space in the mind; and the larger, the longer it continues.The pain of disappointment comes on in a moment, and gives place to the first dawning of a new hope, or is driven out by other cares.If it be true, that the principal part of happiness consists in hope, and that but few of our hopes are completely realized, it would be necessary, that men might be spared from disappointment, to shut them out from joy.
It may further be observed, that the liberty of competition seldom includes so many as, if considered with regard to the particular nature of the service, it would seem to include.Where it is not restrained by institution, it is often restrained by nature, and that sometimes within very narrow bounds.Services depending on opportunity, are confined to those to whom fortune shall have given the opportunity;---services depending on science or on art, are confined to those whom education and practice have familiarized with the science or the art,---services depending on station, are confined to one, or to the few, if there be more than one, who at the time in question are invested with that station.Thus the objection derived from the too great number of competitors is almost always without foundation.
It also often happens, that, independently of the reward given to the successful candidate, the service even of the unsuccessful pays itself.This is more particularly apt to be the case with regard to services of indefinite eminence which depend on skill.Some develops their talents---others obtain notoriety; one discourse obtains the reward---twenty candidates have improved their minds in endeavouring to obtain it.The athletic exercises, which on such a vast variety of occasions were celebrated throughout ancient Greece, seem to have been open to all comers: it was but one at each game that could obtain the prize, but even the unsuccessful combatants found a sort of subordinate advantage in the reputation of having contended, and in the advances made by them in those energies, which at that time of day gave a distinguished lustre to every one who excelled in them.
It may even happen, that the service of the successful shall be no object, and that the services looked to on the part of him who institutes the reward shall be those which are performed by the unsuccessful.
The Grecian games just mentioned, may be taken as an example.The strength of the successful combatant was no sensible advantage to the country: the object aimed at was the encouragement of personal prowess and skill.In this country, the prizes given at horse-races have a similar sort of object.
From the few horses who win, the public may reap no particular advantage;but the horses which are beaten, or never contend for the prize, are improved by the emulation to which it has given birth.
