SALARY---HOW A REWARD There are many species of service, and even services of a positive nature, of which governments stand in constant and uninterrupted need: such for the most part are the duties of those who are employed in the different departments of every government.The political state or condition, on account of which individuals possessing it are considered liable to render these services, is called a place, an office, or an employment.
To these places it is both natural and customary to attach, under the title of emolument, certain portions of the matter of wealth.If such emolument be determinate in amount, and paid at regularly recurring periods, it is called a salary.
It is the nature of a reward to operate as a motive, and in that capacity to give birth to acts which, by the person by whom the reward is held up to view, are esteemed services: the greater the reward, the greater is the motive it constftutes; the greater the motive, the more strenuous the exertion it has a tendency to produce: and if the value of the service be susceptible of an indefinite degree of perfection, the more strenuous the exertion to perform it, the greater, as far as depends upon the will of the party, will be the value of the service.Hence it follows, that if salary be reward, as far as funds can be found, salaries cannot be too large.How different the state of things presented to us when we consult experience.We see small salaries, and the service admirably well performed: large salaries, and nothing done for them.In certain lines, we see the service regularly worse and worse performed, in proportion to the largeness of the salary.Where then lies the error? In experience there can be none: in the argument there is none.The error lies in its not being properly understood: and that in general it has not been properly understood, the bad management and weak measures so frequent in this line are but too pregnant proofs.To understand the argument aright, two points must be observed; The one is, to consider, for illustration's sake, that just in the same manner as punishment,---and in no other manner, though with less certainty of effect,---is reward capable of acting as a motive: the other point is, to consider what is really the service for which a salary is a reward.
What, then, is the service, with respect to which a salary operates as a motive? The answer which would be generally given to this question is, the continued service belonging to the office to which the salary is annexed.Obvious as this answer may seem, it is not the true one.The service, and the only service, with respect to which a salary can operate as a motive, is either the simple instantaneous service of taking upon one the office, or the permanent service of continuing to stand invested with it.If the duties of the office---the services in the expectation of which the salary annexed to the office is bestowed, happen to be performed, it cannot be owing merely and immediately to the salary:
it Must be owing to some other motive.If there were no other motive, the service would not be rendered.Nothing is done without a motive---what, then, is this other motive? It must be either of the nature of reward or punishment.It may by possibility be of the nature of reward; but if it be so, One or other of these rewards would seem superfluous: in common, it is principally of the nature Of punishment.In as far as this is the case, the service for which the salary, considered as a reward, is given, is the service of taking upon one the obligation constituted by the punishment---the obligation of performing the services expected from him who possesses the office.
That the zeal displayed in discharging the duties of an office should not be in proportion to the salary, will now no longer appear strange.Experience is reconciled to theory.This subject will receive elucidation, if we substitute punishment for reward, and conider what tendency such a motive would have to give birth to any service, if connected with it in the same manner as a salary is an exed to an office.
Suppose a scbool-master, intending to connet the business of his school with regularity, were to make it a rule, on a certain day, at be beginning of every quarter, to call all his scholars before him, and to give each ten lashes, committing their behaviour during the rest of the quarter altogether to their discretion:---the policy of this master would be the exact counterpart of the founder of the school towards the master, if be has sought to attach him to the duties of his oftice by bestowing upon him a salary.Suppose the Master, finding that under this discipline the progress of his scholars did not equal his expectations, should resolve to increase his exertions, and accordingly should double the dose of stripes:---his policy in this case would be the exact counterpart of the founder, who by the single operation of increasing the master's salary, should think to increase his diligence.
