RULES AS TO EMOLUMENTS Before we enter upon this subject in detail, it may be necessary to remark, that the proper application of the following rules will depend upon the nature of the service required, and its various local circumstances.It is only by observing the peculiar character assumed by abuse in each office, that appropriate remedies for each particular evil can be provided.Since it is impossible to make a complete catalogue of all errors, and to anticipate every species of abuse, the rules laid down may not constitute a perfect system.They may, however, serve as a warning against errors and abuses which have by experience been found to exist, and also against some which may be imagined likely to exist.It is useful to erect beacons upon rocks whose existence has been made known by the shipwrecks they have caused.Among the rules about to be given, some may appear so self-evident as almost to seem superfluous: but if it can be shown that errors have arisen from the neglect of them in practice, such rules, though not entitled to be considered as discoveries, must at least be regarded as necessary warning; they may teach nothing new, but they may serve to recall principles which it is desirable should be constantly and clearly remembered.
Rule I.Emoluments ought in such manner to be attached to offices, as to produce the most intimate connexion between the duty and the interest of the person employed.
This rule may be applied in insuring assiduous attendance on the part of the persons employed.In different offices, different services are required; but the greater number of offices have this one circumstance in common: that their duties may be performed, it is necessary that the individual holding the office should be at a certain time in a certain place.Hence, of all duties, assiduous attendance is the first, the most simple, and the most universal.In many cases, to insure the performance of this duty, is to insure the performance of every other duty.When the clerk is at his desk, the judge upon the bench, the professor in his school,---if there be nothing particularly irksome in their duty, and they can do nothing else, rather than remain idle, it is probable they will perform their duty.
In these cases, the service required being of the continual kind, and in point of quality not susceptible of an indefinite degree of perfection---the pay being required not for certain services, but for such services as may come to be performed within a certain space of time,---it may without impropriety be given in the form of a salary.But even here, the policy of making reward keep pace with service should be pursued as closely as possible; and for this purpose, the long continued mass of service should be broken down into as many separate services as possible---the service of a year into the service of days.In the highest offices, an individual, if paid by his time, should, like the day-labourer, and for the same reason, be paid rather by the day than by the year.In this way he is kept to his duty with more than the effect, and at the same time without any of the odium, of punishment.
In the station of a judge, it is not common to exact attendance by the force of punishment---at least not by the force of punishment to be applied in each instance of failure.But if it were, the infliction of that punishment for trivial transgressions---that is, for one or a few instances of non-performance---would be thought harsh and rigorous, nor would anybody care for the odium of standing forth to enforce it.Excuses would be lightly made, and readily accepted.Punishment in such cases being to the last degree uncertain, would be in a great measure ineffectual.It might prevent continual, but it would never prevent occasional, or even frequent, delinquency.But what cannot be effected by punishment alone, may be effected by punishment and reward together.When the officer is paid separately for each day's attendance, each particle of service has its reward: there is for each particle of service an inducement to perform it.There will be no wanton excuses, when inconvenience adheres inseparably to delinquency without the parade of punishment.
The members of the French Academy, and the Academy of Science, notwithstanding all their dignity, are paid their salaries by the day, and not by the year.And who are the individuals, how low or how high soever, who cannot, and who ought not, to be paid in this manner?
If pride have a legitimate scruple, it is that which refuses to receive the reward for labour which it has not performed; whilst, as to the objection which might arise from the minute apportionment of the salary, it is easily removed by counters given from day to day, and converted into money at fixed periods.
In the act of parliament for establishing penitentiary houses, among other good regulations, this method of insuring assiduity of attendance has been adopted.The three superintendents receive, as the whole of their emoluments, each a share of the sum of five guineas, which is directed to be distributed each day of their attendance equally among those who are present.
A more ancient example of this policy may be found in the incorporated society in London for the assurance of lives.The directors of this establishment receive their trifling emoluments in this manner;and thus applied, these emoluments suffice.This plan has also been adopted in the case of commissioners of bankrupts, and by different associations.
These examples ought not to be lost; and yet, from not having been referred to general principles, they have not possessed the influence they ought to have.How often have regulations been heaped upon regulations without success! How many useless decrees were made in France to insure the residence of the bishops and beneficed clergy!
