The Government itself is but the official counterpart of the governed. By the aid of servile speculators, a man in political circles struggles to come to the front--to hold a portfolio in the ministry--if it only be for a session, when his pension for life is assured on his retirement. Merit and ability have little weight, and the proteges of the outgoing minister must make room for those of the next lucky ministerial pension-seeker, and so on successively. This Colony therefore became a lucrative hunting-ground at the disposal of the Madrid Cabinet wherein to satisfy the craving demands of their numerous partisans and friends. They were sent out with a salary and to make what they could,--at their own risk, of course,--like the country lad who was sent up to London with the injunction from his father, "Make money, honestly if you can, but make it." From the Conquest up to 1844, when trading by officials was abolished, it was a matter of little public concern how Government servants made fortunes. Only when the jealousy of one urged him to denounce another was any inquiry instituted so long as the official was careful not to embezzle or commit a direct fraud on the _Real Haber_ (the Treasury funds). When the _Real Haber_ was once covered, then all that could be got out of the Colony was for the benefit of the officials, great and small. In 1840, Eusebio Mazorca wrote as follows: [104]--"Each chief of a province is a real sultan, and when he has terminated his administration, all that is talked of in the capital is the thousands of pesos clear gain which he made in his Government." Eusebio Mazorca further states: [105]--"The Governor receives payment of the tribute in rice-paddy, which he credits to the native at two reales in silver per caban. Then he pays this sum into the Royal Treasury in money, and sells the rice-paddy for private account at the current rate of six, eight or more reales in silver per caban, and this simple operation brings him 200 to 300 per cent. profit." The same writer adds:--"Now quite recently the Interventor of Zamboanga is accused by the Governor of that place of having made some P15,000 to P16,000 solely by using false measures ... The same Interventor to whom I refer, is said to have made a fortune of P50,000 to P60,000, whilst his salary as second official in the Audit Department [106] is P540 per annum." According to Zuniga, the salary of a professor of law with the rank of magistrate was P800 per annum.