The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. 02 (of 12)Burke, Edmund
Philosophy
The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. 02 (of 12)
Burke, Edmund
Great Britain -- Politics and government -- 1760-1820; Political science -- Early works to 1800
But that part of my plan, Sir, upon which I principally rest, that on
which I rely for the purpose of binding up and securing the whole, is to
establish a fixed and invariable order in all its payments, which it
shall not be permitted to the First Lord of the Treasury, upon any
pretence whatsoever, to depart from. I therefore divide the civil list
payments into _nine_ classes, putting each class forward according to
the importance or justice of the demand, and to the inability of the
persons entitled to enforce their pretensions: that is, to put those
first who have the most efficient offices, or claim the justest debts,
and at the same time, from the character of that description of men,
from the retiredness or the remoteness of their situation, or from their
want of weight and power to enforce their pretensions, or from their
being entirely subject to the power of a minister, without any
reciprocal power of awing, ought to be the most considered, and are the
most likely to be neglected,--all these I place in the highest classes;
I place in the lowest those whose functions are of the least importance,
but whose persons or rank are often of the greatest power and influence.
In the first class I place the _judges_, as of the first importance. It
is the public justice that holds the community together; the ease,
therefore, and independence of the judges ought to supersede all other
considerations, and they ought to be the very last to feel the
necessities of the state, or to be obliged either to court or bully a
minister for their right; they ought to be as _weak solicitors on their
own demands_ as strenuous assertors of the rights and liberties of
others. The judges are, or ought to be, of a _reserved_ and retired
character, and wholly unconnected with the political world.
In the second class I place the foreign ministers. The judges are the
links of our connections with one another; the foreign ministers are the
links of our connection with other nations. They are not upon the spot
to demand payment, and are therefore the most likely to be, as in fact
they have sometimes been, entirely neglected, to the great disgrace and
perhaps the great detriment of the nation.
In the third class I would bring all the tradesmen who supply the crown
by contract or otherwise.
In the fourth class I place all the domestic servants of the king, and
all persons in efficient offices whose salaries do not exceed two
hundred pounds a year.
In the fifth, upon account of honor, which ought to give place to
nothing but charity and rigid justice, I would place the pensions and
allowances of his Majesty's royal family, comprehending of course the
queen, together with the stated allowance of the privy purse.
In the sixth class I place those efficient offices of duty whose
salaries may exceed the sum of two hundred pounds a year.
In the seventh class, that mixed mass, the whole pension list.
In the eighth, the offices of honor about the king.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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