The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. 09 (of 12)Burke, Edmund
History
The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. 09 (of 12)
Burke, Edmund
Great Britain -- Politics and government -- 1760-1820; Political science -- Early works to 1800
Another circumstance in that service is deserving of notice. Except in
the highest parts of all, the emoluments of office do not in any degree
correspond with the trust, nor the nature of the office with its name.
In other official systems, the style, in general, is above the function;
here it is the reverse. Under the name of junior merchant, senior
merchant, writer, and other petty appellations of the counting-house,
you have magistrates of high dignity, you have administrators of
revenues truly royal, you have judges, civil, and in some respects
criminal, who pass judgment upon the greatest properties of a great
country. The legal public emoluments that belong to them are very often
so inadequate to the real dignity of the character, that it is
impossible, almost absolutely impossible, for the subordinate parts of
it, which, though subordinate, are stations of power, to exist, as
Englishmen, who look at a fortune to be enjoyed at home as their
ultimate object, and to exist in a state of perfect incorruption in that
service.
In some parts of Europe, it is true that the greatest situations are
often attended with but little emolument; yet still they are filled.
Why? Because reputation, glory, fame, the esteem, the love, the tears of
joy which flow from happy sensibility, the honest applauses of a
grateful country, sometimes pay the cares, anxieties, and toils which
wait on great situations in the commonwealth; and in these they pay in
money what cannot be paid in fame and reputation. It is the reverse in
the service of the India Company. Glory is not the lot of subordinated
merit,--and all the subordinate parts of the gradation are officers who,
in comparison with the offices and duties intrusted to them, are
miserably provided for; whereas the chief of each great Presidency has
emoluments securing him against every mode of temptation. But if this
has not secured the head, we may easily judge how the members are to be
coerced. Mr. Hastings, at the head of the service, with high legal
emoluments, has fouled his hands and sullied his government with bribes.
He has substituted oppression and tyranny in the place of legal
government. With all that unbounded, licentious power which he has
assumed over the public revenues, instead of endeavoring to find a
series of gradual, progressive, honorable, and adequate rewards for the
persons who serve the public in the subordinate, but powerful
situations, he has left them to prey upon the people without the
smallest degree of control. In default of honest emolument, there is the
unbounded license of power; and, as one of the honestest and ablest
servants of the Company said to me in conversation, the civil service of
the Company resembled the military service of the Mahrattas,--little
pay, but unbounded license to plunder. I do not say that some of the
salaries given in India would not sound well here; but when you consider
the nature of the trusts, the dignity of the situation, whatever the
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account