reform needful, and that pretence to regulate the emoluments and salaries of the state by the public voice. Salaries are great or small relative to their duties and stations. The chiefs of the state must keep up an equality of station with those of the highest rank in the kingdom; and those of every degree under them must maintain a like equality with the class of persons that their public duties require them to act and associate with: it is therefore, in my opinion, a most heterodox way of thinking, to imagine that the private property of individuals of high rank is to remain untouched, and yet that the officers of state, who must necessarily be their associates and companions, shall be reduced to comparative poverty. I am the more particular in explaining my view on this subject, because, in common with other honourable members, I have felt, as will be in due time shewn, very serious annoyance from the new-fangled doctrines of the Utilitarians. And here, before I proceed with my narrative, I may as well observe, that there is, in my opinion, a great fallacy about this new-light doctrine of utility, as something distinct from happiness. I consider, and it has been so considered from the beginning of the world, that the object of all utility is happiness; but every man’s happiness does not lie in the same circumstances, and therefore there can be no universal method of producing happiness by utility. No doubt it is useful to get public affairs administered as cheaply as possible; but if the chiefs of the state must be the companions of the high and rich, you will never get men of talent to fill these offices, without exposing them to the hazard of committing high crimes and misdemeanours, to procure indirectly the wherewithal to keep up their equality.
Having thus stated my ideas upon the rightfulness of regulating salaries of public officers by the way of living among those with whom their public duties require them to associate, it will be seen that I have, in always voting with the ministers against the reduction of salaries, only acted on the soundest principles; for even in the matter of sinecures, I have adhered with constancy to my principles. Sinecures ought not to be considered as salaries for doing nothing, but as salaries set apart nominally for the use of those dependants of influential people whom it is necessary to conciliate to the Government. All governments must have various means of conciliating various men: there must be titles and degrees for those whom such baubles please; there must be enterprises and commands for those who delight in adventures; and there must be sinecures and pensions for the sordid. It is as much to be lamented that such humours are entailed upon our common nature, as it is to be mourned that it is liable to so many various diseases; but it is an ignorant mistake of the nature of man to think the world is to be ruled by one class of motives.
Such were the reflections which occupied my mind during the recess of Parliament after my first session. I was thankful that my fortune enabled me to be independent, and that I had no natural turn for the diplomatics of politics; but I learned, from conversing with politicians, something of the state at which society was arrived, and saw the necessity of having clear ideas regarding those matters in which I was most interested; for my object in going into Parliament was to help my kith and kin by a judicious assistance to Government, and it was of great importance that the assistance should be given on a conscientious principle. Accordingly, by these reflections I was persuaded, that, from the state of the times and public opinion, no member of the House should, without the clearest views as well as convincing reasons, consent to the creation of new places, nor, be it observed also, to the abolition of old places; and this led me to a very manifest conclusion.
It appeared, when I came to think of it, that the great cause which stirred men to be in opposition to Government was to provide for their friends and dependants, and that that was the secret reason why the Opposition found such fault with existing institutions and places, and why they put forth new plans of national improvement, which they pledged themselves, if ever they got into office, to carry into effect. Time has verified this notion. Under the pretext of instituting better official and judicature arrangements, new ones have been introduced by the Opposition when they came into power, which enabled them to provide for their friends and dependants; but they were obliged to indemnify those who enjoyed the old offices. Whether the change was an improvement or not, I would not undertake to maintain; but the alteration was very conducive to the acquisition of a new stock of patronage. With very little individual suffering, the change necessarily superseded and set aside those who did the work under the old system; but as there would have been gross injustice in turning adrift the old servants, they were provided for by an indemnification, and the new servants had all the new places to themselves over and above: in time, as the old servants died off, the evil was remedied.
CHAPTER TEN
When my second session was about to commence, I went to London several days before the opening of Parliament. In this I was incited by a very laudable desire; for the more I reflected on the nature of my public trusts, the plainer I saw that the obligations on a member were more and more manifold; so I resolved to occupy the few preliminary days in going about among the friends and acquaintances that I had made in the former session, and to consult with them concerning the state of things in general: thus it happened that I was very particular in conferring with old Sir John Bulky.
The baronet was a member for a borough in his own county, and had been so for six successive Parliaments; being a good neighbour, a very equitable magistrate, and in all respects a most worthy country gentleman, upholding the laws and the power of Government around him with courageous resolution in the worst of times. But he was grown old and afflicted with the gout, suffering indeed so often from it, that his attendance in the House was frequently interrupted. I had seen his superior sagacity the preceding year, and sometimes we took tea upstairs together when there was a heavy debate, out of which grew between us a very confidential friendship.
Sir John and I very cordially met. He had during the recess been not quite so well in his health as usual, but he had been free of the gout; and it had happened that his eldest son, who had been abroad to see the world, had come home, and that, in consequence, his house had been filled with company for the summer. Many of the guests were also travelled men; and he had opportunities of hearing from them more concerning the state of the continent, as well as respecting society at home, than usual. We had therefore, at our first meeting, a very solid conversation on public affairs, and were quite in unison in our notion that, although the French revolution had gone past the boiling, it was yet in a state to keep the world long in hot water.
‘Depend on it, Mr. Jobbry,’ said the worthy baronet, ‘it will be long before the ruins of the earthquake settle into solid ground; and although Buonaparte and his abettors must be put down for our own sakes, it cannot be denied that the French are well content with him; yet when they are put down, it will be only another revolution. The first came out of themselves upon their neighbours – the next will come from their neighbours upon them; so between the two, at the end of the second revolution I should not wonder if the world were to be found in looser disorder than at the first, which will make the part of Britain the more difficult; for, of all nations in Europe, we are the most apt, by our freedom, to catch the infection of opinions.’
‘That’s strange, Sir John,’ quo’ I; ‘for inasmuch as we are in a state of advance to the nations of the continent, it’s wonderful that we should think their crude dreams and theories objects of imitation for us to follow, which indeed we cannot do unless we go backward.’
‘It is, Mr. Jobbry, however, the case. I have lived long enough in public to observe that every season has its own peculiar malady both moral and physical, and that it rarely happens that men continue in the same mind on public questions for two years together; in short, that the art of keeping the world steady, and which is the art of government, is to find the ways and means to amuse mankind. It is, no doubt, true that the disease of every year is not attended with such high delirium as we have seen of late; but still there is always that morbid disposition about nations that requires great delicacy in the management; and experience has taught me to have a great distrust of general reformations; indeed, it seems to be the course of Providence to make the most fatal things ever appear the fairest; and I never hear of the alluring plausibilities of changes in the state of the world, without having an apprehension that these changes, which promise so much good, are the means by which
