OF TRUST AND CONTRACT MANAGEMENT.The capacity of the individuals to discharge the duties required of them having been ascertained, and the most intimate connexion between their interest and the discharge of these duties having been established, the only desirable circumstance remaining is to reduce the amount of the emoluments to be paid for the discharge of these duties to the lowest term.
Suppose the amount expended in the purchase of a given service to be a certain sum, and that an individual equally capable of rendering this service, should offer to render it at less expense: is there any good reason for refusing such an offer? I can discover none.The acceptance of such a proposition is the acceptance of a contract: the service thus agreed to be performed, is said to be contracted for, or let to farm.To this method, the mode of obtaining services by employing commissioners and managers, is opposed.
General reasonings upon this subject are insufficient to determine which of these two opposite systems will be most advantageous in any particular department: the nature of the service must be ascertained, before the question can be decided.
If we confine ourselves to general principles, contracts must be preferred to commissions.Under the system of contracts, the interests about which the individual is employed are his own; whilst, under the system of commissions, the interests about which he is employed remain the interests of the state; that is, the interests of another.In the first case, the sub-functionaries employed are the servants of an individual;in the other, they are the servants of the public---fellow-servants of those who are to watch over them.``But the servants of the most negligent master'', says Adam Smith, ``are better superintended than the servants of the most vigilant sovereign.'' If this cannot be admitted as an infallible rule, it is at least more frequently true than otherwise.
Public opinion is, however, but little favourable to the system of contracts.The savings which result to the state are forgotten, whilst the profits reaped by the farmers are recollected and exaggerated.
Upon this subject, the ignorant and the philosopher---those who judge without thought, and those who pretend to have examined the subject---are nearly agreed.The objections which they bring forward against contractors (for they relate to individuals rather than to the system) are sufficiently specious.
I.The contractors are rich.If they are so, this is not the fault of the system, but of the conditions of the bargain made with them.
II.The contractors are ostentatious and vain.
And if they burst with vanity, what then? Such inappreciable, or rather imaginary evils, cannot be brought into political calculations.Their vanity will find a sufficient counterpoise and punishment in the vanity of those whom they incommode, whilst their ostentation will distribute their wealth among those whom it employs.
III.The contractors excite envy.This is the fault of those who are envious, and not of the contractors: it is another imaginary evil, in opposition to which may be placed the pleasure of detraction.
Besides, if the contracts are open to all, unless improvident bargains are made through favour, corruption, or ignorance, rapid fortunes will not often be accumulated by contractors: should they still become rich, it will be because they have deserved it.
IV.Contractors never find the laws too severe to insure the collection of the taxes for which they have contracted.They will procure severe and sanguinary laws to be enacted.If the laws are severe and sanguinary, the legislature is in fault, and not the contractors.
