CHAPTER XI.

PUBLIC CONSUMPTION.

The Nature of Public Consumption.-The gathering of many individuals into a community gives rise to a peculiar class of common wants, which may be termed the wants of Society. To satisfy these wants, a part of the annual revenue of every member of society is contributed in some measure to the public and is expended by the public agents, that is by the Government.

This expenditure is provided for by means of Taxation. When a given sum is to be raised for the accomplishment of any object, it is, by some mode of assessment, distributed among the various individuals of the community, and every one is obliged to pay the proportion with which he is charged. The sum thus collected is then, for the accomplishment of various purposes, consumed by public agencies. The consumption itself is of precisely the same nature as that effected by individuals, that is, the value is destroyed, the utility consumed is annihilated. If an individual burn gunpowder, its value, measured by the labor and material by which it was produced, is destroyed; if a hundred or a thousand men do it, the result is the same. If a man in the digging of a ditch consume the labor of a thousand workmen, and use the provisions necessary for their sustentation, the whole value thus expended is annihilated. And if a thousand men unite in the undertaking, the annihilation is the same. In a word, government is

nothing but a system of agencies; and property consumed by the government, is as really consumed, and its value as really destroyed, as though the individual citizens consumed it themselves.

Now, this being the fact, the rule by which consumption is to be judged of, is precisely the same, whether it is public or private. If the product created by the consumption, whether that product be material or immaterial, is of greater value than the product consumed, it is profitable consumption; that is, the public receive in return a greater value than they parted with. If a less valuable product be created than is consumed, it is unprofitable consumption, and the value might better have remained in the hands of individuals. If no product whatever be realized, it is a total loss, and the value taken from the individuals might as well have been thrown into the sea. Nay, had they themselves thrown the value consumed into the sea, there would have been a gain, as the expense of collecting and consuming it would have been saved. And still more, if the value consumed produce no valuable results, but on the contrary, be employed to promote the purposes of oppression and misrule, the evil is enormous. The possessions of the individual are taken away, not only without rendering him an equivalent, but for the sake of employing other men to torment, and deprive him of his dearest rights.

It is frequently asserted, that public expenditure enriches a country, or that at least, it is wholly innocent, since it quickens the circulation of money, and does no harm, inasmuch as all the money always remains in the country. To obviate such an objection, let us trace, from first to last, the passage of a product toward ultimate consumption on the public account.

"The government exacts from the tax-payers, the payment of a given sum in the shape of money. To meet this demand, the tax

payer exchanges part of the products at his disposal for cein, which he pays to the tax-gatherer. A second set of government agents is busied, in buying with that coin, clothing and other necessaries for soldiery. Up to this point, there is no value either lost or consumed; there has only been a gratuitous transfer of value and a subsequent act of barter, but the value contributed by the citizen still exists in the shape of stores and supplies in the military depot. In the end,. however, this value is consumed, and then the portion of wealth which passes from the hands of the tax-payer into those of the taxgatherer, is destroyed and annihilated.

'Yet it is not the sum of money that is destroyed; that has only passed from one hand to another, either with or without any return, as when it passed from the tax-payer to the tax-gatherer; or in exchange for an equivalent, as when it passed from the government agent to the contractor, for clothing and supplies. The value of the money survives the whole operation, and goes through three or four, or a dozen hands, without any sensible alteration. It is the value of the clothing and necessaries that disappears, with precisely the same effect as if the tax-payer had, with the same money, purchased clothing and necessaries for his own private consumption." *

Consumption, then, is of the same nature, whether it be public or private. It is a destruction of value; and the rule by which we are to determine whether it be profitable or unprofitable, is the same in both cases. It is by inquiring, whether the benefit created by the consumption is greater than, equal to, or less than, the value of the product consumed.

While, however, this rule is always to be adopted, it is, as in the case of individual consumption, to be interpreted with a liberal and intelligent forecast. It must not, of course, always be expected, that the product created by consumption, will be a visible, tangible, material substance. Thus we see no physical, tangible product, as the result of taxes for the support of civil government.

we receive the benefit in security of persons, property, and reputation; or in that condition of society which, though

* Say.

it be incapable of being weighed and measured, is absolutely essential both to individual happiness, and individual accumulation. The same may be said, in substance, concerning the taxes paid for general education. Here, whether the tax-payer receives his remuneration in instruction given to his own children, or not, he yet receives it, in the improvement of the intellectual and social character of his neighbors, by which his property is rendered more secure, the labor for which he pays is better performed, and the demand for whatever he produces, is more universal and more constant. The same may be said of that public expenditure by which the moral and social character of a community is elevated, the taste of a nation refined, and an impulse given to efforts for the benefit of man. With this view, no one could oppose the expense incurred in bestowing upon public edifices elegance, or even, in some cases magnificence of structure; in the public celebration of remarkable eras; and in the rewards bestowed upon those who have by their discoveries enlarged the boundaries of human knowledge, or by their inventions, signally improved the useful arts. Political Economy is opposed to none of these forms of expenditure; all that she requires is, that a valuable consideration be received in return for the consumption; and that the consumption be not disproportionate to that consideration.

The principles and methods of Taxation come more properly under the head of Distribution and will be discussed in our third Division of the science.

The Purposes to which Public Consumption is properly applied may be specified as follows.

1. For the Support and Administration of Government. This is by far the most necessary of any of the objects of public expense. Without government there could be no society, and without society, there could neither be re

dress of wrong, nor security of property. But government cannot be administered without officers, and no one will devote himself to the discharge of the duties of civil office, unless he be paid for it.

The principles which should govern this branch of expenditure, are few and simple.

Economy requires that precisely such talent should be employed, in the various offices of civil government, as may be necessary to insure the discharge of the duties of cach office in the best possible manner. Many of these offices can be discharged successfully, only by the first order of human talent, cultivated by learning and discipline, and directed by incorruptible integrity. Now it is certainly bad economy, to employ inferior talent to do badly, that which can be of service only when it is done well.

Hence the salaries of judicial, legislative, and executive officers should be such as will command the service of such talent as the duties of each office require. It is most unwise parsimony, to give to a judge such a salary as will command the services of nothing more than a third rate lawyer and it is mean to ask an individual to do a service for the community, at a lower rate than that at which he would do it for an individual.

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In answer to this, it may be said, that by bestowing large salaries upon the officers of government, we present temptations to avarice. But the reduction of salaries by means diminishes the evil. Were emolument to be reduced, there would always be a contest for office. The only question then is, whether we shall have the contest between men of high or between men of low character; between those who are capable of serving us to our advantage, or those who are only capable of serving us to our disadvantage. Were the most important trusts in the government to command no higher salaries than the wages