INGRATITUDE.

Nelson Examiner and New Zealand Chronicle, Volume I, 23 April 1842, Page 28

INGRATITUDE.

Men are ungrateful to others only "when they have ceased to look back upon their former selves with joy' and tenderness. They exist in fragment*. Annihilated as to the past, they are dead to the future, or seek for the proofs of it everywhere, only net (where alope they can be found) in themselves. — Sbutkey's Tfriend.

POLITICAL PROSTfcCTS OP THE ENGLISH. The existence of every government bf the ! many by a few must depend upon some kind of forct, wherewith to secure the obedience of the many. The most common force of government has been a body of guards,, assisted by" a body of spies. This, however, was not the force of the old English constitution, which, out of regard to the liberty of the subject, having property, was always opposed to standing armies and political police. The force of the old English constitution was corruption; an engine of great power, and one admirably fitted in this case to the machine that it was employed to work. The oligarchy which, under the' nfl£ of a mixed government, was set up in France eighteen years' ago, has been worked by an engine of this sort; but not well. In material mechanism, simplicity is a great merit ; in political machinery, having for object to keep many in subjection to a few, the grand point is complication. In the French oligarchy there was a sad want of entanglement ; and then the French corruption was all of one sort, obvious to the most careless observer. In France, political corruption was a species of force ; in England, a genus, comprehending many 'species.' Of that kind of corruption which was unique in in France, namely, expenditure of public money by the government, there was plenty in England; but this, great as- it appears when compared with tHe expenditure of other governments, seems small when compared with the great mass of jobs and monopolies by which it was assisted. Small, however, as it appears in this point' of view, it was mighty by the manner of applying it. The public income of France was divided amongst the public servants on these two erroneous principles : — first, tbat every one should work for his pay ; secondly, that all public servants should be paid sufficiently. 'I lie principles, on the contrary, which directed the public expenditure of England, were, first, that many should be paid who did. not work at all; secondly, that those who worked least should be paid the most, and those who worked the most, the least. The churches of the two countries give a good example of the operation of these opposite principles. In the French church none were idle ;' all the hard-working clergy received comfortable incomes ; and the income of a bishop was not more than seven or eight times as much as that of a curate. In the English church large incomes were given to clergymen who seldom entered a church, and never either a pulpit or a cottage ; the hardworking clergy were kept in a state of want; and the income of- many a bishop was equal to the united incomes of three or four hundred curates. Thus, in the French church there were no great prizes by which strong and ambitious spirits might be attached to the estar blished order of things; nor were clergymen of moderate disposition and talents urged, either by poverty or the hope of riches, to curry favour with the ruling class. The strong and ambitious spirits of the French church accordingly, instead of supporting the Hart Well charter, spared no pains to overturn it, while French clergymen of moderate dispositi m -and talents were content to vegetate, comfortably indifferent touching questions of government. Now turn to England : here the most able and ambitious . of the clergy, desirous either to keep or obtain, great prizes in the church, supported the constitution with all their-- might, while clergymen ; of moderate temper and abilities could obtain comfortable incomes only by siding with one or other of the state factions, and zealously supporting the* constitution, to which both factions were equally attached. The contrast is remarkable, and helps to explain why the charter of William 111. lasted a hundred and twenty-five' years longer than the charter of Louis XVIII. It does but help, however, towards this explanation ; as the clergy of England did but help to support the constitution. The two principles of sinecures, and of much pay for httle work and much work for little pay, were adopted in every department of the public expenditure ; in the military and .civil branches of the army and navy, and the distribution of prize money, in the administration of law, in public education, | in the diplomats service, in the collection of/ the revenue, in all public offices, and in the management of the colonies, not forgetting Ireland. Thus a great body of the people were ' induced, some by the desire of gain and some by the fear of 1068, to stand by the glorious consttti^bn. If none had been paid who did ' not Wo 4||Htt nil who worked had received mo- 1 derate bttWrantcient pay, those' who were able and ambitious might have longed for a change, and the remainder might have wanted a motive for zeal in support of things as they were. In-* equality is the soul of political corruption. — JVakefield's England and America.