The Works of Edmund Burke Volume 2 by Edmund Burke

Author:Edmund Burke [Burke, Edmund]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Politikwissenschaft
Publisher: Jazzybee Verlag
Published: 2018-01-31T23:00:00+00:00

By these regulations taken together, besides the three subordinate treasuries in the lesser principalities, five other subordinate treasuries are suppressed. There is taken away the whole establishment of detail in the household: the treasurer ; the comptroller (for a comptroller is hardly necessary where there is no treasurer); the cofferer of the household ; the treasurer of the chamber ; the master of the household ; the whole board of green cloth ;—and a vast number of subordinate offices in the department of the steward of the household,—the whole establishment of the great wardrobe,—the removing wardrobe,—the jewel office,—the robes,—the Board of Works,—almost the whole charge of the civil branch of the Board of Ordnance, are taken away. All these arrangements together will be found to relieve the nation from a vast weight of influence, without distressing, but rather by forwarding every public service. When something of this kind is done, then the public may begin to breathe. Under other governments, a question of expense is only a question of economy, and it is nothing more: with us, in every question of expense there is always a mixture of constitutional considerations.

It is, Sir, because I wish to keep this business of subordinate treasuries as much as I can together, that I brought the ordnance office before you, though it is properly a military department. For the same reason I will now trouble you with my thoughts and propositions upon two of the greatest under-treasuries : I mean the office of paymaster of the land forces, or treasurer of the army, and that of the treasurer of the navy. The former of these has long been a great object of public suspicion and uneasiness. Envy, too, has had its share in the obloquy which is cast upon this office. But I am sure that it has no share at all in the reflections I shall make upon it, or in the reformations that I shall propose. I do not grudge to the honorable gentleman who at present holds the office any of the effects of his talents, his merit, or his fortune. He is respectable in all these particulars. I follow the constitution of the office without persecuting its holder. It is necessary in all matters of public complaint, where men frequently feel right and argue wrong, to separate prejudice from reason, and to be very sure, in attempting the redress of a grievance, that we hit upon its real seat and its true nature. Where there is an abuse in office, the first thing that occurs in heat is to censure the officer. Our natural disposition leads all our inquiries rather to persons than to things. But this prejudice is to be corrected by maturer thinking.

Sir, the profits of the pay office (as an office) are not too great, in my opinion, for its duties, and for the rank of the person who has generally held it. He has been generally a person of the highest rank,—that is to say, a person of eminence and consideration in this House.

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