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tions to very costly undertakings. In democracies, where the rulers labour under privations, they can only be courted by such means as improve their wellbeing, and these improvements cannot take place without a sacrifice of money. When a people begins to reflect upon its situation, it discovers a multitude of wants to which it had not before been subject, and to satisfy these exigencies, recourse must be had to the coffers of the state. Hence it arises, that the public charges increase in proportion as civilization spreads, and that the imposts are augmented as knowledge pervades the community.
The last cause which frequently renders a democratic government dearer than any other is, that a democracy does not always succeed in moderating its expenditure, because it does not understand the art of being economical. As the designs which it entertains are frequently changed, and the agents of those designs are more frequently removed, its undertakings are often ill-conducted or left unfinished: in the former case the state spends sums out of all proportion to the end which it proposes to accomplish; in the second, the expense itself is unprofitable.
TENDENCIES OF THE AMERICAN DEMOCRACY AS REGARDS THE SALARIES OF PUBLIC OFFICERS.
In Democracies those who establish high Salaries have no Chance of profiting by them.—Tendency of the American Democracy to increase the Salaries of subordinate Officers, and to lower those of the more important Functionaries.—Reason of this.—Comparative Statement of the Salaries of public Officers in the United States and in France.
There is a powerful reason which usually induces democracies to economize upon the salaries of public officers. As the number of citizens who dispense the remuneration is extremely large in democratic countries, so the number of persons who can hope to be benefited by the receipt of it is comparatively small. In aristocratic countries, on the contrary, the individuals who appoint high salaries, have almost always a vague hope of profiting by them.
