OF QUALIFICATIONS.We have already seen that a salary may be employed as a means of insuring the responsibility of an individual, and as a moral antiseptic to preserve him from the influence of corruption.By the sale of offices, it has been seen that the actual expense of a salary may be diminished, and even reduced to nothing.It is therefore evident that the important circumstance is, that the individual should possess the requisite portion of the precious matter of reward, and not that it should have been given to him.If he possess it of his own, so much the better; and the more he already possesses, the less is it necessary to give him.In England, such are the attractions of power and dignity, that the number of candidates for their possession has been found so large, that it has been thought desirable to limit the selection to the number of those who possess the required quantity of this moral antiseptic; and this circumstance has given birth to what have been called qualifications.
The most remarkable and important offices to which these pecuniary qualifications have been attached, are those of justices of the peace and members of parliament.A justice of the peace ought to possess at least £100 per annum of landed property.There is no reasonable objection against this law.The office is one of those for which an ordinarily liberal education is sufficient.It is at the same time such an office, that the individual invested with it might do much mischief were he not restrained by powerful motives.
