"Frederick Bastiat - That Which Is Seen-That Which Is Not" - читать интересную книгу автора (Bastiat Frederick)

official, his family, and his providers; do not assert that it
encourages labour.

When James B. gives a hundred pence to a Government officer,
for a really useful service, it is exactly the same as when he gives a
hundred sous to a shoemaker for a pair of shoes.

But when James B. gives a hundred sous to a Government officer,
and receives nothing for them unless it be annoyances, he might as
well give them to a thief. It is nonsense to say that the Government
officer will spend these hundred sous to the great profit of
national labour; the thief would do the same; and so would James B.,
if he had not been stopped on the road by the extra -legal parasite,
nor by the lawful sponger.

Let us accustom ourselves, then, to avoid judging of things
by what is seen only, but to judge of them by that which is not seen.

Last year I was on the Committee of Finance, for under the
constituency the members of the opposition were not systematically
excluded from all the Commissions: in that the constituency acted
wisely. We have heard M. Thiers say -"I have passed my life in
opposing the legitimist party, and the priest party. Since the
common danger has brought us together, now that I associate with
them and know them, and now that we speak face to face, I have found
out that they are not the monsters I used to imagine them."

Yes, distrust is exaggerated, hatred is fostered among
parties who never mix; and if the majority would allow the minority to
be present at the Commissions, it would perhaps be discovered that the
ideas of the different sides are not so far removed from each other,
and, above all, that their intentions are not so perverse as is
supposed. However, last year I was on the Committee -of Finance. Every
time that one of our colleagues spoke of fixing at a moderate figure
the maintenance of the President of the Republic, that of the
ministers, and of the ambassadors, it was answered-

"For the good of the service, it is necessary to surround
certain offices with splendour and dignity, as a means of attracting
men of merit to them. A vast number of unfortunate persons apply to
the President of the Republic, and it would be placing him in a very
painful position to oblige him to be constantly refusing them. A
certain style in the ministerial saloons is a part of the machinery of
constitutional Governments."

Although such arguments may be controverted, they certainly
deserve a serious examination. They are based upon the public
interest, whether rightly estimated or not; and as far as I am
concerned, I have much more respect for them than many of our Catos
have, who are actuated by a narrow spirit of parsimony or of jealousy.