lords came universally to consider the administration of justice as an office both too laborious and too ignoble for them to execute in their own persons. They universally, therefore, discharged themselves of it by appointing a deputy, bailiff, or judge.1

When the judicial is united to the executive power, it is scarce possible that justice should not frequently be sacrificed to what is vulgarly called politics. The persons entrusted with the great interests of the State may, even without any corrupt views, sometimes imagine it necessary to sacrifice to those interests the rights of a private man. But upon the impartial administration of justice depends the liberty of every individual, the sense which he has of his own security. In order to make every individual feel himself perfectly secure in the possession of every right which belongs to him, it is not only necessary that the judicial should be separated from the executive power, but that it should be rendered as much as possible independent of that power. The judge should not be liable to be removed from his office according to the caprice of that power. The regular payment of his salary should not depend upon the good-will, or even upon the good economy, of that power.

PART III.

Of the Expense of Public Works and Public Institutions.

THE third and last duty of the sovereign or commonwealth is that of erecting and maintaining those public institutions and those public works, which, though they may be in the highest degree advantageous to a great society, are, however, of such a nature, that the profit could never repay the expense to any individual or small number of individuals, and which it, therefore, cannot be expected that any individual or small number of individuals should erect or maintain. The performance of this duty requires too very different degrees of expense in the different periods of society.

After the public institutions and public works necessary for the defence of the society, and for the administration of justice, both of

1 For some facts as to the administration of justice in the lowest courts, which were customary in this country

VOL. II.

X

five centuries ago, see the Editor's Agriculture and Prices, vol. i. chap. 6.

which have already been mentioned, the other works and institutions of this kind are chiefly those for facilitating the commerce of the society, and those for promoting the instruction of the people. The institutions for instruction are of two kinds: those for the education of the youth, and those for the instruction of people of all ages. The consideration of the manner in which the expense of those different sorts of public works and institutions may be most properly defrayed, will divide this Third Part of the present chapter into three different articles.

ARTICLE I.

Of the Public Works and Institutions for facilitating the Commerce

of the Society. And first, of those which are necessary for facilitating Commerce

in general. That the crection and maintenance of the public works which facilitate the commerce of any country, such as good roads, bridges, navigable canals, harbours, &c. must require very different degrees of expense in the different periods of society, is evident without any proof. The expense of making and maintaining the public roads of any country must evidently increase with the annual produce of the land and labour of that country, or with the quantity and weight of

- A government may, or should, interfere with the ordinary process of production and exchange in three cases : 1. When the state can perform a service at a far better and cheaper rate than any private individual or company can, and when there are sufficient checks furnished against mismanagement in performing the service. An example of this kind is the Post-office. 2. When the service rendered or work done is of great immediate or ultimate value, but when the cominunity at large is unable or willing to appreciate and recompense the service, or when the person rendering the service is otherwise unable to appropriate any advantage to himself. This class of cases comprise endowments granted or permitted by government in aid of education, learning, science or art. 3. When the habits of association and

enterprise in a community are too weak to enable the community to obtain those great works on which the material pro. gress of a society depends. This deficiency is matter of degree, and should be met proportionately by government. In this country, for example, roads, canals and railways have alınost invariably been constructed by private enterprise ; but they have been rarely thus effected in foreign countries, the state having assisted in many cases, and having altogether accomplished the work in more. In general, however, the interference of government is, when it can be avoided, to be deprecated. There is nothing in which an over-governed country is more mischievously over-governed than under those circumstances in which an administration is perpetually undertaking the initiative in industrial enterprises.

un

the goods which it becomes necessary to fetch and carry upon those roads. The strength of a bridge must be suited to the number and weight of the carriages which are likely to pass over it; the depth and the supply of water for a navigable canal must be proportioned to the number and tonnage of the lighters which are likely to carry goods upon it; the extent of a harbour to the number of the shipping which are likely to take shelter in it.

It does not seem necessary that the expense of those public works should be defrayed from that public revenuc, as it is commonly called, of which the collection and application is in most countries assigned to the executive power. The greater part of such public works may easily be so managed as to assord a particular revenue sufficient for defraying their own expense, without bringing any burden upon the general revenue of the society.

A bighway, a bridge, a navigable canal, for example, may in most cases be both made and maintained by a small toll upon the carriages which make use of them; a harbour, by a moderate portduty upon the tonnage of the shipping which load or unload in it. The coinage, another institution for facilitating commerce, in many countries not only defrays its own expense, but affords a small revenue or scignorage to the sovereign. The post-oflice, another institution for the same purpose, over and above defraying its own expense, affords in almost all countries a very considerable revenue to the sovereign.

When the carriages which pass over a highway or a bridge, and the lighters which sail upon a navigable canal, pay toll in proportion to their weight or their tonnage, they pay for the maintenance of those public works exactly in proportion to the wear and tear which they occasion of them. It seems scarce possible to invent a inore equitable way of maintaining such works. This tax or toll, too, though it is advanced by the carrier, is finally paid by the consumer, to whom it must always be charged in the price of the goods. As the expense of carriage, however, is very much reduced by means of such public works, the goods, notwithstanding the toll, come cheaper to the consumer than they could otherwise have done; their price not being so much raised by the toll, as it is lowered by the cheapness of the carriage. The person who finally pays this tax, therefore, gains by the application more than he loses by the payment of it. His payment is exactly in proportion to his gain. It is in reality no more than a part of that gain which he is obliged to give up in order to get the rest. It seems impossible to imagine a more equitable method of raising a tax.

When the toll upon carriages of luxury, upon coaches, postchaises, &c., is made somewhat higher in proportion to their weight than upon carriages of necessary use, such as carts, waggons, &c., the indolence and vanity of the rich is made to contribute in a very easy manner to the relief of the poor, by rendering cheaper the transportation of heavy goods to all the different parts of the country.

When high roads, bridges, canals, &c. are in this manner made and supported by the commerce which is carried on by means of them, they can be made only where that commerce requires them, and consequently where it is proper to make them. Their expense too, their grandeur and magnificence, must be suited to what that commerce can afford to pay. They must be made consequently as it is proper to make them. A magnificent high road cannot be made through a desert country where there is little or no commerce, or merely because it happens to lead to the country villa of the intendant of the province, or to that of some great lord to whom the intendant finds it convenient to make his court. A great bridge cannot be thrown over a river at a place where nobody passes, or merely to embellish the view from the windows of a neighbouring palace : things which sometimes happen, in countries where works of this kind are carried on by any other revenue than that which they themselves are capable of affording.

In several different parts of Europe the toll or lock-duty upon a canal is the property of private persons, whose private interest obliges them to keep up the canal. If it is not kept in tolerable order, the navigation necessarily ceases altogether, and along with it the whole profit which they can make by the tolls. If those tolls were put under the management of commissioners, who had themselves no interest in them, they might be less attentive to the maintenance of the works which produced them. The canal of Languedoc cost the King of France and the province upwards of thirteen millions of livres, which (at twenty-eight livres the mark of silver, the value of French money in the end of the last century) amounted to upwards of nine hundred thousand pounds sterling. When that great work was finished, the most likely method, it was found, of keeping it in constant repair was to make n promont of the folle to Riquet, the engineer, who planned and conducted the work. The tolls constitute at present a very largo ontato to the different branches of the family of that gentleman, who linve, therefore, a great interest to keep the work in constant repmir. But when tolls been put under the management of cominimioners, who builo such interest, they might perhaps have boon dissipated in a. mental and unnecessary expenses, while the most essential oils of the work were allowed to go to ruin.

The tolls for the maintenance of a high rosul cannot will may safety be made the property of privato per A high real, though entirely neglected, does not become altogether imposanlela, though a canal does. The proprietors of the Wille gute # high road, therefore, might neglect altogether the mir of the mail, and yet continue to levy very nearly the same tulla, 11. ju ftr**, therefore, that the tolls for the maintenance of the winter whenold be put on-ler the management of camminawonge out further,

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