and uncertain nature of those presents, scarcely admitted of any remedy. When taxes were introduced to defray the expenses of the sovereign, and fixed salaries were appointed to the judges, these presents were abolished, and justice was said to be administered gratis. Justice, however, never was, in reality, administered gratis in any country. Lawyers must be paid. It was not so much to diminish the expense, but to prevent corruption of justice, that the judges were prohibited trom receiving any present from the parties, pp. 299, 301.

The office of a judge is so honourable that men are willing to accept of it with very small emoluments. The office of a justice of peace,' though attended with no emolument, is an object of ambition among the country gentlemen. The whole expense of the administration of justice makes but a small part of the expenses of government. The whole expense of justice might be defrayed by the fees of court, without exposing the administration of justice to the hazard of corruption, if those fees were precisely ascertained, and paid into the hands of a receiver, to be by him distributed in known proportions among the judges after the process is decided, and according to the attention paid in examining the process. Public services are never better performed than when the reward of the official is proportioned to his diligence. The fees of court were originally the principal support of the different courts of justice in England. Each court endeavoured to draw to itself as much business as it could. The court of King's Bench, instituted for the trial of criminal causes only, took cognisance of civil suits; the plaintiff pretending that the defendant in not doing justice had been guilty of some trespass. The court of Exchequer, instituted for

The justices in some places, as in great cities, are paid for their services, and have thence obtained the name of stipendiary magistrates.

the levying of the King's revenue, took cognisance of all contracted debts; the plaintiff alleging that he could not pay the King, because the defendant would not pay him. Hence it depended upon the parties before what court they would have their cause tried, and each court endeavoured by superior despatch and impartiality to draw to itself as many causes as it could. The present admirable constitution of the courts of justice in England was, perhaps, originally, in a great measure, formed by this emulation which took place between their respective judges, pp. 301, 303.

A stamp duty upon the law proceedings of each particular court, to be levied by that court, and applied to the maintenance of the judges and other officers, might afford a revenue sufficient for defraying the expense of the administration of justice. The judges, indeed, might in this case be under the temptation of multiplying unnecessarily the proceedings upon every cause; in the same manner as attorneys and clerks have, in order to increase their own fees, corrupted the legal language of every nation in Europe by unnecessary words, pp. 303, 304.

The separation of the judicial from the executive power arose from the increasing business of the society, in consequence of its increasing improvement. When the judicial is united to the executive power, justice is frequently sacrificed to politics. Upon the impartial administration of justice depends the liberty of every individual, the sense which he has of his own security. The judicial ought to be rendered independent of the executive power, pp. 304, 305.

PART III.

Of the Expense of Public Works and Public Institutions.1

THE performance of the third duty of the sovereign, of erecting public works and public institutions (which are beyond the means of individuals), requires different degrees of expense, in different periods of society. These institutions are chiefly for facilitating commerce, and for promoting the instruction of the people, p. 113. ARTICLE I. Of the Public Works and Institutions for facilitating the commerce of Society.

And first of those which are necessary for facilitating commerce in general, such as good roads, bridges, canals, harbours, &c. These must require different degrees of expense in different periods of society, being much more costly in a period of great traffic. It does not seem necessary that the expense of those public works should be defrayed from the public revenue; they may be managed by means of tolls, without bringing any burden on the revenue of the society. The coinage, an institution for facilitating commerce, in most countries not only defrays its own expense but affords a small revenue to the sovereign. The post-office affords a considerable revenue, pp. 306, 307.

When carriages and lighters pay toll in proportion to their weight or their tonnage, they pay for those public works exactly in proportion to the wear and tear which they occasion of them. The toll is finally paid by the consumer; who, nevertheless, is a gainer, since the expense of carriage is much reduced by means of such works. No tax can be more equitable. When

For the cases in which a Government may with advantage interfere with the ordinary course of production and exchange, see Rogers's note to p. 306; Mill, v. 11.

the toll upon carriages of luxury is somewhat higher in proportion to their weight, than upon carriages of necessary use, the vanity of the rich is made to contribute in an easy manner to the relief of the poor. When high-roads, bridges, canals, &c., are made and supported by commerce, they can be made only where that commerce requires them, pp. 307, 308.

In different parts of Europe the toll upon a canal is the property of private persons, whose interest obliges them to keep up the canal. The tolls for the maintenance of a high-road cannot, with safety, be made the property of private persons; for a high-road, though entirely neglected, does not become altogether impassable,' though a canal does, pp. 308, 309.

In Great Britain the abuses which the trustees have committed in the management of these tolls have, in many cases, been justly complained of; these are capable of remedy. The money levied at the turnpikes is supposed to exceed so much what is necessary for repairing the roads that the savings have been considered as a very great resource, which might at some time or other be applied to the exigencies of the state. This plan is

1 Evidence as to the condition of the roads a century ago will be found in Smollett's Humphrey Clinker and Arthur Young's Tours. The latter declares that he once had the curiosity to measure the depth of a rut on a high road in Lancashire and found it to be upwards of four feet in liquid mud!! (Six Months' Tour in the North of England, vol. iv. p. 430). In the seventeenth century matters were still worse. (See Macaulay's History of England, cap. iii., and the authorities therein quoted.) Strange to say, the roads seem to have been in a much better state in the thirteenth and fifteenth centuries. (See Rogers's Agriculture and Prices, vol. i. 138, 650-66.) This was probably due to the greater necessity imposed upon men of influence during the Middle Ages of travelling, in order to keep an eye upon their widely scattered estates. In his Observations on Ireland, p. 39, Arthur Young mentions he cross roads in that country as most excellent. This had been the work of the Act of 1763.

"Mr. William Pitt actually proposed, in the session of Parliament of 1797, to double the turnpike tolls throughout the country, and to seize upon one half of them for the exigencies of the state. He followed Adam Smith in estimating the net produce to be nearly half a million.

liable to several objections. (1) If the tolls be considered as one of the resources for supplying the exigencies of the state, they would be augmented as those exigencies were supposed to require, and would probably in the end be equivalent to a heavy duty on all internal trade. (2) A tax upon carriages in proportion to their weight, though a very equal tax when applied to the sole purpose of repairing the roads, is a very unequal one when applied to any other purpose, as the price of goods would be raised according to their weight, and not according to their value. (3) If government were to neglect the repair of the roads, it would be difficult to compel the proper application of any part of the turnpike tolls. Such was the case in France, where all but the chief roads are very bad. In China the executive power charges itself with the reparation of the high-roads and canals. These objects are recommended to the governor of each province, and the judgment formed of his conduct is much regulated by the attenion he has paid to them. This branch of public police is, consequently, much attended to in China, where the high-roads and canals are said to exceed everything of the same kind which is known in Europe. It is indeed the interest of the sovereign, whose revenue chiefly depends on a landtax or land-rent. But the revenue of the sovereign does not, in any part of Europe, arise chiefly from a land-tax or land-rent. Therefore, though it should be true that in some parts of Asia this department of the public police is properly managed by the executive power, there is not the least probability that during the present state of things it could be tolerably managed by that power in any part of Europe, pp. 309-14.

Those public works, such as lighting and paving the streets of London, which cannot afford any revenue for maintaining themselves, but of which the convenience is nearly confined to some particular district, are better maintained by a local revenue, under the management