OFFICIAL CORRUPTION.
T' . great Governments and the great municipalities of ' s the world have a problem before them which as yet they have not fairly faced, but which they must face it they are to make sure in times of emergency of the efficiency of their agents. The growing hunger for money as the one absolute condition of endurable life, the increasing severity of the competition for great contracts, and—we mention this cause with reluctance, but on the Continent, at least, it is true and distinctly operative—the decaying abhorrence of suicide all tend to the development of " corruption" in its official sense, that is, of bribe- taking by officials, and of stealing from State and municipal Departments. No form of government seems- to protect the nations from it. We have less of it than _most countries because under our social conditions the class which really governs has been taught from childhood ,to regard bribe-taking as a worse dishonour even than cheating at cards, and because those who suffer am abselutely free to complain ; but even here, when the Government is ' forced to spend millions suddenly, Bings fleeced through preposterous charges, and illicit cowl missions, The 'theory of too many dealers is .ths.t supply " bad stuff," say to the War Office, is slime, but that to rob the poor blind taxpayer, who.sjillApnr complain, by overcharges is legitimate "businesa. r.? EWA.. where, however, the practice attains frightful proportiona; The two great Republics of the world are hara,ssed #44 impeded by it at every turn. The American .Government has before now had cause to dread its contractors mere than-its enemies, and hai sometimes beeafleeced in aiktyle which -would have made Marlborough, who was a grand general, a 'great adininistrator, and a nearly insatialAti accumnlator of wealth from public sources; aslitiMed the inferiority of his genius.' Most . of the groat hiuniei patties of the States axe, by the confession of the best informed Americans, liable to fall into the hands of speculators who are hardly ashamed of their robberies, thoughone or two of them when detected have, committed suicide. The regular accusation against these bodies:is that they sell toleration:: for practices prohibited by the State laws ; but we fancy an " English " audit -of their contractors' accounts would often reveal also (Morin* overcharges and illicit commissions, only explicable-en the theory of collusion with influential 'members of the corpora;- tions, or of the external combinations which-control them: In Francs, again, 'there are gloomy incidents; -We'SgXe- member the Panama scandals, and able Frenchmen-declare that if a fearless administrator—fearless, we mean, of votes —took the reins, his first preoccupation would be to see that the stores vouched for in official returns', and worth millions Sterling, were actually in the storehouses. There have been stories of squadrons unable' to sail from Toulon for want of biscuits, though the supply paid for would, have fed a nation. In Germany, we fancy, corruption is not "rife," or even frequent, the governing class; though not innocent of unfairness when the well-born have to be protected, being quite above bribe-taking, though even there we. note that men are occasionally accused of having sold State secrets ; while in Austria the Government is either not cheated= which we should doubt, for contracts are heavy and official-a esurient—or else it contrives to wash its dirty linen-tit home. Li Russia, however, corruption, ranging frorahuge bribes to the highly placed down to-small-fee taking- in little offices, is said to be as prevalent as: in China,:the critics fastening particularly on the expenditure on the Fleet. Russia is autocratic, and the autocrat has not only the power to put doWn corruption, but the strongest interest in doing it. Yet he never seems able to aemniplish the feat. One has- only to Sad the remarkable paper published in the Daily Express of Tuesday—which must be, if we may judge from internal evidence, at least based upon information—to see that the scandals which so irritated. Nicholas I. are at, this moment impeding Nicholas IL His Majesty, comparatively mild though he is, would doubtless send thieves who, for instance, -embezzle the value of his soldiers' stoves, leaving them to perish of cold, against which the War Departments have carefully provided, to Saghalien at once ; but the peculation goes on to such an extent that hundreds are invalided from frost bite who might be good soldiers of the Czar.
It is a great blot on modern civilisation, which in many respects depends upon efficiency for success. Efficiency and corruption are wholly incompatible. Some Ameridans think, we believe, with their exaggerated good nature, that corruption produces only waste, and that , they- can- bear waste but that is a false view: Corruption,• in the first place, arrests the employment of the best men in leading positions, for.the best men will not stand it; and the whole energy of the corrupt is devoted to preventing their prol motion, or. if they are promoted, to rendering their positions untenable. In the second place, corruption makes eneri getic administration nearly impossible, for no.. Governs merit ever loses the hope of preventing it; and-to prereni it most of them apply an infinity of " checks," every Oact of which occupies part of the time of- the executive offce,r; and increases the load of responsibility under which at last he dare do nothing without previous sanctio And, in the third place, corruption is not only to the very idea of duty, but to s the habit of per7 forming it. The bribed officer is not seeking a fortunes but the means of amusing himself, either with women pc gambling, or with that habit of sauntering through which is a " Sultana Queen " to hundreds of men besides Charles U. In a corrupt Department, accordingly, every- thing gets neglected, 'partly from sell-indulgence, and Partly from fear of the consequences of pulling up sub- ordinates who know too' much. By and by, too, the corruption deepens. Mere overcharging will not meet the demand, the honest chiefs in despair fixing maximum prices which must not be exceeded. Those who steal want larger percentages, • and they cannot be paid except by deteriorating the quality of the goods supplied, until at last we arrive at the state of things said to have been detected in China during the Japanese War, when the soldiers would not use the rifles from one arsenal because ' they always burst ; or as is alleged iu some Russian regiments, when the overcoats are of about as much use to protect the soldiers as if they were made of paper. ' A perfect remedy for corruption is hard to find, because it requires a change in the motives of the corrupt, which Governments cannot produce, and which society will not be at the pains to encourage effectively ; but two or three palliatives might at least be tried. One is to protect those *rho complain. At present they are regarded as fussy persons, litigious fellows, men who are always discon- tented," and in some countries, Russia especially, they tire rigorously punished.—Even in England, where officers axe' trained to listen, the privates who " will not be put upon" are disliked.—In communities like Russia, until they prove their case they are harassed, and when they prove it nothing adequate is done from fear of scandal injurious to discipline or to the public confidence in the Services. Another is to pay all those who have anything whatever to do with contracts at least decently, a rule often neglected in the case of the experienced but subordinate men upon whose judgment their less experienced superiors are in matters of business compelled to rely. And a third is to declare bribe-giving and bribe-receiving a form of treason severely punishable whenever it is proved. Many men of experi- ence, we know, distrust punishment as an instrument of reform in this matter ; but they are, we are convinced, mistaken. Fear of punishment may in particular cases bind tempter and tempted together; but with the majority of men the law acts as a buttress of the conscience, and an offence condemned by law is accounted. infamous. There is no need for savage punishments, which worry juries and evoke a factitious sympathy for the guilty. If the law is clear and far-reaching, and every case of suspicion is remorselessly investigated, five years' penal servitude will be found quite enough to make the majority even of unprincipled men what used to be described as " law- honest." With moderate but inflexible punishment, there is no need to pity such men, even if they are not in the direct employment of the Government. After all, the servant or the shopkeeper of the State or of the municipality who steals. never yields to a sudden over- powering temptation. He must plot and contrive and falsify accounts deliberately, and neither deserves nor should receive any mow pity than the forger. Cases of forgery of course occur ; but not so frequently that business is rendered impossible, or that forgery is winked at lest too many should be exposed.
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