In
diplomacy, in the finances, in judicature, in administration, in
extensive commerce and large manufacturing, a practical, governing
capacity is not created in a day; affairs in all these are too vast
and too complicated; there are too many diverse interests to take into
account, too many near and remote contingencies to foresee; lacking a
knowledge of technical details, it is difficult to grasp the whole;
one tries to make short work of it, one shatters right and left and
ends with the sword, obliged to fall back on systematic brutality to
complete the work of audacious bungling. Except in war, where
apprenticeship takes less time than elsewhere, ten years of
preparatory education plus ten years of practical experience are
required for the good government of men and the management of capital
assets. Add to this, against the temptations of power which are
strong, a stability of character established through professional
honor, and, if it so happens, by family traditions.
After having directed financial matters for two years, Cambon[58] is
not yet aware that the functions of the fermiers-g?n?raux of indirect
taxes differ from those of the receveurs-g?neraux of direct taxes;[59]
accordingly, he includes, or allows to be included, the forty-eight
receveurs in the decree which sends the sixty fermiers before the
revolutionary Tribunal, that is to say, to the guillotine; and, in
fact, all of them would have been sent there had not a man familiar
with the business, Gaudin, Commissioner of the Treasury, heard the
decree proclaimed in the street and run to explain to the Committee on
Finances that "there was nothing in common" between the two groups of
outlaws; that the fermiers were holders of leases on probable profits
while the receveurs were paid functionaries at a fixed salary, and the
crimes of the former, proved or not proved, were not imputable to the
latter.
Pages:
660
661
662
663
664
665
666
667
668
669
670
671
672
673
674
675
676
677
678
679
680
681
682
683
684