Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: May 8, 2025
It was necessary that the two ministers who were so loudly accused of having abused their trusts, should prove their innocence, throw full light upon all they had done; apart from which the Chamber itself could not possibly remain beneath the charge of wholesale venality.
Venality was the oil on which the machinery of government operated, and the capital was a magnet for a horde of people who flocked there from every part of the empire and beyond, seeking favors and influence.
Had it preserved from the dry pan and the slow fire any one of a score of individuals whose only offence against the State was that they would not willingly sacrifice their rights, and become the tools of venality and corruption? In not one solitary instance had it served any such purpose. Such responsibility was a mockery, "a broken reed, which it would be folly ever again to rest upon."
And ah! if I could tell you everything, if I could show you the frightful under-side of this world of ours, the monstrous, ravenous ambition, the abominable network of intrigues, venality, cowardice, treachery, and even crime!"
This venality of the only path by which the superior grades can be reached is a great blot upon the military system, and stops the career of many a man who would become an excellent soldier. It is a gangrene which for a long time has eaten into all the orders and all the parties of the state, and under which it will be odd if all do not succumb.
I leave aside the limitations that come from within the editor himself; for manifestly ignorance, prejudice, venality and the like, in the editor are in no wise different from similar faults in other men. There are just two temptations, however, peculiar to the editor, that tend to limit his freedom: first, the fear of the advertisers, and second, the fear of the subscribers.
Nor should we wonder at this pressure, when we consider the monstrous abuses of power under which this people were ground to powder; when we pass in review the weight of their taxes, and the inequality of their distribution; the oppressions of the tythes, the failles, the corvees, the gabelles, the farms and the barriers; the shackles on commerce by monopolies; on industry by guilds and corporations; on the freedom of conscience, of thought, and of speech; on the freedom of the press by the censure; and of the person by lettres de cachet; the cruelty of the criminal code generally; the atrocities of the rack; the venality of Judges, and their partialities to the rich; the monopoly of military honors by the noblesse; the enormous expenses of the Queen, the Princes, and the Court; the prodigalities of pensions; and the riches, luxury, indolence, and immorality of the Clergy.
Muddle and venality do not, however, exhaust the demonstrated vices of individualism. Individualism encourages desertion and treason. Individualism permits base private people to abscond with the national resources and squeeze a profit out of national suffering. In the early stages of the war some bright minds conceived the idea of a corner in drugs.
But for the moment the French were heavily burdened by the venality of La Barre, who subordinated public policy to his own gains.
A few years ago we were all discussing who should buy The Times; I do not know what chances an agent of the Kaiser might not have had if he had been sufficiently discreet. This venality will be far more dangerous to the Allied countries after the war than during its continuance.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking