II. Political duty must exist or there is no possibility of being corruptly unfaithful to it. This statement may seem a truism, but the logical consequences to be drawn from it are of major importance. Among other things it follows that the more widely political duties are diffused the more widespread are the possibilities of corruption. A government which does not rest upon popular suffrage may be a very bad sort of government in many ways, but it will not suffer from vote-buying. To carry this thought out fully let us assume an absolute despotism in which the arbitrary will of the ruler is the sole source of power.[17] In such a case it is manifestly impossible to speak of corruption. By hypothesis the despot owes no duty to the state or to his subjects. Philosophers who defend absolute government naturally lay great stress on the monarch’s duty to God, but this argument may be read out of court on the basis of Mencius’s dictum that Heaven is merely a silent partner in the state. The case is not materially altered when responsibility under natural law is insisted upon instead of to the Deity. Now since an absolute despot is bound to no tangible duty, he cannot be corrupt in any way. If in the conduct of his government he takes account of nothing but the grossest of his physical lusts he is nevertheless not unfaithful to the principles on which that government rests. Viewed from a higher conception of the state his rule may be unspeakably bad, but the accusation of corruption does not and cannot hold against it.
Conversely corruption necessarily finds its richest field in highly organised political communities which have developed most fully the idea of duty and which have intrusted its performance to the largest number of officials and citizens. The modern movement toward democracy and responsible government, beneficent as its results in general have been, has unquestionably opened up greater opportunities for evil of this sort than were ever dreamed of in the ancient and mediæval world. Economic evolution has co-operated with political evolution in the process. There is a direct and well-recognised relationship between popular institutions and the growth of wealth. It is no mere coincidence that those countries which have the most liberal governments are also to-day the richest countries of the world. With their growth in wealth, particularly where wealth is distributed very unequally, materialistic views of life have gained ground rapidly. Thus while the liberal development in politics has opened up wide new areas to the possibility of corruption, the corresponding development in the economic world has strengthened the forces of temptation.
Viewed in this light it must be admitted that our representative democracy with its great international obligations, its increasing range of governmental functions, its enormous and unequally distributed wealth and its intense materialism, is peculiarly subject to corrupt influence. This does not necessarily mean that the republic is destined to be overwhelmed by selfishness. It does mean, however, that we cannot rest secure upon the moral achievements of our ancestors and the institutions which they have transmitted to us. We must develop a more robust virtue, capable of resisting the greater pressure that is brought to bear upon it.
But even if it be conceded that there is a greater measure of successful temptation among us than in the European nations which twit us with corruption as our national vice, it does not follow that we are inferior in political morality to these, our self-appointed moral censors. Reverting to the illustration of vote-buying, it is evident that we could stop this particular form of corruption at once by the simple and obvious, although practically impossible, measure of abolishing popular suffrage. Assuming, for the sake of the argument, that this could be accomplished, we might readily find ourselves burdened with greater political evils than venal voting—for instance, the development of an arrogant oligarchy and the growth either of a sodden indifferentism or of a violent revolutionary spirit among the masses. A large percentage of Prussian citizens of the poorer classes sullenly refrain from voting, nor are they in the habit of selling their votes. Presumably some of them would be venal if they had the opportunity, but the plutocratic three-class election system makes their political influence so minimal that their ballots are not worth either the casting or the buying. Neither do Prussian municipal officials engage in boodling, but the ascription of superior virtue to them on this account must be tempered by a knowledge of the fact that the local government of the country is kept closely in leading strings by the state. Paradoxical as it may seem, it is none the less true that political corruption implies the existence of political virtue; it implies trust in the performance of duty, widespread obligation to perform it, and confidence that in the great majority of cases it will be performed in spite of the derelictions that such conditions occasionally entail. If monarchies are less corrupt than democracies, it is also true that monarchies do not repose so much faith in the fundamental honesty of their citizens as do democracies. At least they do not put it to such severe political tests.
III. In attempting to define corruption, emphasis was laid upon the condition that the duty misperformed or neglected for personal reasons must be recognised. The latter word needs further elucidation. Political duties are defined at great length, of course, in constitutions, laws, and charters. Yet with all our care in providing laws to govern our governors it cannot be maintained that political duty is always so clear as to be easily recognisable. It may indeed be the case that we have at times clouded the situation by the very number and complexity of our legislative acts. Able lawyers frequently differ, for instance, in their views regarding the powers and limitations affecting the action of a mayor under a city charter in a given case. Again, the amount of work required of limited bodies of men is sometimes so great that its full performance is physically impossible, even if we assume perfect comprehension and perfect efficiency on their part. Thus our municipal police forces, it is often asserted, are quite insufficient to execute all the laws and ordinances which it is their duty to enforce. The discretion which they must therefore exercise is an extremely dangerous one, and the continuance of its exercise, suggesting the possibility of suppressing this or that law for personal reasons, is very apt to be provocative of corrupt manipulation.
Apart from the difficulty of clearly perceiving duty, owing to the number and complexity of our legal requirements, certain degrees of difficulty, varying with the nature of the political service required, deserve consideration. A public official whose work is purely administrative and ministerial would supposedly have a relatively clear path before him. Deflection from it should be easily recognisable and punishable. Thus the making of inspections or the granting of permits by authorised officials would seem to be too open for corrupt influences to tamper with. Yet even here the complexities and volume of the business presented and the material interests involved lead to many dishonest practices, as shown in the granting of liquor licenses and building permits, the inspection of life-saving devices, and so on. Judicial authorities have statutes and precedents to guide them, but every new case presents peculiar circumstances which may furnish opportunity or concealment for a sinister deflection. When we come to superior executive officers who are intrusted with large discretionary powers, and to legislators whose main function is the determination of policy, it is evident that the path of duty is frequently indefinite. To officials so situated personal advantages may offer themselves on both sides of a given question. Amid so complicated a play of motives as must assail these authorities, it becomes at times a matter of almost infinite difficulty to distinguish and disentangle those more or less remotely personal and venal and to give proper weight to those only that make for the welfare of the state.
In discussing the question of the clearness with which duty presents itself we have thus far assumed that relatively exact positive norms are available. The question is greatly complicated, however, by the reflection that we must deal not only with the law but also with the prophets. What of those who, like the socialists, dream of a future state to which they owe allegiance rather than to the present state? Or of those whose elevation to power, as not infrequently happens under representative government, is due to a certain class in the community, the ideals of which they feel bound to support, be they levelling or aristocratic? Assuming that officials or voters of this kind seek no personal advantage whatever, the accusation of corruption would not hold against them, although those injured by their action would most certainly make such charges.
On the other hand advanced reformers do not hesitate to charge with corruption many existing social institutions of apparent solidity. Periods of confusion in constitutional arrangements, as Professor H. J. Ford has pointed out,[18] are apt to be corrupt, or at least filled with charges of corruption. Doubtless the same observation would hold true for periods of class feeling or moral unsettlement, which, after all, are only the precursors of constitutional reform. At times when all kinds of conflicting views of duty are current, it is of course easy for different individuals and classes to form extremely divergent views of the morality or immorality of given acts or institutions. Thus, among us, property of various sorts and property in general, government in certain forms or in all forms, marriage, the church, medicine, and law, and those who represent them, are all denounced by small or large groups as graft and grafters. And indeed one need not be a thoroughgoing radical to observe that in some instances narrow and selfish interests have crept into these institutions, warped their highest ideals and crippled their efficiency. There seems to be little justification, however, for the employment of the word corruption in such sweeping fashion. Those who so employ it cannot pretend that any general consensus of moral opinion supports their usage. No doubt many propositions for social change which are now considered extremely radical will gradually gain converts and will ultimately be enacted into law; but not all reforms can appeal unerringly to the future for justification. Institutions hotly assailed in times past have not infrequently outlived their detractors and developed new possibilities of social utility. The formation of modern nationality itself wore the appearance of corruption to many contemporary observers. With all due respect for unfledged reforms, we may fitly remind their advocates that the force of a hard and stinging word like corruption is materially weakened by employing it in senses familiar only to the members of a small circle. Such reckless usage is similar to that of the party politicians criticised above, and it is similarly adapted to produce either a callous levity or a sour distrust of social integrity which in the end must react unfavourably upon every constructive effort for social betterment.