THERE is thus a direct and obvious connection between the motive which induces individuals to undertake such a work, and the utility of the work. Can we find any such connection in the case of a public work executed by a government? If it is useful, are the individuals who rule the country richer? If it is useless, are they poorer?
A public man may be solicitous for his credit. But is not he likely to gain more credit by a useless display of ostentatious architecture in a great town than by the best road or the best canal in some remote province? The fame of public works is a much less certain test of their utility than the amount of toll collected at them.* In a corrupt age, there will be direct embezzlement. In the purest age, there will be abundance of jobbing.* We have only to look at the buildings recently erected in London for a proof of our rule. In a bad age, the fate of the public is to be robbed outright. In a good age, it is merely to have the dearest and the worst of everything.
abridged
* On September 17th, 1830, a few months after Macaulay wrote his essay, the Liverpool and Manchester Railway opened at a cost of £739,165. In its first year of operation, it turned a profit of £71,098, rising to £136,688 in 1844. The journey time from the Liverpool docks to the mills around Manchester dropped from four hours to a 105 minutes for passengers, and from twenty hours to two for freight; tickets cost half the 10s charged by coach companies on the road. The competition forced the canals to slash their rates by 30%, and the low prices and short journey times prompted the opening of new collieries and factories. The railway reduced unemployment, yet 20% of the charitable support paid out by those parish councils through which it passed also came from the railway. Such were the reliable measures of public utility that Macaulay craved. See It’s Better by Rail.
* Jobbing or jobbery is an eighteenth-century word for turning a public office or a position of trust to private advantage, that is to say, graft. Modern usage is quite different: a ‘jobbing’ gardener is simply one who prefers to take on small, occasional jobs rather than continuous employment.