Thus, it would be reasonable if every individual were instructed to be unashamed of his office and to keep an eye on his household budget, if one is to place one's trust in him. Salaries appropriate to the offices are necessary if one is going to demand loyal service from people, and this must come to pass once the positions are not entirely filled with useless people.
One could certainly get by with half of the subalterns, if one were to arrange matters in an orderly fashion and if expenses and incomes were not everywhere increasing unreasonably, to the burden of the lord and the lands. If the sum of the salaries were divided among half of them, it would be sufficient, and supernumeraries are only harmful. He who wants to be a supernumerary can learn something from the bottom up and then earn [a post] as a regular employee [Ordinarius]. If a supernumerary wants to live from his own means, then why does he not use his own means to learn something in lower positions and to demonstrate his talents there?
Now, occupying these positions requires some thinking. As for the nobility and the prosperous bourgeoisie: for the first, there are positions involving the leadership of an office [Amts-Hauptmann-Stellen] after they have been trained in the offices of police, law, and economic matters; and for the latter, there are positions as controllers of receipts or economic administration.
These controllers are so necessary that one should not grant the offices to legal scholars, but rather lease them to farmers, and the upholding of the law should be separated, if the lessee remains duty bound.
If one would clearly establish the bookkeeping of the offices and of the convoy [Geleits-], ferry, postal, and similar incomes, then monthly reconciliations would be very necessary, and this could be done with the involvement of the young people to be assigned, without any compensation.
In Bern, they have the so-called "outer council," which is allowed to repeat everything that happens in the great council and in the other councils, so that young people can practice and be tested: they vaunt the usefulness of this institution.
The fact remains that if everyone were required to work their way up, then when they came straight from the university more cohesion would be brought into their heads.
In the tax office, the controllers are very useful when they are immediately [auf dem jetzigen Fuß] appointed after a preliminary test. They can become capable people, as generally in the tax office very good people work their way up, although they are discouraged when rude, though learned people are pushed in from above.
It can only be hoped that one would introduce in our entire finances the correct spirit of commercial bookkeeping. This not only reduces the work, but also allows for quick and clear insights when someone else desires or demands them.
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