The principal revenue which I propose to draw from these uncultivated wastes is to spring from the improvement and population of the kingdom,--which never can happen without producing an improvement more advantageous to the revenues of the crown than the rents of the best landed estate which it can hold.
Burke argues that improving uncultivated lands will ultimately benefit the crown's revenues more than traditional estates.
Share
More from Edmund Burke
The improvements of the National Assembly are superficial, their errors fundamental.
They will become flatterers instead of legislators,--the instruments, not the guides of the people.
I would not exclude alteration neither; but even when I changed, it should be to preserve.
If any of them should happen to propose a scheme of liberty soberly limited, and defined with proper qualifications, he will be immediately outbid by his competitors, who will produce something more splendidly popular.
Other voices in this conversation
