It is such when they trade on a private account; and it is much more so in any authorized monopoly, where the hand of government, which ought never to appear but to protect, is felt as the instrument in every act of oppression.
Burke critiques the role of government in monopolistic trade practices, arguing that it leads to oppression.
Share
More from Edmund Burke
If all the absurd theories of lawyers and divines were to vitiate the objects in which they are conversant, we should have no law and no religion left in the world.
This idea of a liberal descent inspires us with a sense of habitual native dignity, which prevents that upstart insolence almost inevitably adhering to and disgracing those who are the first acquirers of any distinction.
Do they mean to attaint and disable backwards all the kings that have reigned before the Revolution, and consequently to stain the throne of England with the blot of a continual usurpation?
Their objects would be enlarged with their elevation; but their disposition, and habits, and mode of accomplishing their designs must remain the same.
Other voices in this conversation
