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Selections from the Speeches and Writings of Edmund Burke by Edmund Burke
page 127 of 540 (23%)

REFORMED CIVIL LIST.

As things now stand, every man, in proportion to his consequence at
court, tends to add to the expense of the civil list, by all manner of
jobs, if not for himself, yet for his dependents. When the new plan is
established, those who are now suitors for jobs will become the most
strenuous opposers of them. They will have a common interest with the
minister in public economy. Every class, as it stands low, will become
security for the payment of the preceding class; and, thus, the persons
whose insignificant services defraud those that are useful, would then
become interested in their payment. Then the powerful, instead of
oppressing, would be obliged to support the weak; and idleness would
become concerned in the reward of industry. The whole fabric of the
civil economy would become compact and connected in all its parts; it
would be formed into a well-organized body, where every member
contributes to the support of the whole; and where even the lazy stomach
secures the vigour of the active arm.


FRENCH AND ENGLISH REVOLUTION.

He felt some concern that this strange thing, called a Revolution in
France, should be compared with the glorious event commonly called the
Revolution in England; and the conduct of the soldiery, on that
occasion, compared with the behaviour of some of the troops of France in
the present instance. At that period the prince of Orange, a prince of
the blood-royal in England, was called in by the flower of the English
aristocracy to defend its ancient constitution, and not to level all
distinctions. To this prince, so invited, the aristocratic leaders who
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