But governments attend rather to the interest of the higher classes, even while they hold out the protection of the common people as the main pretext of their authority.

The result is their maintenance of land-monopoly even though it affects the prime material of all essential industries, prevents the growth of population, and makes the rich wealthier at the expense of the poor.

It breeds oppression and ignorance, and poisons improvement by preventing individual initiative.
He points out how a nation is dominated by its landlords, and how they have consistently evaded the fiscal burdens they should bear.

Only in a return to a nation of freeholders can Ogilvie see the real source of an increase in happiness.
Such criticism is revolutionary enough, though when he comes to speak of actual changes, he had little more to propose than a system of peasant proprietorship.

What is striking in the book is its sense of great, impending changes, its thorough grasp of the principle of utility, its realization of the immense agricultural improvement that is possible if the landed system can be so changed as to bring into play the impulses of humble men.