date

8 Decr 1801 Maximum 8. Local
8 Decr 1801

Maximum

8. Local Variation

3

would not be sufficiently correct to do as much good as the fixation of the price

of bread may for anything that will be shewn to the contrary have done, is

evident enough. - but because it is out of our power to do all the good we wish

and have in view, is that a reason for doing none?
Similar Items
  • Title: [8 Decr 1801 Maximum 8. Local]
    Description: 8 Decr 1801

    Maximum

    8. Local Variation

    2

    That the allowed price of bread corn could not be adjusted to the living-profit price of breadcorn in every place of the kingdom with as much correctness as in the metropolis the allowed price of bread is to the market price of breadcorn, is an proposition, the truth of which I {am as well satisfied as he can be /see no reason for disputing/.} Whether it would be worth while to attempt to make any difference at all between place and place, between the place /places/ which gives /give/ /average/ upon an average the highest price is a point /question on/ is more than at present, if ever, I should /can/ regard myself as competent to pronounce. But the question is not whether a fixation of this sort could be performed with the utmost degree of correctness that could be wished, but whether it could be performed at all. The Hon:ble Gentleman’s answer is most decidedly, and without {restriction or} limitation or condition in the negative: if therefore any one maximum /fixed/ price be pointed out, that shall at the same time be less /lower/ than the greatest /highest/ free price known and shall at the same time stand clear of the Hon Gentleman’s arguments, the whole apparatus of them falls to the ground. I will venture for illustrations sake to name a price in this view: and let it be the exact[?] double of the highest ordinary /average free/ price at the place at which that price is highest. That a price thus high

    would
  • Title: [[tear in page] Decr 1801 Maximum]
    Description: [tear in page] Decr 1801

    Maximum

    Beginning

    Defence of a Maximum

    In introducing these pages to the notice of the Reader the first thing to be

    done is to shut the door against any such misconceptions as might be apt to

    arise out of the title page.

    In speaking of a Maximum as a defensible measure all I mean to contend for is –

    that a price might be found – which though {with or without variation grounded

    in local circumstances} inferior in no small degree to the highest prices that

    have been known to be given and demanded and given in some instances – might be

    fixed upon /marked out/ as the highest that should be suffered to be taken, by a

    fixation which would be productive of some relief without any such

    disadvantageous effects as would overbalance the advantage.

    In the eventual recommendation thus given in favour of a maximum measure of this

    kind I do not mean it as a means of ensuring an habitual middling price, much

    less habitual cheapness. It will not create land: it will not annihilate money:

    it will neither create nor unfetter land, nor unfetter it.
  • Title: [8 Decr 1801 Maximum 8. Local]
    Description: 8 Decr 1801

    Maximum

    8. Local Variation

    1

    8. “If it were worth pursuing the point further, it might be shewn, that the

    difficulties in the execution of it would be insurmountable. The same maximum

    could not apply universally throughout the kingdom, nor could it be set

    correctly in every different place, according to all the variety of

    circumstances which operate upon price.”

    Observations

    If what the Hon.ble Gentleman appears so confident of being able /having it in

    his power/ to shew and forebore to shew only because in his view of the matter

    it was not worth shewing had been shewn, this one argument might have stood in

    the place of all the rest. The same maximum not apply universally throughout the

    kingdom? - why not? what should hinder it? Had he said that different maximums

    could not on the extraordinary occasion in question be applied to all the

    different places of the kingdom as /that are wont to/ exhibit in ordinary years

    so many differences in regard to price, and that in such manner as to make the

    extraordinary fixed price be in the same proportion in each place /every where/

    to the ordinary natural one: had this been the atchievement rejected /attempt

    /measure/ reprobated/ on the score of impracticability, I should have found no

    difficulty in acceding to the rejection: That