date

10 Decr 1801 Maximum 6. Scarcity
10 Decr 1801

Maximum

6. Scarcity Crops

3

It may be rejected /set down/ /noted down/ as no better than an argument ad

hominem, if I were to call to mind upon this occasion as upon a former, that the

case of the scarcity-crop farmers which is here regarded as the prevailing one

which is here assumed /taken up/ as having a claim to be the measure and

standard of the desirable rate in regard of price is thrown out of the question,

that the cause of this unfortunate class so decidedly taken up and patronized,

is in less than six pages after given up and deserted. Of two inconsistent

propositions the Hon: Gentleman will at all times /any time/ be at liberty to

adhere to which he pleases, though he can not well adhere to both at the same

time, he may at any time, on condition of giving up the other /one/ adhere to

either. On the terms of acknowledging that the measure we have seen him

announcing with complacency and which on that ground I will venture till

corrected to call his measure – the measure of encouraging importation for the

express purpose of keeping down the price – upon the terms I say of giving up

this /his/ measure of his, he may at any time abide by /adhere to/ this argument

which is more particularly and exclusively /decidedly/ his own /he may at any

time make his election/. He may say happen what will to the consumers – I will

take care of the unfortunate part of the farmers I will bring them whole at any

rate. The
Similar Items
  • Title: [10 Dec r 1801 Maximum 6. Scarcity]
    Description: 10 Dec r 1801

    Maximum

    6. Scarcity Crops

    6

    which the humanity of the Hon. Gentleman appears at one time /on this page/ at least to have leaned.

    As to the word arbitrarily, in the passage where by a figure not of arithmetic but of speech he examines his antagonist upon interrogatories, and asks /asking/ him whether he would make the farmer a loser by arbitrarily reducing the price of his corn, the examinant I should conceive need not be in /at/ any great difficulty /pain/ about the answer. The authority he may say /answer/ is the same in the one case as in the other: it is the same authority you call in a few pages after to reduce the price of the farmers corn by bounties upon importation: you do not suppose it will act arbitrarily when it forces down the price of home grown corn by bounties upon foreign corn: you have no right to suppose it will act arbitrarily when it fixes /if it were to fix/ the price by a prohibition put upon higher prices. Parliament is the tool /being the authority/ you have to work with, you must take it as it is, and in both places make the most of it: you can not have it a good Parliament in one page, and an arbitrary one in another.
  • Title: [12 Decr 1801 Maximum Beginning]
    Description: 12 Decr 1801

    Maximum

    Beginning

    4

    The effect of a combination is rather to fix prices, than to urge them on at an

    indefinitely encreasing rate. In the case of a combination, it is but natural

    that they should be /the rate /mark/ at which they are/ fixed by it, /should be/

    at too high a rate /mark/: but at that too high rate /mark at any rate/ they are

    fixed. It is by competition the very reverse of combination that prices are

    spurred up to a continually encreasing height. While the price is as yet no

    higher than a double price, dealers crowd in upon a farmer to buy it at that

    double price cash apprehending that if he does not now submitt to get it at so

    high a price, he will he knows not how soon not be able to get it at less than a

    treble price. The farmer observing this eagerness, and inferring /looking to/ a

    general and proportionally encreasing scarcity as the cause of it, rises

    accordingly in his demand. Why should he not? if he foregoes his share in the

    profit, he will but throw it entire into the hands of his {more prudent and

    determined} neighbours. If combination were /had been/ the cause, there must

    have been an uninterrupted chain of prices successively fixed by it, with a

    convention of farmers or corndealers or farmers and corndealers continually

    sitting and setting illegal assizes of corn with as much regularity as the legal

    assizes are set in the case of

    bread.
  • Title: [10 Decr 1801 Maximum 6. Scarcity]
    Description: 10 Decr 1801

    Maximum

    6. Scarcity Crops

    2

    Here as before, the Hon: Gentleman having wrapped up his argument in an interrogation, at the peril of the charge of misconception and misrepresentation, I find myself obliged to make a proposition for the Hon Gentleman which I do with all imaginable diffidence and reluctance, prepared and resolved to discard it /turn it out of doors/ the very instant he disowns it: protesting most sincerely that if this be not what he means I am altogether unable to conjecture what else it can be

    { In this paragraph a proposition will I think be found eventually included /assumed/ a proposition, which the Hon:ble Gentleman upon further /maturer/ reflection, to the Hon: Gentleman himself will, I am inclined to think appear untenable:} This is – that the price of corn ought at all times to be of such a height, as to afford something not much less than living profit to a farmer whose crop has “almost totally failed”. I could wish the proposition were /had been/more determinate: but had I made it so, I might have been accused /taxed/ not without ground, of misrepresenting it. This, if the Hon.ble Gentleman will take the trouble /have the goodness/ to take pen and ink to it, or even without pen and ink bestow a little thought upon it in the line of calculation is what he will find rather an expensive mode of insurance.