date

10 Dec r 1801 Maximum 6. Scarcity
10 Dec r 1801

Maximum

6. Scarcity Crops

4

The decision would be a human one: but as partial humanity must have its limits, let us in this instance, catch some sort of glance at the effect of it upon the whole.

Precision does not appear upon this /the/ occasion to have been /of this pamphlet to have been in any considerable degree/ the hon. Gentleman’s aim, at least as far as the aim may be judged of by the effect. If it had been, a few figures I mean of arithmetic not of speech, would /might/ have been in that point of view more satisfactory more eligible than the interrogations – and the almost total failure of crops – and the possibility, and nothing more than possibility of a loss, which under the supposed excess of price is supposed to be result of the almost total failure. Had it not been for the context if I had been called upon to give a picture of the Hon. Gentlemans almost total failure, I should /might/ have represented by some such deficiency as that of nine tenths: but as the loss supposed is such an one as /degree of deficiency understood, must be no /not be any/ greater than/ the Hon. Gentleman would wish to see made up, possibities apart by the price, I will, in the midst of my perplexity – protesting it to be merely for illustration, pitch upon a failure of considerably less magnitude – a failure corresponding for example to a deficiency of three fourths. Rejecting the value of /quantity representative of the value of/ the Hon. Gentleman’s possibility, as a quantity too troublesome to deal with, the price to be allowed of and wished for for the purpose

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    Description: 10 Decr 1801

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    6. Scarcity Crops

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

    Maximum

    6. Scarcity Crops

    1

    6. “It is not enough to say, that the maximum shall be set so high, that

    generally speaking, the farmer shall be a gainer” – (Certainly – but quere was

    this ever said by any body?) What (continues the Hon. Gentleman) will that man

    say to your average[?] whose crop has almost totally failed, and who even at the

    very high price of the market may possibly be a loser? Will you make him a

    greater loser by arbitrarily reducing the price of his corn?”

    Thus far the Hon: Gentleman: for my own part I must confess I see not what true

    light can /will/ be thrown on the subject by a dialogue /conversation/ between a

    man {placed} /put into/ a case from which nothing can be concluded, and a

    supposed simpleton of a legislator – such an one as the man would never meet

    with.
  • 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.