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[tear in page] Decr 1801 Maximum
[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.
Similar Items
  • Title: [18 Decr 1801 Maximum Ulteriora]
    Description: 18 Decr 1801

    Maximum

    Ulteriora

    2

    The dearness has for its ulterior cause exuberance – habitual and indefensibly

    increasing exuberance – of money – of money of the primary sort, by the too

    rapid importation of the pretious metals its materials: the materials of which

    it is composed: of money of the secondary sort, by the unlimited creation of it.

    In regard to scarcity two remedies commonly relied on as sufficient are

    essentially inadequate: cultivation of waste, and importation, with or without

    bounties: in the ordinary course of trade that is /I mean/ by individuals on

    their own account, taking their chance in respect to sale and price: two others

    commonly shrunk from: but the only ones upon which any safe reliance can be

    placed: magazines, in public account, and facility afforded allowance

    /allowance/ declaredly and liberally given to exportation of capital and

    emigration.

    By inadequate in speaking of eaters[?] of waste I certainly do not mean

    undesirable: but where is the resource when all shall have been brought into

    culture? a state of things which many /some persons/ now living may perhaps live

    to see. The period arrival of the period /times/ is an event worth calculation,

    but is not a fit place. In the mean time encrease of mouths is going on, as fast

    perhaps as the encrease of land in a state to feed them.
  • Title: [18 Decr 1801 Maximum Ulteriora]
    Description: 18 Decr 1801

    Maximum

    Ulteriora

    {An observation I set out with – an admission if the reader pleases – for an

    observation would otherwise but ill bestowed upon a matter sufficiently obvious

    to every body, that} a maximum law, Defensible as it appears, is but a temporary

    expedient /palliative/ and at best but a palliative in relation to the

    inconveniences under which we have been labouring, and under which, if no remedy

    of a more radical complexion be applied, we seem condemned to labour. /though I

    see nothing which should prevent its being a permanent one in principle subject

    to variation in respect of nominal price./

    To the catalogue of remedies that have been proposed, no new article, I am

    confident, remains to be added: but in regard to the selection of them it

    presents itself to any view as a topic that wants much of being exhausted.

    Pernicious – inoperative – inadequate – indispensable such is the mixture I have

    been accustomed to view /see/ in the same page.+

    The mischief has two roots /causes/ - habitual scarcity and dearness beyond the

    scarcity: both habitual and permanent: roots altogether unconnected, and which

    require carefully to be distinguished with the utmost care.

    The scarcity has for its ulterior cause, prosperity in all its shapes: an

    exuberant population – exuberant not with reference to wealth taken in all its

    shapes – for that too is in exuberance, but with respect to the capacity of

    raising within the local precincts of the chief seat of empire, the quantity of

    food necessary for the sustenance of its inhabitants.

    [+] Write dogmatically, for shortness having prefaced by an apology.
  • 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