date

12 Dec: 1801 Maximum Beginning
12 Dec: 1801

Maximum

Beginning

Terms[?]

1

The mention of the article of money as one among the falsely supposed cases in

point against the limitation of the price of corn /a maximum for corn/, brings

to mind an incident which at the time was matter of some amusement to me. In

combating I know not what unnamed antagonist, a Conductor of one of the

Newspapers A newspaper conductor who /who with views such as I have been above

disclaimed /just disclaiming as above// at the time had stood /been standing/

forth as an advocate for a maximum, finding himself incommoded, as it should

seem, by some reference that had been made to the Defence of Usury. Having thus

been brought into disgrace with the self-appointed diurnal Censor, this harmless

production innocent certainly of any such crimes as were attempted /thus

imputed/ to be fastened upon it, was to be tied about the ancles of the monsters

/harpies/ who were seen praying upon the country in the shape of farmers and

corndealers, and with them consigned to the pit of infamy. Abhorrence with its

consequences was to be the doom of those to whom we are indebted for the

necessaries of life, contempt was to be the portion of the “specious economist”

in despite of whose theoretical reveries about money Judges had continued all

along to do their duty. Little did he think than in this ebullition[?] of his

zeal to destroy an imagined adversary, he had been aiming so cruel /desperate/ a

stroke against an advocate on the same side.

+ Times 20 Novr 1800
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: [13 Dec.r 1801 Maximum 2]
    Description: 13 Dec.r 1801

    Maximum

    2

    without trial – that farmers ought not to be forced to send in their corn to

    market – especially not all of them the same day and every day: that people

    ought not to be forced to take a gram or two of stamped paper for an ounce or

    two of gold or silver: with a multitude of other propositions as incontestable

    as these. But what has all this to do with such a maximum law as any one would

    propose for Britain.