date

14 Decr 1801 Maximum 1
14 Decr 1801

Maximum

1

Should any one here observe, that a maximum is a sort of measure of which famine

might be the result, I admitt the truth of the observation without the smallest

difficulty /hesitation/. A government which with this instrument in its hand

should produce /propose/ to itself to produce a famine /give birth to that

calamity/ might go to work with the most perfect assurance of success. A

Physician, who should propose to himself to poison his patients, might be

equally well assured /afford him an equal assurance/ of success, by means of

Opium or Antimony. To The College of Physicians this property thus indisputably

belonging to these two useful drugs has never been a secret or matter of

dispute: yet opium and antimony maintain an undisputed place in the list of

useful medicines. Physicians, knowing that life and death depend upon number

weight and measure, are in the habit of bestowing upon those objects the

attention they deserve. If those who amuse themselves /the body politic/ with

speculating or operating upon the body politic, were as strict and as uniform in

their attention to those essential objects as those whose labours are employd

upon the natural body natural, there would be a little better logic and a little

less rhetoric would be heard and read, both within doors and without.

I admitt then that by means of a maximum, it is perfectly easy to make a famine:

but, in return

for
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  • Title: [14 Decr 1801 Maximum 2]
    Description: 14 Decr 1801

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    2

    for this admission, I am more than half inclined to demand another – {viz: that

    with an ordinary measure of attention – with that measure of attention which no

    reasonable and candid observer can expect to find wanting either on the part

    either of Administration or of Parliament,} it would in such a case be little,

    if at all, less easy to avoid making one.

    Look at the name only and no deeper famine stares you in the face: look a hairs

    breadth deeper – the danger vanishes.

    As for example suppose the price reduced by a maximum to whatever mark it is

    proposed to redeem it by importation – where in that case is the famine?

    Importation, it is true, encreases quantity, and in that way lowers price,

    whereas a maximum would if successful[?] reduce price without encrease of

    quantity. True: but on the other hand encrease of price it is equally well known

    is out of all proportion to deficiency of quantity: - but of this a little

    further on.
  • Title: [14 Dec.r 1801 Maximum 2]
    Description: 14 Dec.r 1801

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    2

    Compulsion being out of the question, what assurance it may be asked can you have

    that your price when settled /thus fixed/ will be accepted of {by the parties

    interested}?, and /but/, if not accepted of, then comes famine. I answer – the

    same assurance that exists in all other cases /instances/: and that in all other

    cases, is proved to be well-grounded by experience: the abundance of /natural

    sufficiency of/ the inducements for brining the article to market: the absence

    of all inducements for keeping it back, I should /might/ have said a much

    stronger assurance. The {measure of} profit still obtainable will not be a

    profit merely equal to the greatest usually obtainable in other trades – or at

    other times in this trade – but much greater: the inducement which without the

    maximum prompts men to keep back the article, would by the maximum be taken

    away: without the maximum, experience holds out almost a quadruple price as

    obtainable, presumption might hold out a greater and indefinite one: the maximum

    admitting of no more than a double price little more or less putting /puts/ an

    end to all such expectations, leaving /and leaves/ the allowed price as the only

    obtainable as well as abundantly sufficient price.
  • Title: [15 Decr 1801 Maximum 4]
    Description: 15 Decr 1801

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    First, there was no deficiency: and those whose degree of assurance rises with

    the deficiency or /and/ doubtfulness of the evidence were too sure of it, to

    hear with patience of an opinion on the other side. When at length the existence

    of a deficiency great beyond all example was too notorious to be denied and has

    been not the smallest encrease /enhancement/ of prices endurable, and when

    remorse, remorse for having for so many months been venting obloquy against high

    and low and exerting discontents upon false grounds, should have produced /wrung

    confession/ contrition and apologies from any least susceptible of it – then at

    last some enhancement /advance of price/ was admitted to be allowable

    /endurable/ in consideration of the deficiency. But what enhancement? – above

    what price – and in what degree above that price? {This was never answered

    /said/ because in the nature of things} No answer to either of these questions:

    for in the nature of things it was impossible to give one: and still more were

    to be consigned to infamy for presuming to depart from a standard which had

    neither been set up nor attempted to be set up {nor was capable of being set up

    -} by any body: and the non-compliance with these non-existing rules was given

    as a mark /symptom/ of /of a most wide-spreading as well as/ unexampled degree

    /measure/ of hard heartedness and depravity, in an age and country which has

    much still to learn in the book of wisdom, but of which charity, as far as the

    poor are concerned is the characteristic excellence.