date

15 Decr 1801 Maximum 4
15 Decr 1801

Maximum

4

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.
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  • Title: [21 Decr 1801 Maximum Mode]
    Description: 21 Decr 1801

    Maximum

    Mode

    Execution

    2

    set, could he know what dependence he could with safety place on the continuance

    of it. {The farmer, understanding that wheat at 90s a quarter would pay him

    better than any other crop.}

    Whereas, if from the first he were to know what price the law would allow him to

    take, supposing the state of the market to keep the article up at that price,

    his operations would rest on a basis /be grounded on /supported by/ a degree of

    assurance/ much firmer than in the other case. If from the first in virtue of a

    fresh Act for that purpose the maximum were to be fixed suppose at 90s a

    quarter, the farmer according to whose calculations wheat at that price would

    pay him better than any other crop he could raise, at the same time that

    circumstances in his estimation seemed to warrant the expectation of its keeping

    up at that price would take his measures accordingly. These measures he would

    perhaps not take with a maximum at a pitch altogether uncertain hanging over his

    head: and supposing his expectations dangerous[?] enough to get the better of

    his apprehensions on that score still, if the maximum price eventually set under

    the discretionary power were in his part of the country to stand so low for

    example as 80s, he would be a sufferer, in a way
  • Title: [9 Decr 1801 Maximum 2]
    Description: 9 Decr 1801

    Maximum

    2

    a quantity of the old stock upon their hands, But /though/ even in this case it

    would not be the interest to let the commodity go out of their hands at a lower

    price and consequently at a quicker rate, unless in consequence of the final

    glut produced by the intervening diminution of /in the/ consumption the ultimate

    fall of price were to become so great as to do more than take back again from

    them the intermediate profit derived from the intermediate artificial

    scarcity.

    But in the case of an extraordinary scarcity – a decided and known deficiency

    this check no longer holds: the whole or a part scarce distinguishable from the

    whole is necessary to keep the inhabitants alive: the whole must therefore be

    bought at whatever price. By the poor themselves it could not have been bought

    at a price anything near so high as that at which we have seen it bought: but by

    the poor assisted by the rich it might be bought and has been bought at that

    price and might have been bought at a price still greater /higher/: how much

    higher it is /seems/ difficult to say. The quantity of money in the country

    might in former times when money was gold and silver and the quantity of it

    unlimited, have set a limit to this encrease – but now that money is paper – and

    the quantity of paper without limit, the limits of the quantity capable of being

    raised for the purchase of necessaries in the several hands through which they

    have to pass are at any rate very ill defined.
  • Title: [14 Dec.r 1801 Maximum Conclusion]
    Description: 14 Dec.r 1801

    Maximum

    Conclusion

    1

    actual price rise to any pitch above that of the statutable price, should have

    checked /nipped/ the rage of unlimited and speculative competition in the bud:

    and by that means confined the encrease of price within limits less wide than

    they would have been otherwise of the mark exactly correspondent to the amount

    of the deficiency.