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.