8 Decr 1801

Maximum

6

7

One case may have been mentioned, as capable of being cited though not cited by the Hon. Gentleman, as lending countenance to the supposition of /that/ a maximum may be inferior to all inferior prices. This is the case of the Assize of Bread of the price of bread as fixed by the Law in certain places according to the standard pitched upon for that purpose. But in this case the price is always so low, that there is no field left in which competition can find room to exercise itself. It is made purposely as near as may be to the lowest rate of profit which is capable or supposed of finding acceptance. If in any instance it is /be/ not absolutely at the mark of the very lowest price that would be accepted of, it is at any rate /even then/ so near the mark, that the difference - in that sort of general view which the eye of the public is in the habit of bestowing - would not be perceptible. Three or four per Cent perhaps or some such matter: - but what is such a scale of variation in comparison of the /an/ interval of cent per cent: an interval which in the case of bread corn might well be left between the maximum /greatest allowed/ price and the living -profit price, and yet afford a prodigious relief when compared with the mark to which the actual prices have risen /so lately been seen to rise/ within so recent an experience.