14 Decr 1801

Maximum

1 Bread

1

The /My/ aim in these pages being – not the gaining of a point – but the

disentanglement of useful truth on which side soever it may be to be found,

arguments that appear inconclusive must, on whatever side they present

themselves, be equally as such held up to view.

Cases of various kinds have been referred to /pointed out/, as precedents of a

maximum law: they are so of a maximum taken at large of a fixation of prices

taken at large: but they do not any of them appear to be in point or to come up

to the case when applied to the case of corn.

The nearest case upon /to/ a superficial view, is that of the assize of bread:

and to a superficial view, it is indeed a very near one: the subject matter

being the same article /individual parcel of matter/ only in different states.

But in point of principle the analogy is altogether wanting. Of The fixation

proposed for the price of the corn the effect would be to prevent it from rising

beyond /above/ a certain mark above the mark so fixed upon for that purpose. The

sort of fixation in use in regard to bread leaves the price free in effect to

rise to any heighth. What it determines is – not the absolute price of bread but

only its proportion to another price the price