{126} This was proved by what happened in Paris in 1789, and in England in 1790.  The [end of page #150] want in Paris was so real that there often was not, in that great city, bread, and materials to make it, more than sufficient for twenty-four hours:  yet it never rose to above double the usual price, or twopence English the pound, (that is, sixteen sols for the four-pound loaf,) although the people were obliged to wait from six in the morning till two or three in the afternoon, before they could get a loaf a piece, and more they were not permitted to purchase or carry away.  In London, where bread could always be had in plenty, for money, it rose to more than three times the usual price, (one and tenpence the quartern loaf,) yet bread is a much more necessary article to the poor in Paris than in London.  But the case was, in London, the people are richer, and, in each place, it rose as high as the people were found able to pay. -=-

When the necessaries of life become dear, and arrive at a monopoly-price, then all taxes and other burthens laid on the people become a matter comparatively of little importance.  In England, where the taxes are higher than in any nation in the world, they do not come on the poor to above three pounds a head; {127} and, of those, at least one-half can be avoided by a little self-denial.  But, when the provisions increase one-half in price, it amounts to at least four pounds a head to each person; so that the effect falls on the population of the country, with a most extraordinary degree of severity.

But, great as this evil is, it has, by the circumstances and nature of things, a tendency to increase the very cause in which it originates.  Though the highness of price diminishes the consumption of victuals in general, it diminishes the consumption of vegetable food, or bread, more than it does that of animal food.  Though all sorts of eatables rise in price, in times of scarcity, yet bread, being the article that excites the greatest anxiety, rises higher in proportion than the others.  This affords an encouragement to gratify the propensity for eating animal food; and this propensity is encouraged by an absurd and mistaken policy, by which (or perhaps rather an affectation of policy) economy in bread is prescribed, and not in other food; so that when people devour animal food, and increase the evil, they think they are most patriotically and humanely diminishing it. {128}

—–­ {127} The whole taxes in this country do not amount to above four pounds a head, of which one-third is paid entirely by those wealthy, or at least affluent; it is, then, putting the share paid by the labouring body very high to put it at three pounds each person.

{128} Both in France and England, during the last scarcity, the use of every other sort of [end of page #151] food was recommended, to save the consumption of bread-corn.  Potatoes are the only substitute that tended really to relieve the distress; all others, and, in particular, animal food, had an effect in augmenting it. -=-