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[NOTE: For those interested, a discussion of Michael's book has also appeared on the
EH.Res list. You will find the archived messages at www.eh.net in the list archives
section. -- RBE]
 
Tony, yes I was suggesting that people at the time were very much 
concerned about keeping people, as you said, "just unable to survive 
myself provisioning."  I have a lot of material in the book where I 
document this concern. 
 
 
Tony Brewer wrote: 
> Is it suggested that the game laws were part of a 
> finely-adjusted calculation designed to leave country people just 
> unable to survive by self-provisioning?  
 
 
> I can't believe that either the 
> rural population or the potential gains from hunting were sufficiently 
> homogeneous to achieve that aim, or the upper classes smart enough to 
> make the calculations. 
 
You bring up an interesting point. In collecting the various sources who 
discussed the appropriate measures to maintain the optimal degree of 
self-provisioning, I made no attempt to distinguish between the 
different regions, except in discussing the disagreements between Josiah 
Tucker and James Anderson regarding the extent to which peasants should 
be self-sufficient.  In retrospect, I should have been more sensitive to 
your point. 
 
>  
> I am also unconvinced by his treatment of the damage allegedly done by 
> organised hunting. He says that business people were undisturbed by 
> losses to less well-off country people. That may well be, but it seems 
> absurd to suggest that Ricardo (say) would have been undisturbed by 
> significant losses in agricultural productivity. Why should business 
> people care about the corn laws and not about reduced agricultural 
> productivity? Both affect the supply, and hence price, of corn. 
>  
 
I stand by the sources that I used in the book regarding the damage from 
the Game Laws.  And and yes, Ricardo, despite his extensive estate and 
his concern about the Corn Laws, never, to my knowledge ever took note 
of the Game Laws. 
 
Michael Perelman 
 
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