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- Title
Dearth and Government Intervention in English Grain Markets, 1590-1700.
- Authors
Outhwaite, R. B.
- Abstract
The article outlines a transition from active intervention to a more passive response by the British Government in its grain market of the seventeenth century. It is often easier to assess the reasons for government action than for government inaction, since action is frequently accompanied by justifications whilst inaction is cloaked in documentary silence. Much has always had to be inferred, but some inferences are perhaps more soundly based than others. It is wrong to think that the Privy Council was losing faith in intervention before the end of the sixteenth century; the early 1630s saw the most intensive (and last) attempt to intervene comprehensively. Nor, possibly, can one argue that the subsequent disappearance of the old-style dearth program can be explained in terms of the disappearance of the Privy Council. An opportunity for the latter to intervene was presented in 1637/8, before its abolition, and small executive councils never totally disappeared. There is not very convincing evidence for the view that changes in London's needs and role influenced directly the timing of the policy changes.
- Subjects
UNITED Kingdom; AGRICULTURAL policy; GRAIN trade; GOVERNMENT policy; ECONOMIC history; ECONOMIC development
- Publication
Economic History Review, 1981, Vol 34, Issue 3, p389
- ISSN
0013-0117
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.2307/2595880