Catalogue description Folio(s) 30-31. Letter from George Simcox, Birmingham magistrate, at Kidderminster...

Folio(s) 30-31. Letter from George Simcox, Birmingham magistrate, at Kidderminster [Worcestershire], concerning the price of corn.

Simcox believes that the high price of wheat is because the farmers cannot thresh enough to bring a plentiful supply to the market at this time of the year, and expect as good a price for what they do bring as the millers give for inferior imported wheat. He suggests that the government buy the whole of the imported wheat at terms which indemnify them from loss. It would then be passed to 'bodies of persons' in large manufacturing towns who would give security for selling it to the public at a price varying according to the expense of freight.

Having been away from home he cannot report on the state of the town [Birmingham].