1809 RARE James MAITLAND's attack on East India Company pay-out EARL Lauderdale

Description: PRINTS BOOKS PHOTOGRAPHS MANUSCRIPTS CURIOSITIES - POLEMICAL DISCOURSE SURROUNDING £1.5 MILLION PAYMENT TO THE EAST INDIA COMPANY FROM THE PUBLIC PURSE -MAITLAND (James, 8th Earl of Lauderdale, controversial Scottish politician and writer, and something of an economist, who had extremist tendencies and was a friend of Marat during the French Revolution, when he was known as 'Citizen Maitland', 1759-1839).An inquiry into the practical merits of the system for the government of India, under the superintendence of the Board of Controul [sic] / by the Earl of Lauderdale.(Edinburgh): Archibald Constable & Company, 1809. First edition. ix, [3], 260 pp. Complete with half-title. Illustrated with engraved map of India. In full polished calf, re-backed retaining original endpapers. Ex-Signet Library copy with ink inscription to blank flyleaf, shelf-label to front pastedown and gilt arms to covers. Size: 8vo (21.8cm x 14cm).Very Good to Good condition. In contemporary polished calf, which has been professionally re-backed with modern spine but with original endpapers retained. Binder's glue marking as often around edges of pastedowns and opposing blank pages. Light age-toning to pages. Tiny paper flaw to blank fore-edge of one leaf. A couple of small spots of foxing to map, and two tiny ones to title, but pages on the whole free of any spotting at all. Please ask if you require a more detailed condition report, or view gallery images closely.A scarce work by James Maitland in which he vehemently puts forward his reasons for opposing a huge pay-out to the East India Company from the public coffers. The sum in question - £1.5million - is equivalent to £70,000,000 in modern terms.Maitland tees up his argument neatly in the 'Advertisement' section: "The author of the following inquiry felt it his duty... to object to a clause introduced into the general bill of appropriation, for the payment of one million five hundred thousand pounds, said to be due by the public to the East India Company. / The grounds on which he stated his objection, he still considers as conclusive. They were, 1st, The impropriety of such a measure...: 2ndly, The disgrace of concurring in the disposal of one million five hundred thousand pounds of public money, without inquiry, and without the House of Lords having before them any information that could substantiate the debt."[Ref: Goldsmiths' 19844; Kress B.5526]Copac cites only 8 physical copies held by institutions. ⁂ Maitland wrote was the author of An Inquiry into the Nature and Origin of Public Wealth (1804), in which he introduced the concept that has come to be known as the "Lauderdale Paradox": there is an inverse correlation between public wealth and private wealth; an increase in the one can only come at the cost of a decrease in the other. It was the first work to draw attention to the economic consequences of a budget surplus or deficit and its influence on the expansion or contraction of the economy, and was thus the basis of the later Keynesian economic theories which are now widely applied. key words:

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