Pagina 519 de 2651

The money price of labour, therefore, depends much more upon the

average money price of corn, the subsistence of the labourer,

than upon that of butcher's meat, or of any other part of the

rude produce of land. The real value of gold and silver,

therefore, the real quantity of labour which they can purchase or

command, depends much more upon the quantity of corn which they

can purchase or command, than upon that of butcher's meat, or any

other part of the rude produce of land.

Such slight observations, however, upon the prices either of corn

or of other commodities, would not probably have misled so many

intelligent authors, had they not been influenced at the same

time by the popular notion, that as the quantity of silver

naturally increases in every country with the increase of wealth,

so its value diminishes as its quantity increases. This notion,

however, seems to be altogether groundless.