2651ページ中670ページ

Any rise in the money price of goods which proceeded altogether

from the degradation of the value of silver, would affect all

sorts of goods equally, and raise their price universally, a

third, or a fourth, or a fifth part higher, according as silver

happened to lose a third, or a fourth, or a fifth part of its

former value. But the rise in the price of provisions, which has

been the subject of so much reasoning and conversation, does not

affect all sorts of provisions equally. Taking the course of the

present century at an average, the price of corn, it is

acknowledged, even by those who account for this rise by the

degradation of the value of silver, has risen much less than that

of some other sorts of provisions. The rise in the price of those

other sorts of provisions, therefore, cannot be owing altogether

to the degradation of the value of silver.