Strona 513 z 2651

It is somewhat curious that, though their opinions are so very

different, their facts, so far as they relate to the price of

corn at least, should coincide so very exactly.

It is not, however, so much from the low price of corn, as from

that of some other parts of the rude produce of land, that the

most judicious writers have inferred the great value of silver in

those very ancient times. Corn, it has been said, being a sort of

manufacture, was, in those rude ages, much dearer in proportion

than the greater part of other commodities; it is meant, I

suppose, than the greater part of unmanufactured commodities,

such as cattle, poultry, game of all kinds, etc. That in those

times of poverty and barbarism these were proportionably much

cheaper than corn, is undoubtedly true. But this cheapness was

not the effect of the high value of silver, but of the low value

of those commodities. It was not because silver would in such

times purchase or represent a greater quantity of labour, but

because such commodities would purchase or represent a much

smaller quantity than in times of more opulence and improvement.