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In some very rich and commercial countries, such as Holland and

the territory of Genoa, corn is dear for the same reason that it

is dear in great towns. They do not produce enough to maintain

their inhabitants. They are rich in the industry and skill of

their artificers and manufacturers, in every sort of machinery

which can facilitate and abridge labour; in shipping, and in all

the other instruments and means of carriage and commerce: but

they are poor in corn, which, as it must be brought to them from

distant countries, must, by an addition to its price, pay for the

carriage from those countries. It does not cost less labour to

bring silver to Amsterdam than to Dantzic; but it costs a great

deal more to bring corn. The real cost of silver must be nearly

the same in both places; but that of corn must be very different.