Sayfa 465 / 2651

The price of coals in Westmoreland or Shropshire can have little

effect on their price at Newcastle; and their price in the

Lionnois can have none at all. The productions of such distant

coal mines can never be brought into competition with one

another. But the productions of the most distant metallic mines

frequently may, and in fact commonly are.

The price, therefore, of the coarse, and still more that of the

precious metals, at the most fertile mines in the world, must

necessarily more or less affect their price at every other in it.

The price of copper in Japan must have some influence upon its

price at the copper mines in Europe. The price of silver in Peru,

or the quantity either of labour or of other goods which it will

purchase there, must have some influence on its price, not only

at the silver mines of Europe, but at those of China. After the

discovery of the mines of Peru, the silver mines of Europe were,

the greater part of them, abandoned. The value of silver was so

much reduced, that their produce could no longer pay the expense

of working them, or replace, with a profit, the food, clothes,

lodging, and other necessaries which were consumed in that

operation. This was the case, too, with the mines of Cuba and St.

Domingo, and even with the ancient mines of Peru, after the

discovery of those of Potosi.