But

New World, but also from a multiplicity of other causes. though subject to great alterations of value in times remote from each other, they change more slowly perhaps than any other commodity, and during any small number of years they may be regarded, within a certain range of any given place, as almost invariable in value, and exact enough for all the practical purposes of life.

Notwithstanding the unalterability in the nature of gold and silver, and the slight degree of oxidation to which they are subject, the waste and consumption of them which is constantly going on is considerable. Much is used in lace, embroidery, plating, and gilding. Much is worn away and lost in the use of plate, trinkets, and especially of coin. Much must be lost in their frequent transmission from place to place, as well by sea as by land. Much, again, is lost, especially in uncivilized countries, from the universally prevalent custom in such countries. of secreting treasures in the earth, of which the knowledge often dies with the person who makes the concealment: whence the treasure is lost to the world on his death.

With the progress of wealth amongst mankind, the market for the precious metals has gradually become more and more extensive. This market has become greater, not only from the increased population and opulence of the people of Europe, giving them the power to purchase these metals in larger quantities, but the people of America, the East Indies, and China, countries in the early ages unknown in the market, take off considerable quantities.

In order to supply so widely extended a market, the quantities of gold and silver annually brought from the mines must be sufficient not only to support the continually increasing demand, which arises in all thriving countries, but to repair the constant waste and consumption which take place wherever they are used. This waste and consumption, and this continually extending market, have existed in all ages, and have called annually for fresh quantities of metal from the mines to repair the waste, and meet the continually extending demand for it.

The fact that some mines have always been kept at work, and are worked to this day, shows, not only that there has been a

constant and gradual consumption of these metals going on, but that there has never been such a glut of them in the market, as to reduce their value below the labour and expense required to extract and purify fresh quantities of metal. For if such had ever been the case, the working of the mines would have been temporarily stopped or suspended. Again, it is known, that working the mines, though more hazardous, is not on the whole more profitable than other occupations in their neighbourhood: the great losses which are frequently sustained making up for the great fortunes that are sometimes acquired. Thus, independently of the duty paid to the state, the permanent value of the precious metals is determined, like that of every thing else, by the cost of their original acquisition.

Accordingly, the value of the precious metals at different periods must have been altered by the same circumstances which have influenced the value of all other things;-temporarily, by changes in the relation of the demand to the supply; and permanently, by changes in the expense at which they are acquired. Accustomed as we are to compute the value of everything by these metals, and to speak of things as rising or falling in value, according as more or less money must be given for them, we are apt to overlook the fact that the value of money itself is often changing. Yet the value of money is quite as much influenced by its abundance or scarcity, and by changes in the expense at which it is procured from the mines, as is the value of any commodity whatever by similar circumstances applying to it.

When, in the progress of opulence, the demand for the precious metals has been much increased; if at the same time their quantity was not increased in an equal ratio, their value must have gradually risen; that is, any given quantity of them must have exchanged for a greater and greater quantity of other things; or, in other words, the money prices of other things must have gradually fallen lower and lower.

If, on the contrary, the supply of these metals has increased, for many years together, in a greater proportion than the demand, they must have gradually become cheaper; or, in other words, the money prices of other things must, in spite of all improvements, have gradually become higher.

But if, again, the supply of these metals has been increased nearly in the same proportion as the demand, they must have continued to purchase or exchange for nearly the same quantity of other things; and the general money prices of other things must, notwithstanding improvements, have continued very nearly the same.

We cannot doubt that, in the history of the world, one or other of these different combinations must have been continually recurring, so as for a time to change the market value of these metals from the natural value, or the actual cost of extracting and purifying them.

The natural value, or the original cost of the extraction and purification of gold and silver, must have varied with the following circumstances; the quantity of labour necessary for that purpose, the rate of hire of that kind of labour, the amount of rent demanded by the owner of the soil for the liberty of working such mines as were least productive, the quantity of capital employed or consumed in carrying on the works, the durability of the fixed portion of that capital, and the rate of hire demanded for it; to which may be added, the amount of duty paid to the state. Now each of these has varied from time to time, and is liable still to vary hereafter. Without enlarging on the effects resulting from changes in these circumstances individually, it is sufficient for the present purpose to say, that, in the progress of scientific, mechanical, and metallurgical knowledge, the labour of extracting and purifying the metal must have been continually on the decrease; and, looking forward to future times, must continue to decrease in a commensurate degree with every advancement of that knowledge. Taking this circumstance alone then, and independently of the others, supposing, however, at the same time, that the present veins of ore are equally rich with those in earlier ages, the precious metals must have greatly fallen below their value in ancient times, and must be expected to continue to fall with every additional facility of working the mines.

It is possible, too, to conceive, that in process of time another cause of depreciation in the value of these metals may arise. Gold and silver are not articles of use equivalent to the high

value which they bear: silver is of much less use than iron, and gold is still more inferior in this respect. Commodities in general possess a usefulness commensurate with their value. They possess intrinsic qualities which must ever procure for them a command over other things. But the precious metals are held in estimation, and a demand for them is maintained, chiefly through their being employed as the medium of exchange ;—an employment altogether arbitrary, and which may or may not always be continued. And if this employment should cease, the quantity in the market would be so large that no fresh supply from the mines would for a long time be required. Consequently, the cost at which they are extracted, and which now insures to them a value equal to that cost, would cease to have any influence: their value would then depend upon caprice.

By some persons, corn has been thought to present a standard of value less liable than the precious metals to alter in periods distant from each other. It is said that in leases for a long term of years, rents reserved in corn are more calculated to maintain their value than rents reserved in money; even where the weight and fineness of the metal contained in the coin sustains no change. Adam Smith observes, "By the 18th of Elizabeth, it was enacted, that a third of the rent of all college leases should be reserved in corn, to be paid either in kind, or according to the current prices at the nearest public market. The money arising from this corn rent, though originally but a third of the whole, is, in the present times, according to Dr. Blackstone, commonly near double of what arises from the other two-thirds. The old money rents of colleges must, according to this account, have sunk almost to a fourth part of their ancient value, or are worth little more than a fourth part of the corn which they were formerly worth. But since the reign of Philip and Mary, the denomination of the English coin has undergone little or no alteration, and the same number of pounds, shillings, and pence, have contained very nearly the same quantity of pure silver. This degradation, therefore, in the value of the money rents of colleges, has arisen altogether from the degradation in the price of silver." Now in opposition to the * Wealth of Nations, Book I. ch. 5.

conclusion here arrived at, it may be observed, that, in the progress of population and of opulence, the natural tendency of corn and rents of land in relation to other things is to rise, and therefore it is by no means reasonable by comparing money with them, to infer the degradation in the value of these money rents, and the degradation in the value of silver, to the extent here concluded; since corn and rents are confessedly in their nature of advancing value. Had the rents of these lands been reserved wholly in corn, although such rents would in their advance in value have only kept pace with the advance in the actual value of the land, they would nevertheless have most materially risen in their command over the necessaries and conveniences of life not the immediate produce of land, or the quantity and quality of the things they would now purchase. If measured by some other things, as for example, such of the manufactures of Birmingham and Manchester, as have not been materially affected by mechanical improvements, these money rents will not appear to have fallen so very considerably. It may be reasonable to reserve the rent of land, being the equivalent for the privilege of occupying it, in corn; because as the value of the privilege advances, so will the payment for it. But it would not be quite so reasonable to require a perpetual payment in a given quantity of corn for a privilege of some other kind, which in its nature should be of stationary or of declining value.

The observations which have been already offered on the circumstances which determine the value of gold and silver, apply also to the determination of the value of corn. It is true that corn is in some respects different from gold and silver, as being an article of primary necessity, and not of caprice. In every stage of improvement it is the production of human industry, and the average produce of every sort of industry is always suited, more or less exactly, to the average consumption. Un-like cattle, poultry, game, and other spontaneous productions of nature, which in thinly peopled countries are frequently to be found in greater quantities than the consumption of the inhabitants requires, the average supply of corn is always suited to the average demand. But in different stages of improvement and