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BOOK neceffarily degraded by its abundance.

I.

A fervice of plate, and the other frivolous ornaments of drefs and furniture, could be purchased for a smaller quantity of labour, or for a smaller quantity of commodities; and in this would confift the fole advantage which the world could derive from that abundance.

IT is otherwife in estates above ground. The value both of their produce and of their rent is in proportion to their abfolute, and not to their relative fertility. The land which produces a certain quantity of food, cloaths, and lodging, can always feed, cloath, and lodge a certain number of people; and whatever may be the proportion of the landlord, it will always give him a propor tionable command of the labour of those people, and of the commodities with which that labour can fupply him. The value of the most barren lands is not diminished by the neighbourhood of the most fertile. On the contrary, it is generally increased by it. The great number of people maintained by the fertile lands afford a market to many parts of the produce of the barren, which they could never have found among those whom their own produce could maintain.

WHATEVER increases the fertility of land in producing food,. increases not only the value of the lands upon which the improvement is bestowed, but contributes likewife to increafe that of many other lands, by creating a new demand for their produce. That abundance of food, of which, in confequence of the improvement of land, many people have the difpofal beyond what they themfelves can confume, is the great cause of the demand both for the precious metals and the precious ftones, as well as for every other conveniency and ornament of drefs, lodging, houshold furniture, and equipage. Food not only conftitutes the principal part of the riches of the world, but it is the abundance of food which gives

the

the principal part of their value to many other forts of riches. The poor inhabitants of Cuba and St. Domingo, when they were first discovered by the Spaniards, used to wear little bits of gold as ornaments in their hair and other parts of their dress. They seemed to value them as we would do any little pebbles of fomewhat more than ordinary beauty, and to confider them as just worth the picking up, but not worth the refufing to any body who afked them. They gave them to their new guests at the first request, without seeming to think that they had made them any very valuable present. They were astonished to observe the rage of the Spaniards to obtain them; and had no notion that there could any where be a country in which many people had the disposal of fo great a fuperfluity of food, so scanty always among themselves, that for a very small quantity of those glittering baubles they would willingly give as much as might maintain a whole family for many years. Could they have been made to understand this, the paffion of the Spaniards would not have furprised them.

PART III.

Of the Variations in the Proportion between the refpective Values of that Sort of Produce which always affords Rent, and of that which Sometimes does and fometimes does not afford Rent.

TH

In

HE increasing abundance of food, in confequence of increafing improvement and cultivation, must neceffarily increase the demand for every part of the produce of land which is not food, and which can be applied either to use or to ornament. the whole progress of improvement, it might therefore be expected, there should be only one variation in the comparative values of those two different forts of produce. The value of that fort which fometimes does and fometimes does not afford rent, fhould conftantly rife in proportion to that which always affords fome rent. F f 2 As

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I.

BOOK As art and industry advance, the materials of cloathing and lodg→ ing, the useful föffils and minerals of the earth, the precious metals and the precious ftones fhould gradually come to be more and more in demand, should gradually exchange for a greater and a greater quantity of food, or in other words, fhould gradually become dearer and dearer. This accordingly has been the cafe with most of these things upon moft occafions, and would have been the case with all of them upon all occafions, if particular accidents had not upon fome occafions increased the fupply of fome of them. in a still greater proportion than the demand.

THE value of a free-ftone quarry, for example, will neceffarily increase with the increafing improvement and population of the country round about it; especially if it should be the only one in the neighbourhood. But the value of a filver mine, even though there fhould not be another within a thousand miles of it, will not neceffarily increase with the improvement of the country in which it is fituated. The market for the produce of a free-ftone quarry can feldom extend more than a few miles round about it, and the demand muft generally be in proportion to the improvement and population of that small district. But the market for the produce of a filver mine may extend over the whole known world. Unless the world in general, therefore, be advancing in improvement and population, the demand for filver might not be at all increased by the improvement even of a large country in the neighbourhood of the mine. Even though the world in general were improving, yet, if in the course of its improvement, new mines fhould be difcovered, much more fertile than any which had been known before, though the demand for filver would neceffarily increase, yet the fupply might increase in fo much a greater proportion, that the real price of that metal might gradually fall; that is, any given quantity, a pound weight of it, for example, might gradually

purchase

purchase or command a smaller and a smaller quantity of labour, or exchange for a smaller and a smaller quantity of corn, the principal part of the fubfiftence of the labourer.

THE great market for filver is the commercial and civilized part of the world.

IF by the general progrefs of improvement the demand of this market should increase, while at the fame time the fupply did not increase in the fame proportion, the value of filver would gradually rise in proportion to that of corn. Any given quantity of filver would exchange for a greater and a greater quantity of corn; or, in other words, the average money price of corn would gradually become cheaper and cheaper..

Ir, on the contrary, the supply by fome accident fhould increase for many years together in a greater proportion than the demand, that metal would gradually become cheaper and cheaper; or, in other words, the average money price of corn would, in spite of all improvements, gradually become dearer and dearer.

BUT if, on the other hand, the fupply of the metal fhould increase nearly in the fame proportion as the demand, it would continue to purchase or exchange for nearly the fame quantity of corn, and the average money price of corn would, in spite of all improvements, continue very nearly the same..

THESE three seem to exhaust all the poffible combinations of events which can happen in the progrefs of improvement; and during the course of the four centuries preceding the prefent, if we may judge by what has happened both in France and Great Britain, each of thofe three different combinations feem to have

taken

CHAP..

XI.

I.

BOOK taken place in the European market, and nearly in the fame order too in which I have here set them down.

Digreffion concerning the Variations in the Value of Silver during the
Courfe of the Four laft Centuries.

I

FIRST PERIOD.

N 1350, and for fome time before, the average price of the quarter of wheat in England feems not to have been estimated lower than four ounces of filver, Tower-weight, equal to about twenty fhillings of our prefent money. From this price it seems to have fallen gradually to two ounces of filver, equal to about ten fhillings of our present money, the price at which we find it eftimated in the beginning of the fixteenth century, and at which it seems to have continued to be estimated till about 1570.

IN 1350, being the 25th of Edward III, was enacted what is called, The ftatute of labourers. In the preamble it complains much of the infolence of fervants, who endeavoured to raise their wages upon their mafters. It therefore ordains, that all fervants and labourers fhould for the future be contented with the same wages and liveries (liveries in those times fignified, not only cloaths, but provifions) which they had been accustomed to receive in the 20th year of the king, and the four preceding years; that upon this account their livery wheat should no where be estimated higher than ten-pence a bufhel, and that it should always be in the option of the mafter to deliver them either the wheat or the money. Ten-pence a bufhel, therefore, had in the 25th of Edward III, been reckoned a very moderate price of wheat, fince it required a particular ftatute to oblige fervants to accept of it in exchange for

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