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to purchase or command an equal quantity either of labour or of commodities.

The value, both of the produce and of the rent, the real revenue which they afforded, both to the public and to the proprietor, might have been the same.

chief enjoyment of riches consists in the parade of riches; which, in their eye, is never so romplete as when they appear to possess those decisive marks of opulence which nobody can possess but themselves. In their eyes, the merit of an object, which is in any degree either useful or beautiful, is greatly enhanced The most abundant mines, either of the by its scarcity, or by the great labour which precious metals, or of the precious stones, it requires to collect any considerable quantity could add little to the wealth of the world. of it; a labour which nobody can afford to A produce, of which the value is principally pay but themselves. Such objects they are derived from its scarcity, is necessarily degradwilling to purchase at a higher price than ed by its abundance. A service of plate, and things much more beautiful and useful, but the other frivolous ornaments of dress and more common. These qualities of utility, furniture, could be purchased for a smaller beauty, and scarcity, are the original found-quantity of labour, or for a smaller quantity ation of the high price of those metals, or of of commodities; and in this would consist the the great quantity of other goods for which sole advantage which the world could derive they can everywhere be exchanged. This from that abundance. value was antecedent to, and independent of It is otherwise in estates above ground. their being employed as coin, and was the The value, both of their produce and of their quality which fitted them for that employ-rent, is in proportion to their absolute, and ment. That employment, however, by occasioning a new demand, and by diminishing the quantity which could be employed in any other way, may have afterwards contributed to keep up or increase their value.

The demand for the precious stones arises altogether from their beauty. They are of no use but as ornaments; and the merit of their beauty is greatly enhanced by their scarcity, or by the difficulty and expense of getting them from the mine. Wages and profit accordingly make up, upon most occasions, almost the whole of the high price. Rent comes in but for a very small share, frequently for no share; and the most fertile mines only afford any considerable rent. When Tavernier, a jeweller, visited the diamond mines of Golconda and Visiapour, he was informed that the sovereign of the country, for whose benefit they were wrought, had ordered all of them to be shut up except those which yielded the largest and finest stones. The other, it seems, were to the proprietor not worth the working.

not to their relative fertility. The land which produces a certain quantity of food, clothes, and lodging, can always feed, clothe, and lodge, a certain number of people; and whatever may be the proportion of the landlord, it will always give him a proportionable command of the labour of those people, and of the commodities with which that labour can supply him. The value of the most barren land 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 main tain.

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 likewise to increase that of many other lands, by creating a new demand for their produce. That abundance of food, of which, in consequence of the imAs the prices, both of the precious metals provement of land, many people have the disand of the precious stones, is regulated all posal beyond what they themselves can conover the world by their price at the most fer-sume, is the great cause of the demand, both tile mine in it, the rent which a mine of either for the precious metals and the precious stones, can afford to its proprietor is in proportion, as well as for every other conveniency and ornot to its absolute, but to what may be called nament of dress, lodging, household furniture, its relative fertility, or to its superiority over and equipage. Food not only constitutes the other mines of the same kind. If new mines principal part of the riches of the world, but were discovered, as much superior to those of it is the abundance of food which gives the Potosi, as they were superior to those of Eu- principal part of their value to many other the value of silver might be so much de- sorts of riches. The poor inhabitants of Cuba graded as to render even the mines of Potosi and St. Domingo, when they were first disnot worth the working. Before the discovery covered by the Spaniards, used to wear little of the Spanish West Indies, the most fertile bits of gold as ornaments in their hair and mines in Europe may have afforded as great other parts of their dress. They seemed to a rent to their proprietors as the richest mines value them as we would do any little pebbles in Peru do at present. Though the quantity of somewhat more than ordinary beauty, and of silver was much less, it might have exchang- to consider them as just worth the picking up, ed for an equal quantity of other goods, and but not worth the refusing to any body who the proprietor's share might have enabled him asked them. They gave them to their new

rope,

guests at the first request, without seeming to | ver mine may extend over the whole known think that they had made them any very val-world. Unless the world in general, there uable present. They were astonished to ob- fore, be advancing in improvement and popu. serve the rage of the Spaniards to obtain lation, the demand for silver might not be at them; and had no notion that there could all increased by the improvement even of a anywhere be a country in which many people large country in the neighbourhood of the had the disposal of so great a superfluity of mine. Even though the world in general food; so scanty always among themselves, were improving, yet if, in the course of its that, for a very small quantity of those glit- improvements, new mines should be discovertering baubles, they would willingly give as ed, much more fertile than any which had much as might maintain a whole family for been known before, though the demand for Could they have been made to silver would necessarily increase, yet the supmany years. understand this, the passion of the Spaniards ply might increase in so much a greater prowould not have surprised them. portion, that the real price of that metal might gradually fall; that is, any given quantity, a pound weight of it, for example, might gra

PART III.-Of the variations in the Propor-dually purchase or command a smaller and a tion between the respective Values of that smaller quantity of labour, or exchange for 3 sort of Produce which always affords Rent, smaller and a smaller quantity of corn, the and of that which sometimes does, and some- principal part of the subsistence of the latimes does not, afford Rent. bourer.

would exchange for a greater and a greater quantity of corn; or, in other words, the aver age money price of corn would gradually be come cheaper and cheaper.

The great market for silver is the commerTHE increasing abundance of food, in conse-cial and civilized part of the world. quence of the increasing improvement and If, by the general progress of improvement, cultivation, must necessarily increase the de- the demand of this market should increase, inand for every part of the produce of land while, at the same time, the supply did not which is not food, and which can be applied increase in the same proportion, the value of either to use or to ornament. In the whole silver would gradually rise in proportion to progress of improvement, it might, therefore, that of corn. Any given quantity of silver be expected there should be only one variation in the comparative values of those two different sorts of produce. The value of that sort which sometimes does, and sometimes does not afford rent, should constantly rise in pro- If, on the contrary, the supply, by some ac portion to that which always affords some cident, should increase, for many years torent. As art and industry advance, the ma-gether, in a greater proportion than the deterials of clothing and lodging, the useful fos-mand, that metal would gradually become sils and materials of the earth, the precious cheaper and cheaper; or, in other words, the metals and the precious stones, should gra- average money price of corn would, in spite dually come to be more and more in demand, of all improvements, gradually become dearer should gradually exchange for a greater and and dearer. a greater quantity of food; or, in other words, should gradually become dearer and dearer. This, accordingly, has been the case with most of these things upon most occasions, and would have been the case with all of them upon all occasions, if particular accidents had not, upon some occasions, increased the supply of some of them in a still greater propor

tion than the demand.

But if, on the other hand, the supply of that metal should increase nearly in the same proportion as the demand, it would continue to purchase or exchange for nearly the same 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 possible combinations of events which can happen in The value of a free-stone quarry, for ex- the progress of improvement; and during the ample, will necessarily increase with the in-course of the four centuries preceding the creasing improvement and population of the present, if we may judge by what has happen country round about it, especially if it should ed both in France and Great Britain, each of be the only one in the neighbourhood. But those three different combinations seems to the value of a silver mine, even though there have taken place in the European market, and should not be another within a thousand miles nearly in the same order, too, in which I have of it, will not necessarily increase with the here set them down. improvement of the country in which it is si.. tuated. The market for the produce of a free-stone quarry can seldom extend more than a few miles round about it, and the demand must generally be in proportion to the improvement and population of that small district; but the market for the produce of a sil

Digression concerning the Variations in the va lue of Silver during the Course of the Four

last Centuries.

First Period. In 1950, and for some time before, the average price of the quarter of

wheat in England seems not to have been es- and twopence a-quarter, equal to about onetimated lower than four ounces of silver, and-twenty shillings and sixpence of our preTower weight, equal to about twenty shillings sent money; 2dly, fifty-eight quarters of malt, of our present money. From this price it which cost seventeen pounds ten shillings, or seems to have fallen gradually to two ounces six shillings a-quarter, equal to about eigh of silver, equal to about ten shillings of our teen shillings of our present money; 3dly, present money, the price at which we find it twenty quarters of oats, which cost four pounds, estimated in the beginning of the sixteenth or four shillings a-quarter, equal to about century, and at which it seems to have con- twelve shillings of our present money. The tinued to be estimated till about 1570. prices of malt and oats seem here to be higher than their ordinary proportion to the price of wheat.

In 1950, being the 25th of Edward III. was enacted what is called the Statute of Labourers. In the preamble, it complains much of the insolence of servants, who endeavoured to raise their wages upon their masters. It therefore ordains, that all servants and labour.. ers should, for the future, be contented with the same wages and liveries (liveries in those times signified not only clothes, but provisions) 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 nowhere be estimated progenitors, some time kings of England. It nigher than tenpence a-bushel, and that it should always be in the option of the master to deliver them either the wheat or the money. Tenpence a-bushel, therefore, had, in the 25th of Edward III. been reckoned a very moderate price of wheat, since it required a particular statute to oblige servants to accept of it in exchange for their usual livery of provisions; and it had been reckoned a reasonable price ten years before that, or in the 16th year of the king, the term to which the statute refers. But in the 16th year of Edward III. tenpence contained about half an ounce of silver, Tower weight, and was nearly equal to half-a-crown upon this supposition, have been reckoned the of our present money. Four ounces of silver, Tower weight, therefore, equal to six shillings and eightpence of the money of those times, and to near twenty shillings of that of the present, must have been reckoned a moderate price for the quarter of eight bushels.

These prices are not recorded, on account of their extraordinary dearness or cheapness, but are mentioned accidentally, as the prices actually paid for large quantities of grain consumed at a feast, which was famous for its magnificence.

In 1262, being the 51st of Henry III. was revived an ancient statute, called the assize of bread and ale, which, the king says in the preamble, had been made in the times of his

is probably, therefore, as old at least as the
time of his grandfather, Henry II. and may
have been as old as the Conquest.
It regu-
lates the price of bread according as the prices
of wheat may happen to be, from one shilling
to twenty shillings the quarter of the money
of those times. But statutes of this kind are
generally presumed to provide with equal care
for all deviations from the middle price, for
those below it, as well as for those above it.
Ten shillings, therefore, containing six ounces
of silver, Tower weight, and equal to about
thirty shillings of our present money, must,

middle price of the quarter of wheat when
this statute was first enacted, and must have
continued to be so in the 51st of Henry III.
We cannot, therefore, be very wrong in sup-
posing that the middle price was not less than
one-third of the highest price at which this
statute regulates the price of bread, or than
six shillings and eightpence of the money of
those times, containing four ounces of silver,
Tower weight.

This statute is surely a better evidence of what was reckoned, in those times, a moderate price of grain, than the prices of some particular years, which have generally been recorded by historians and other writers, on account of their extraordinary dearness or cheapness, and from which, therefore, it is difficult to form any judgment concerning what may have been the ordinary price. There are, besides, other reasons for believing that, in the beginning of the fourteenth century, and for some time before, the common price of wheat From about the middle of the fourteenth was not less than four ounces of silver the to the beginning of the sixteenth century, quarter, and that of other grain in propor- what was reckoned the reasonable and moderate, that is, the ordinary or average price of In 1309, Ralph de Born, prior of St Au- wheat, seems to have sunk gradually to about gustine's, Canterbury, gave a feast upon his one half of this price; so as at last to have installation-day, of which William Thorn has fallen to about two ounces of silver, Tower preserved, not only the bill of fare, but the weight, equal to about ten shillings of our prices of many particulars. In that feast were present money. It continued to be estimated consumed, 1st, fifty-three quarters of wheat, at this price till about 1570. which cost nineteen pounds, or seven shillings

From these different facts, therefore, we seem to have some reason to conclude that, about the middle of the fourteenth century, and for a considerable time before, the average or ordinary price of the quarter of wheat was not supposed to be less than four ounces of silver, Tower weight.

tion.

In the household book of Henry, the fifth

earl of Northumberland, drawn up in 1512, there are two different estimations of wheat. In one of them it is computed at six shillings and eightpence the quarter, in the other at five shillings and eightpence only. In 1512, six shillings and eightpence contained only two ounces of silver, Tower weight, and were equal to about ten shillings of our present money.

That in France the average price of grair was, in the same manner, much lower in the end of the fifteenth and beginning of the sixteenth century, than in the two centuries preceding, has been observed both by Mr Dupré de St Maur, and by the elegant author of the Essay on the Policy of Grain. Its price, during the same period, had probably sunk in the same manner through the greater part of Europe.

From the 25th of Edward III. to the beginning of the reign of Elizabeth, during the This rise in the value of silver, in propor space of more than two hundred years, six tion to that of corn, may either have been ow shillings and eightpence, it appears from se-ing altogether to the increase of the demand veral different statutes, had continued to be for that metal, in consequence of increasing considered as what is called the moderate and improvement and cultivation, the supply, in reasonable, that is, the ordinary or average the mean time, continuing the same as beprice of wheat. The quantity of silver, how- fore; or, the demand continuing the same as ever, contained in that nominal sum was, dur-before, it may have been owing altogether to ing the course of this period, continually di- the gradual diminution of the supply: the minishing, in consequence of some alterations which were made in the coin. But the increase of the value of silver had, it seems, so far compensated the diminution of the quantity of it contained in the same nominal sum, that the legislature did not think it worth while to attend to this circumstance.

greater part of the mines which were then known in the world being much exhausted, and, consequently, the expense of working them much increased; or it may have been owing partly to the one, and partly to the other of those two circumstances. In the end of the fifteenth and beginning of the sixteenth Thus, in 1436, it was enacted, that wheat centuries, the greater part of Europe was apmight be exported without a licence when the proaching towards a more settled form of go price was so low as six shillings and eight-vernment than it had enjoyed for several ages pence and in 1463, it was enacted, that no before. : The increase of security would na wheat should be imported if the price was not turally increase industry and improvement; above six shillings and eightpence the quar- and the demand for the precious metals, as The legislature had imagined, that when well as for every other luxury and ornament, the price was so low, there could be no incon-would naturally increase with the increase of veniency in exportation, but that when it rose riches. A greater annual produce would rehigher, it became prudent to allow of impor- quire a greater quantity of ecin to circulate Cation. Six shillings and eightpence, there- it; and a greater number of rich people would fore, containing about the same quantity of require a greater quantity of plate and other silver as thirteen shillings and fourpence of ornaments of silver. It is natural to suppose, our present money (one-third part less than too, that the greater part of the mines which the same nominal sum contained in the time then supplied the European market with silver of Edward III.), had, in those times, been might be a good deal exhausted, and have beconsidered as what is called the moderate and come more expensive in the working. They reasonable price of wheat. had been wrought, many of them, from the

ter.

In 1554, by the 1st and 2d of Philip and time of the Romans. Mary, and in 1558, by the 1st of Elizabeth, It has been the opinion, however, of the the exportation of wheat was in the same man-greater part of those who have written upon ner prohibited, whenever the price of the quar- the prices of commodities in ancient times, ter should exceed six shillings and eightpence, that, from the Conquest, perhaps from the inwhich did not then contain two penny worth vasion of Julius Caesar, till the discovery of more silver than the same nominal sum does the mines of America, the value of silver was at present. But it had soon been found, that continually diminishing. This opinion they to restrain the exportation of wheat till the seem to have been led into, partly by the ob price was so very low, was, in reality, to pro-servations which they had occasion to make hibit it altogether. In 1562, therefore, by upon the prices both of corn and of some other the 5th of Elizabeth, the exportation of wheat parts of the rude produce of land, and partly was allowed from certain ports, whenever the by the popular notion, that as the quantity of price of the quarter should not exceed ten silver naturally increases in every country with shillings, containing nearly the same quantity the increase of wealth, so its value diminishes of silver as the like nominal sum does at pre-as it quantity increases. sent. This price had at this time, therefore, In their observations upon the prices of corn, been considered as what is called the moderate three different circumstances seem frequently and reasonable price of wheat. It agrees near- to have misled them. ly with the estimation of the Northumberland

book in 1512.

First. in ancient times, almost all rents were paid in kind; in a certain quantity of

corn, cattle, poultry, &c. It sometimes hap-|ing, I suppose, that this was enough to show pened, however, that the landlord would sti- what proportion ought to be observed in all pulate, that he should be at liberty to demand higher prices. of the tenant, either the annual payment in Thus, in the assize of bread and ale, of the kind or a certain sum of money instead of it. 51st of Henry III. the price of bread was reThe price at which the payment in kind was gulated according to the different prices of in this manner exchanged for a certain sum of wheat, from one shilling to twenty shillings money, is in Scotland called the conversion the quarter of the money of those times. But price. As the option is always in the land- in the manuscripts from which all the differlord to take either the substance or the price, ent editions of the statutes, preceding that of it is necessary, for the safety of the tenant, Mr Ruff head, were printed, the copiers had that the conversion price should rather be be- never transcribed this regulation beyond the low than above the average market price. In price of twelve shillings. Several writers, many places, accordingly, it is not much above therefore, being misled by this faulty tranone half of this price. Through the greater scription, very naturally conclude that the part of Scotland this custom still continues middle price, or six shillings the quarter, equal with regard to poultry, and in some places to about eighteen shillings of our present with regard to cattle. It might probably have money, was the ordinary or average price of continued to take place, too, with regard to wheat at that time. corn, had not the institution of the public fiars In the statute of Tumbrel and Pillory, enput an end to it. These are annual valua- acted nearly about the same time, the price of tions, according to the judgment of an assize, ale is regulated according to every sixpence of the average price of all the different sorts rise in the price of barley, from two shillings, of grain, and of all the different qualities of to four shillings the quarter. That four shil. each, according to the actual market price in lings, however, was not considered as the every different county. This institution ren-highest price to which barley might frequentdered it sufficiently safe for the tenant, and ly rise in those times, and that these prices much more convenient for the landlord, to were only given as an example of the proporconvert, as they call it, the corn rent, rather tion which ought to be observed in all other at what should happen to be the price of the prices, whether higher or lower, we may in. fiars of each year, than at any certain fixed fer from the last words of the statute: "Et price. But the writers who have collected sic deinceps crescetur vel diminuetur per sex the prices of corn in ancient times seem fre- denarios." The expression is very slovenly, quently to have mistaken what is called in but the meaning is plain enough, "that the Scotland the conversion price for the actual price of ale is in this manner to be increased market price. Fleetwood acknowledges, up- or diminished according to every sixpence rise On one occasion, that he had made this mis- or fall in the price of barley.' In the comtake. As he wrote his book, however, for a position of this statute, the legislature itself particular purpose, he does not think proper seems to have been as negligent as the copiers to make this acknowledgment till after tran- were in the transcription of the other. scribing this conversion price fifteen times. In an ancient manuscript of the Regiam The price is eight shillings the quarter of Majestatem, an old Scotch law book, there is wheat. This sum in 1423, the year at which a statute of assize, in which the price of bread he begins with it, contained the same quanti-is regulated according to all the different ty of silver as sixteen shillings of our present prices of wheat, from tenpence to three shilmoney. But in 1562, the year at which he lings the Scotch boll, equal to about half an ends with it, it contained no more than the English quarter. Three shillings Scotch, at same nominal sum does at present. the time when this assize is supposed to have Secondly, they have been misled by the slo-been enacted, were equal to about nine shillings venly manner in which some ancient statutes of assize had been sometimes transcribed by lazy copiers, and sometimes, perhaps, actually composed by the legislature.

sterling of our present money Mr Ruddiman seems to conclude from this, that three shillings was the highest price to which wheat ever rose in those times, and that tenpence, a The ancient statutes of assize seem to have shilling, or at most two shillings, were the begun always with determining what ought to ordinary prices. Upon consultiug the manɩ be the price of bread and ale when the price script, however, it appears evidently, that all of wheat and barley were at the lowest; and these prices are only set down as examples of to have proceeded gradually to determine what the proportion which ought to be observed it ought to be, according as the prices of those between the respective prices of wheat and two sorts of grain should gradually rise above bread. The last words of the statute are this lowest price. But the transcribers of" reliqua judicabis secundum præscripta, ha. those statutes seem frequently to have thought bendo respectum ad pretium bladi.”—" You it sufficient to copy the regulation as far as shall judge of the remaining cases, according the three or four first and lowest prices; saying in this manner their own labour, and judg

See his Preface to Anderson's Diploinata Scotia.

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