38 THE NATURE AND CAUSES OF

appear sometimes to be of greater and sometimes of smallervalue. He purchases them sometimes with a greater andsometimes with a smaller quantity of goods, and to him theprice of labour seems to vary like that of all other things.It appears to him dear in the one case, and cheap in theother. In reality, however, it is the goods which are cheapin the one case and dear in the other.

In this popular sense, therefore, labour, like commodities,may be said to have a real and a nominal price. Its realprice may be said to consist in the quantity of the necessariesand conveniences of life which are given for it; its nominalprice, in the quantity of money. The labourer is rich or poor,is well or ill rewarded, in proportion to the real, not to thenominal price of his" labour.

The distinction between the real and the nominal price ofcommodities and labour is not a matter of mere speculation,but may sometimes be of considerable use in practice. Thesame real price is always of the same value; but on accountof the variation in the value of gold and silver, the same no-minal price is sometimes of very different values. When alanded estate, therefore, is sold with a reservation of a per-petual rent, if it is intended that this rent should always be ofthe same value, it is of importance to the family in whosefavour it is reserved, that it should not consist in a particularsum of money. Its value would in this case be liable to va-riations of two diff erent kinds: first, to those which arise fromthe different quantities of gold and silver which are containedat different times in coin of the same denomination ; and se-condly, to those which arise from the different values of equalquantities of gold and silver at different times.

Princes and sovereign states have frequently fancied thatthey had a temporary interest to diminish the quantity of puremetal contained in their coins; but they seldom have fanciedthat they had any to augment it. The quantity of metal con-tained in the coins, I believe of all nations, has, accordingly,been almost continually diminishing, and hardly ever aug-menting. Such variations therefore tend almost always todiminish the value of a money rent.

The discovery of the mines of America diminished the valueof gold and silver in Europe . This diminution,,it is com-monly supposed, though 1 apprehend without any certainproof, is still going on gradually, and is likely to continue todo so for long a time. Upon this supposition, therefore, such