THE WEALTH OF NATIONS.

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variations are more likely to diminish, than to augment thevalue of a money rent, even though it should be stipulated tobe paid, not in such a quantity ofcoined money of such a de-nomination (in so many pounds sterling, for example), but inso many ounces either of pure silver or of silver of a certainstandard.

The rents which have been reserved in corn have preservedtheir value much better than those which have been reservedin money, even where the denomination of the coin has notbeen altered. By the 18th of Elizabeth it was enacted, Thata third of the rent of all college leases should be reserved incorn, to be paid either in kind, or according to the currentprices at the nearest public market. The money arising fromthis corn rent, though originally but a third of the whole, isin the present times, according to Doctor Blackstone, com-monly near double of what arises from the other two-thirds.The old money rents of colleges must, according to this ac-count, have sunk almost to a fourth part of their ancient value;or are worth little more than a fourth part of the corn whichthey were formerly worth. But since the reign of Philipand Mary the denomination of the English coin has under-gone little or no alteration, and the same number of pounds,shillings, and pence have contained very nearly the samequantity of pure silver. This degradation, therefore, in thevalue of the money rents of colleges, has arisen altogetherfrom the degradation in the value of silver.

When the degradation in the value of silver is combinedwith the diminution of the quantity of it contained in the coinof the same denomination, the loss is frequently still greater.In Scotland , where the denomination of the coin has under-gone much greater alterations than it ever did in England,and in France , where it has undergone st ill greater than it everdid in Scotland , some ancient rents, originally of considerablevalue, have in this manner been reduced almost to nothing.

Equal quantities of labour will at distant times be pur-chased more nearly with equal quantities ot corn, the subsis-tence of the labourer, than with equal quantities of gold andsilver, or perhaps of any other commodity. Equal quantitiesof corn, therefore, will, at distant times, be more nearly ofthe same real value, or enable the possessor to purchase orcommand more nearly the same quantity of the labour ofother people. They will do this, [ say, more nearly thanequal quantities of almost any other commodity; for even