1GC THE N A T U It E AND CAUSES OK

The lowest price at which coals can be sold for any con-siderable time is, like that of all other commodities, theprice which is barely sufficient to replace, together with itsordinary profits, the stock which must be employed in bring-ing them to market. At a coal-mine, for which the laud-lord can get no rent, but which he must either work himselfor let it alone altogether, the price of coals must generallybe nearly about this price.

Rent, even where coals afford one, has generally a smallershare in their price than in that of most other parts of therude produce of land. The rent of an estate above ground,commonly amounts to what is supposed to be a third of thegross produce; and it is generally a rent certain and inde-pendent of the occasional variations in the crop. In coal-mines a fifth of the gross produce is a very great rent; a, tenth the common rent, and it is seldom a rent certain, butdepends upon the occasional variations in the produce.These are so great, that in a country where thirty years’ pur-chase is considered as a moderate price for the property of alanded estate, ten years’ purchase is regarded as a good pricefor that of a coal-mine.

The value of a coal-mine to the proprietor frequently de-pends as much upon its situation as upon its fertility. Thatof a metallic mine depends more upon its fertility, and lessupon its situation. The coarse, and still more the preciousmetals, when separated from the ore, are so valuable that theycan generally bear the expense’ of a very long land, and ofthe most distant sea carriage. Their market is not confinedto the countries in the neighbourhood of the mine, but ex-tends to the whole world. The copper of Japan makes anarticle of commerce in Europe ; the iron of Spain in that ofChili and Peru. The silver of Peru finds its way, not onlyto Europe, but from Europe to China .

The price of coals in Westmoreland or Shropshire can havelittle effect on their price at Newcastle; and their price inthe Lionnois can have none at all. The productions of suchdistant coal-mines can never be brought into competitionwith one another. But the productions of the distant metal-lic mines frequently may, and in fact commonly are. Theprice, therefore, of the coarse, and still more that of the pre-cious metals, at the most fertile mines in the world, must ne-cessarily more or ] ess a ffect their price at every other in it.The price of copper in Japan must have some influence upon