TI1K WKAi.TlI OF NATION’S.

1G7

its price at the copper-mines in Europe . The price of silverin Peru , or the quantity either of labour or of other goodswhich it will purchase there, must have some influence onits price, not only at the silver-mines of Europe , but at thoseof China. After the discovery of the mines of Peru , thesilver-mines of Europe were, the greater part of them, aban-doned. The value of silver was so much reduced, that then-produce could no longer pay the expense of working them,or replace, with a profit, the food, clothes, lodging, and othernecessaries which were consumed in that operation. Thiswas the case too with the mines of Cuba and St. Domingo,and even with the ancient mines of Peru , after the discoveryof those of Potosi.

The price of every metal at every mine, therefore, being-regulated in some measure by its price at the most fertilemine in the world that is actually wrought, it can at thegreater part of mines do very little more than pay the expenseof working, and can seldom afford a very high rent to thelandlord. Rent, accordingly, seems at the greater part ofmines to have but a small share in the price of the coarse,and a still smaller in that of the precious metals. Labourand profit make up the greater part of both.

A sixth part of the gross produce may be reckoned theaverage rent of the tin-mines of Cornwall , the most fertilethat are known in the world, as we arc told by the Rev. Mr.Borlace, vice-warden of the stannaries. Some, he says, affordmore, and some do not afford so much. A sixth part of thegross produce is the rent too of several very fertile lead-minesin Scotland .

In the silver-mines of Peru , we are told by Frezier andUlloa, the proprietor frequently exacts no other acknowledg-ment from the undertaker of the mine, but that he will grindthe ore at his mill, paying him the ordinary multure or priceof grinding. Till 173G, indeed, the tax ot the king of Spain amounted to one-fifth of the standard silver, which till thenmight be considered as the real rent of the greater part of thesilver-mines of Peru , the richest which have been known inthe world. If there had been no tax, this fifth would natu-rally have belonged to the landlord, and many mines mighthave been wrought which could not then be wrought, becausethey could not afford this tax. The tax of tire duke ofCornwall upon tin is supposed to amount to more than fiveper cent, or one-twentieth part of the value ; and whatever