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THE NATURE ANJJ CAUSES OK

the price of an ox chosen from a herd of three or four hun-dred. Sixteen shillings sterling, we are told by Mr. Byron,was the price of a good horse in the capital of Chili. In acountry naturally fertile, but of which the far greater part isaltogether uncultivated, cattle, poultry, game of all kinds, &c.as they can be acquired with a very small quantity of labour,so they will purchase or command but a very small quantity.The low money price for which they may be sold is no proofthat the real value of silver is there very high, but that thereal value of those commodities is very low.

Labour, it must always be remembered, and not any par-ticular commodity, or set of commodities, is the real measureof the value both of silver and of all other commodities.

But in countries almost waste, or but thinly inhabited,cattle, poultry, game of all kinds, &c. as they are the sponta-neous productions of nature, so she frequently produces themin much greater quantities than the consumption of the in-habitants requires. In such a state of things the supply com-monly exceeds the demand. In different states of society, indifferent stages of improvement, therefore, such commoditieswill represent, or be equivalent to, very different quantities oflabour.

In every state of society, in every stage of improvement,corn is the production of human industry. But the averageproduce of every sort of industry is always suited more orless exactly, to the average consumption: the average supplyto the average demand. In every different stage of improve-ment, besides, the raising of equal quantities of corn in thesame soil and climate, will, at an average, require nearlyequal quantities of labour ; or, what comes to the same thing,the price of nearly equal quantities; the continual increase ofthe productive powers of labour in an improved state ofcultivation, being more or less counterbalanced by the con-tinual increasing price of cattle, the principal instruments ofagriculture. Upon all these accounts, therefore, we may restassured, that equal quantities of corn will, in every state ofsociety, in every stage of improvement, more nearly repre-sent, or be equivalent to, equal quantities of labour, thanequal quantities of any other part of the rude produce ofland. Corn, accordingly, it has already been observed, is inall the different stages of wealth and improvement, a moreaccurate measure of value than any other commodity or setof commodities. In all those different stages, therefore, we