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can judge better of the real value of silver, by comparing itwith corn, than by comparing it with any other commodity,or set of commodities.
Corn, besides, or whatever else is the common and fa-vourite vegetable food of the people, constitutes, in everycivilized country, the principal part of the subsistence of thelabourer. In consequence of the extension of agriculture,the land of every country produces a much greater quantityof vegetable than of animal food, and the labourer everywherelives chiefly upon the wholesome food that is cheapest andmost abundant. Butcher ’s meat, except in the most thrivingcountries, or where labour is most highly rewarded, makesbut an insignificant part of his subsistence; poultry makes astill smaller part of it, and game no part of it. In France , andeven in Scotland , where labour is somewhat better rewardedthan in France , the labouring poor seldom eat butcher'smeat, except upon holidays, and other extraordinary occa-sions. The money price of labour, therefore, depends muchmore upon the average money price of corn, the subsistenceof the labourer, than upon that < of butcher’s meat, or ofany other part of the rude produce of land. The real valueof gold and silver, therefore, the real quantity of labour whichthey can purchase or command, depends much more uponthe quantity of corn which they can purchase or command,than upon that of butcher’s meat, or any other part of therude produce of land.
Such slight observations, however, upon the prices either ofcorn or of other commodities, would not probably have mis-led so many intelligent authors, had they not been influ-enced, at the same time, by the popular notion, that as thequantity of silver naturally increases in every country withthe increase of wealth, so its value diminishes as its quantity ^increases. This notion, however, seems to be altogethergroundless.
The quantity of the precious metals may increase in anycountry from two different causes : either, first,, from the in-creased abundance of the mines which supply it; or secondly,from the increased wealth of the people from the increasedproduce of their annual labour. The first of these causes is nodoubt necessarily connected with the diminution of the valueof the precious metals: but the second is not.
When more abundant mines are discovered, a greaterquantity of the precious metals is brought to market, and the
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