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THE NATURE AND CAUSES OF

If, when the annual consumption has become equal to theannual importation, the annual importation should graduallydiminish, the annual consumption may, for some time, exceedthe annual importation. The mass of those metals may gra-dually and insensibly diminish, and their value gradually andinsensibly rise, till the annual importation becoming againstationary, the annual consumption will gradually and insen-sibly accommodate itself to what that annual importation canmaintain.

Grounds of the. Suspicion that the Value of Silver still continues to decrease.

The increase of the wealth of Europe , and the popular no-tion that, as the quantity of the precious metals naturally in-creases with the increase of wealth, so their value diminishesas their quantity increases, may, perhaps, dispose many peo-ple to believe that their value still continues to fall in the Eu-ropean market; and the still gradually increasing price ofmany parts of the rude produce of land may confirm themstill further in this opinion.

That that increase in the quantity of the precious metals,which arises in any country from the increase of wealth, hasno tendency to diminish their value, I have endeavoured toshew already. Gold and silver naturally resort to a richcountry, for the same reason that all sorts of luxuries and cu-riosities resort to it; not because they are cheaper there thanin poorer countries, but because they are dearer, or because abetter price is given lbr them. It is the superiority of pricewhich attracts them, and as soon as that superiority ceases,they necessarily cease to go thither.

If you except corn and such other vegetables as are raisedaltogether by human industry, that all other sorts of rude pro-duce, cattle, poultry, game of all kinds, the useful fossils andminerals of the earth, &c. naturally grow dearer as the societyadvances in wealth and improvement, I have endeavoured toshew already. Though ^such commodities, therefore, cometo exchange for a greater quantity of silver than before, it willnot from thence follow, that silver has become really cheaper,or will purchase less labour than before, but that such com-m odities have become really dearer, or will purchase morelabour than before. It is not their nominal price only, buttheir real price which rises in the progress of improvement.The rise of their nominal price is the effect, not of any de-__