THE WEALTH OF NATIONS.

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estates, and that which they actually pay according to theancient valuation. Had the state of the country been dif-ferent, had rents been gradually falling in consequence of thedeclension of cultivation, the landlords would almost all havelost this difference. In the state of things which has hap-pened to take place since the revolution, the constancy of thevaluation has been advantageous to the landlord and hurtfulto the sovereign. In a different state of things it might havebeen advantageous to the sovereign and hurtful to the land-lord.

As the tax is made payable in money, so the valuation ofthe land is expressed in money. Since the establishment ofthis valuation the value of silver has been pretty uniform, andthere has been no alteration in the standard of the coin eitheras to weight or fineness. Had silver risen considerably in itsvalue, as it seems to have done in the course of the two cen-turies which preceded the discovery of the mines of America,the constancy of the valuation might have proved very op-pressive to the landlord. Had silver fallen considerably inits value, as it certainly did for about a century at least afterthe discovery of those mines, the same constancy of valu-ation would have reduced very much this branch of the re-venue of the sovereign. Had any considerable alteration beenmade in the standard of the money, either by sinking thesame quantity of silver to a lower denomination, or by raisingit to a higher; had an ounce of silver, for example, insteadof being coined into five shillings and two-pence, been coinedeither into pieces which bore so low a denomination as twoshillings and seven-pence, or into pieces which bore so higha one as ten shillings and four-pence, it would in the onecase have hurt the revenue of the proprietor, in the other thatof the sovereign.

In circumstances, therefore, somewhat different from thosewhich have actually taken place, this constancy of valuationmight have been a very great inconveniency, either to thecontributors or to the commonwealth. In the course of agessuch circumstances, however, must at some time or other,happen. But though empires, like all the other works of men,have all hitherto proved mortal, yet every empire aims atimmortality. Every constitution, therefore, which it is meantshould be as permanent as the empire itself, ought to be con-venient, not in certain circumtances only, but in all circum-stances; or ought to be suited, not to those circumstances