CHAP. XXI.

INCREASE OF WEALTH.

133

view of the rise, taken from accurate tables, doesnot appear to correspond with that which theacts of the legislature would lead us to infer. Ashad been before noticed in 1593, the price ofwheat at twenty shillings the quarter was deemedsufficiently low to warrant permission to export it;but in 1688 exportation was not allowed whenwheat was above forty-eight shillings. If theseenactments may be taken as the proportion ofprice between 1593 and 1688, the advance wouldbe nearer to the increased quantity of the moneyin circulation than is shown by the Oxford tablesof Mr. Lloyd.

It is, however, scarcely possible that the in-crease of prices should keep an even pace with therate of augmentation of the precious metals. Itmay be so in the early increase of money, butcould not long continue. The additional quan-tity of money, acting as a stimulus to industry,would increase the mass of commodities to be ex-changed, and thus a greater portion of moneywould be needed to circulate them. This may befamiliarized by an hypothetical case. Let it besupposed that the whole mass of commodities isreduced to two articles, corn and cloth, in equalquantities, as one hundred thousand quarters ofcorn and one hundred thousand pieces of cloth—that the cost of production of each quarter of cornand each piece of cloth is the same. The valueof them in exchange would then be equal. We