| OCR Text |
Show 104 ON THE NATURE AND ( CH. II. these advances, \vill Jnost essentially affect that part ·of price \vhich resolves itself into profits. Supposing, what is probably not true, that th~re is land in an in1proved and populous country ':h1ch pays no rent \Vhatever directly; yet re_nt will. be paid even by the cultivator of such land In the t~tnber which he uses for his ploughs, carts, and buildings, in the leather which he re~uir:s for harn~ss, in the meat which he consumes 1n hts O\~vn fan11ly, and in the horses \vhich he purchases for tillage. These advances, as far as rent alone is concerned, would at once prevent the price of the produce frotn being proportioned to the quantity of labour employed upon it; and when vve add the profits of these advances according to their amount and the periods of their return, \IVe n1ust ackno\vledge that even in the production of corn, ·\ivhere no direct rent is paid, its price 1nust be affected by the rent involved in the fixed and circulating capital en1- ployed in cultivation. · Under all the variations, therefore, \V hich arise from the different proportions of fixed capital em ·ployed, the d~fferent quickness of the returns of the circulating capital, the quantity of foreign commodities used 'in manufactures, the acknowledged effects of taxation, and the almost universal prevalence of rent in the actual state of all in1- prov~d countries, we 1nust I think allow that, ho\tv- , ever curious and desirable it may be to know the exact quantity of labour \Vhich has been en1ployed in-the production of each particular commodity, ft is ·certainly not this labour \Vhich determines SEC. IV.] MEASURES OF VALUE. 105 their relative values in exchange, at the same time and at the same place. But if, at the same place and at the same time, the relative values of co1nmodities are not deterntined by the labour \V'"hich they have cost in production~ it is clear that this measure cannot deterTiline their relative values at different places and at different tiines. If, in London and at the present moment, other causes besides labour concur in regulating the average prices of the articles bought ·and sold, it is quite obvious, that because a commodity in India .no\v, or in England SOO years .ago, cost in its production double the quantity of labour which it does in London at present, we could not infer that it was doubly valuable in exchange; nor, if we found from a comparison of , · money prices, that its value in exchange were double corn pared with the mass of cotnmodi ties, could we with any degree of safety infer that it had cost, in its production, just double the quantity of labour. If, for instance, it were to appear that a yard of fine broad cloth in the tin1e of Edward the Third cost in its fabrication twenty days' common labour, and in modern times only ten, it \Votlld follow of course that by in1provements of different kinds, the facility of fabricating broad cloth had been doubled; but to \Vhat extent this circumstance would have affected its relative value in exchange, it would not be possible to determine without an appeal to facts. The alteration in its exchangeable value generally, or in reference to the mass of cotn- |
