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Show 58 ON THE NATURE AND [ CH. II. This sort of value has sometimes been exclusively designated by the name of price ; and though it is not uncommon to speak of the price of a comn1odity in labour, or in other commodities, and the term when so used is sufficiently intelligible, yet it would certainly be better to confine it strictly to the value of con1modities estimated in the precious n1etals, or in the currencies of different countries which profess to represent them; and, indeed, when used without the above additions, this is what the term is always understood to mean. Price then may be considered as a more confined tenn than value, and as representing one, and one only of the senses in which the more ·general term is used. The introduction of a n1easure which determined the nominal and relative value of con1modities ' and of a medium which would be accepted at all times in exchange for them, was a tnost important step in the progress of society, and tended to facilitate exehanges and stimulate production to an extent which, without such an instrument, would have been perfectly in1possible. . !t is very justly observed by .. A.dan1 Smith, that tt Is the ~1ominal v~lue of goods, or their prices only, whtch enter Into the consideration of the merchant. It matters very little to him whether a ~undr~d pounds? or the goods "\vhich he purchases With thts sum, \Vlll command more or less of the ~ecessaries and conveniences of life in Bengal than In ~ondon. What he \Vants is an instrument by wb1ch he can obtain the commodities in which he SEC. 1.] ~IEASURES Oli' VAlUE. 59 deals and estimate the relative values of his sales and purchases. His returns come to him \vherever he lives; and whether it be in London or Calcutta, his gains will be in proportion to the excess of the amount at which he sells his goods compared with the amount which they cost him to bring to market, estin1ated in the precious n1etals. But though the precious metals ans\\rer very effectually the most in1portant purposes of a measure of value, in the encouragement they give to the distribution and production of wealth ; yet it is quite obvious that they fail as a measure of the exchangeable value of objects in different coun- 1 tries, or. at different periods in the satne country. If we are told that the \vages of day-labour in a particular country are, at the present tin1e, fourpence a day; or that the revenue of a particular sovereign, 700 or 800 years ago, vvas 400,000/. a year; these statements of non1inal value convey no sort of information respecting the condition of the lovver classes of people, in the one case, or the resources of the sovereign, in the other. Without further k~owledge on the subject, we should be quite at a loss to say, whether the labourers in the country n1entioned \Vere starving, or living in great plenty; vvhether the king in question mio·ht be .d 0 cons1 ered as having a very inadequate revenue, or whether the sum mentioned was so great as to be incredible.* * I-Iume very reasonably doubts the possibility of William the Cm~quer~r's r~venue being £400~000 a year, as represented by an. anc1ent h1stonan, and adopted by subsequent writers. |
