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Show 90 ON THE NATURE AND [ CH. II. the great difference of price in this case 'vould arise from the circumstance that the returns for the labour of killing each successive deer always can1e in 'vithin a few days after it was employed, while the returns for the labour expended on the canoe were delayed perhaps beyond a year. Whatever might be the rate of profits, the comparative slowness of these returns must tell· proportionall·y on the price of the article ; and, as there is reason to think that among savages the advances neces ... sary for a work of slow returns would be con,paratively seldom made, the profits of capital would be extremely high, and the difference -of excha~geable . value in different commodities which had cost in their production, and in the production of the .necessary_ capital, the san1e quantity of }abouT, l\roul(i be very great. If to this cause of variati0n we .add tme exception noticed by Mr. Ricardo, arising from the ,greater .or less proportion of fixed capital employed in dif~ ferent co1nmodities, the effects of 'vhicb would shew themselves in a very early period of savage life ; it must be allowed that the rule w·.hich declares'' that cotnmodities never vary in value unless a _greater or' less quantity of labour be bestowed on their production, '' cannot possibly, as stated by Mr. Ricardo, be "of universal application in the early stages of society.''* In countries advanced in civilization, it is obvious that the same causes of variation in the ex .. * Principles of Polit. Econ. p. 31.. 2d edit. I ' SEC. lV.] MEASURES OF VALUE. 91 changeable value of comtnodities, independently of the labour which they may have cost, must prevail, as in {the early periods of society, and as might be expected son1e . others. Probably indeed the ·profits of stock will not be so high, and conse, quently neither the varying proportions of the fixed capitals, nor the slowness or quickness of the returns will produce the same proportionate difference on prices ; but to make up for this, the difference in the quantity of fixed capital employed is prodigious, ancl scarcely the same in any t'vo commodities ; and the difference in the returns of capital varies sometimes from two or three days to two or three years. The proposition of Mr. Ricardo, which shews that a ris.e in the price of labour 1owers the priee _.of a large class of cotnmodities,* has undoubtedly a very paradoxical air ; but it is .nevertheless true; and the appearance of paradox would vanish if it wer,e stated more naturally . Mr. Ricardo would certainly allow that the effeot he contemplates is produced byafallofprofits, which he thinks is synonimous with a rise of wages. It is not necessary here to enter into the question ho"v far he is right in this respect; but undoubtedly no one could have thought the proposition paradoxical, or even in the slightest degree improbable, if he had stated that a fall of pro~ts would occasion a fall of price in those commodit!es, where frotn the quantity of fixed capital etillployed, the profits of that capital had before formed the principal i~ngredient in ·the cost of production. But this is what he has in * Principles of Polit. Econ. pp. 34 and 41. 2d edit. |
