guinea and seven-and-twenty shillings to forty shillings and three pounds a month.**

"That labour varies in its value at distant and remote periods of time, seems established by the following facts:-'The real recompence of labour, the real quantity of the necessaries and conveniencies of life which it can procure to the labourer, has, during the course of the present century, increased perhaps in a still greater proportion than its money price.'t

"The comparison made betwixt England and America shews clearly the difference that takes place in the value of labour in distant and remote countries: England is certainly, in the present times, a much richer country than any part of North America. The wages of labour, however, are much higher in North America than in any part of England.'

"The following facts," observes Lord Lauderdale, "not only shew the extraordinary variations in the value of labour that take place in different parts of the same country: but the ingenious reasoning, which accompanies it, points out why these variations in the value of labour must be more permanent than in any other commodity;" and his Lordship again quotes a passage of the work of Adam Smith, which runs thus:" Eighteen pence a day may be reckoned the common price of labour in London and its neighbourhood. At a few miles distance, it falls to fourteen

* Wealth of Nations, London, 1805, vol. i. book i. chap. 10, pages 182, 183.

+ Ibidem, vol. i. book i. chap. 8, page 122. Ibidem, vol. i. book i. chap. 8, page 109.

and fifteen pence. Ten pence may be reckoned its price in Edinburgh and its neighbourhood. At a few miles distance, it falls to eight pence, the usual price of common labour through the greater part of the low country of Scotland, where it varies a good deal less than in England. Such a difference of prices, which it seems is not always sufficient to transport a man from one parish to another, would necessarily occasion so great a transportation of the most bulky commodities, not only from one parish to another, but from one end of the kingdom, almost from one end of the world to the other, as would soon reduce them more nearly to a level. After all that has been said of the levity and inconstancy of human nature, it appears evidently from experience, that a man is, of all sorts of luggage, the most difficult to be transported."

"This pretended accurate measure of value is not even capable, like other commodities, of forming a true measure of value at the same time and place; which is evident when we recollect that at the same time and place, the real and the money price of labour vary, not only according to the different abilities of the workmen, but according to the easiness or hardness of the masters."+

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Finally," adds Lord Lauderdale, it appears most extraordinary that the author of the Wealth of Nations should ever have considered labour as an accurate measure of value, for he treats in some part of his work of productive and unproductive labour; and

* Wealth of Nations, 1805, vol. i. book i. chap. 8, page 117. Ibidem, vol. i. book i. chap. 8, page 121.

it must be observed, that a proposition holding forth a mathematical point as a measure of dimension, would not be more absurd than proposing any thing unproductive as a measure of value.

is

"Great, therefore," concludes Lord Lauderdale, as the authorities are, who have regarded labour as a measure of value; it does not appear that labour forms any exception to the general rule, that nothing possesses real, fixed, or intrinsic value; or that there any solid reason for doubting that things are only valuable in consequence of their uniting qualities, which make them the objects of man's desire, with the circumstance of existing in a certain degree of scarcity; and that the degree of value which every commodity possesses, depends upon the proportion be-twixt the quantity of it and the demand for it."*

This criticism of Lord Lauderdale triumphantly overturns, in my opinion, the notion of an immutable standard-measure of value, to which Adam Smith attached so much importance, and for which he felt so great a predilection. The confession which he is forced to make, that the value of labour varies from one place to the other, from day to day, and as it were from one moment to the other, according as it is wanted and as it may be procured, strips labour of the prerogative which he had ascribed to it..

In vain does Adam Smith observe, that it is not the value of labour that varies, but the value of the commodities with which it is paid. This is an idle distinction.

* The Earl of Lauderdale's Inquiry, chap. i. pages 27—38.

As the value of labour experiences a rise and fall perfectly similar to the rise and fall of the price of commodities; and as this variation in their respective values proceeds from the same cause, that is, from the proportion of the demand to their abundance or scarcity; there is not any difference possible between the two values; both are alike liable to vary, and consequently both are alike unfit to form an invariable measure of value.

Money, it is true, is said not to vary, although a larger or smaller quantity of money is given at different periods for a quarter of corn or a pipe of wine, for this plain reason.

When more or less money is given at one time than at the other for a quarter of corn or a pipe of wine, and the same money is paid as usual for all other commodities, it is evident that, in that instance, it is the value of corn and wine that varies, because it is impossible that the value of money, not varying with regard to all other commodities, should vary with regard to corn and wine.

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But when the value of money varies with regard to all commodities, that is to say, when a greater quantity than usual is given for a certain quantity of commodities, it is the value of money that varies.

This subject has been developed with the greatest perspicuity by one of the most distinguished modern Italian writers.

Money," says this able author, who is too little known, "has not absolute value; its value is always relative; a guinea is the value of a hat, as a hat is the value of a guinea.—But it ought to be remembered, that the relation between commodities and money may

vary either through a change in the commodities or a change in the money. In the former case, the price of commodities is justly said to be altered; in the latter, the value of money is said to be altered. If newly introduced cloth-manufactures cause a greater quantity of woollen cloth to be purchased with the same quantity of money as before, whatever be the altered proportion of money to cloth, the value of cloth is justly said to be less. But if, on account of a greater quantity of money being thrown into circulation, it happens that all commodities fetch more money than fifty years before, money is justly said to be depreciated."*

The value of money therefore cannot vary, though more or less money is given than formerly for certain commodities; its value experiences an actual variation only when more money than usual is paid for every commodity.

But the case is different with labour. Its value cannot vary, unless that of each commodity in particular and of the aggregate of all commodities and of money itself varies together with it. If the value of labour rise, it causes all other commodities and even money to sink in the same proportion, that is to say, that if a day's labour which was at 15d. rises a fifth, all commodities and money by which it is to be paid, sink or are depreciated one fifth; or, in other words, it requires one fifth more of commodities or money to pay for a day's labour. The case is the same, if a day's labour sinks a fifth; commodities and money in

* Jean Baptiste Vasco; Della Moneta; Turin, 1787, 1788.