Page:Principlesofpoli00malt.djvu/161

This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
SEC. V.]
MEASURES OF VALUE.
99

If the changes were in the quantity of labour employed, not in the quantity of fish obtained, the effects would not be different. Though the whole demand might be increased in the case of an increased population, or diminished in the case of a diminished population, yet the power of commanding a day's labour would still represent a given and unchanged demand in regard to intensity; and if on account of a greater number of competitors in the one case, and a smaller number in the other, each man could obtain in a day a smaller or greater number offish, the fish would become scanty or abundant as compared with a given demand; and their value would still vary inversely as their supply, and be measured in both cases by the quantity of labour which a certain quantity of them would command.

It appears then that the varying quantity of produce obtained by the same quantity of labour of a given character, where labour alone is concerned, while it implies great alterations in the value of a given portion of the produce, does not alter the value of a given quantity of labour.

And it is equally true that the varying wages, whether in corn or money, paid to the labourer at different periods for labour of the same character, when this labour enters into the composition of commodities combined with profits, rent, taxes, or any other intrinsic causes of value, does not alter the value of the labour itself, or disqualify it from being used as a measure.

In our own country there was a period subsequent to the reign of Edward III. namely from 1444, to the end of the reign of Henry VII. when, as far as the documents on the subject can be trusted, the labourer earned nearly two pecks of wheat a day, while he earned less than a peck in the time of Edward III. and much less than a peck towards the end of the reign of Elizabeth. Now it is quite certain that the labourer could not for so long a time have had his corn wages nearly doubled, if from some cause or other, or probably from a union of different causes, the supply of corn had

This article is issued from Wikisource. The text is available under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 unless otherwise noted. Additional terms may apply for the media files.