l8o CURRENCY. 



of the cost of wheat to the wages of labour is not liable to 

 the same variations as affect other produce the use of which 

 is voluntary, that Adam Smith considered wheat prices as 

 more suggestive of real values, or rather real relations between 

 values, than any other. Wheat has always been the customary 

 or ordinary food of the people in this country, and therefore is 

 of all kinds of grain that which most nearly satisfies Adam 

 Smith's hypothesis. 



Now to anticipate facts which will be given in detail below, 

 it may be stated that the average price of wheat in the 140 

 years from 1261 to 1400 was 55-. iof</., this sum containing 

 (the difference between the moneyer's and the troy pound 

 being recognized) about 1460 troy grains of pure silver, or 

 rather more than two and a half times more than the same 

 nominal amount in modern currency, for if the pound troy 

 were coined into sixty shillings, 5*. io|^. would contain about 

 563 troy grains. 



The rise in corn prices, as estimated in weights of silver, 

 will, supposing we take the ancient quarter to be identical 

 with the Winchester quarter of the act of 1582, amount to 

 3.328 times for the period 1595 1636; to 2.675 for that be- 

 tween 1637 1700; to 2.135 between 1701 and 1764. If, 

 again, we take the period 1726 1765, we shall find the rise 

 to be 2.044 times j from 1726 to 1795 to be 2.463 ; or, including 

 the dear years of the continental war, from 1726 to 1820, the 

 rise will be 3.271 times. 



If, however, the quantity known by the name of the quarter 

 is estimated, according to the proportion given in the chapter 

 on weights and measures, to contain 49.37 avoirdupois pounds, 

 we must reduce the rise by about 17 per cent, on each of the 

 above-named money values. 



