94 



exchange value of land, like that of everything* else, 

 is affected b} r circumstances proximity to markets, 

 population, roads, rivers, climate ; but there is still 

 its power of production, which the absence of any 

 or all of these, though it may put it out of the 

 market, cannot annihilate. The diamond in the 

 mine, gold in the rock, any of the precious metals, 

 so locked up, are subject to very similar laws, and 

 it appears to me absurd to argue, that the one has 

 intrinsic worth, while the other which has inherent 

 powers of producing the most precious of all kinds 

 of wealth the necessaries of life has none. 



Thus, if two pieces of land, one suitable for grow- 

 ing opium, and the other capable only of producing 

 rice : or two mines, one a gold and the other a 

 copper mine, were situated in the same locality, and 

 at a considerable distance from a market, it is quite 

 intelligible that, the expenditure of capital and labour 

 required to produce the opium and the rice, and to 

 work the gold and the copper mine being, respectively, 

 precisely the same, the opium land and the diamond 

 mine should have a high exchange value, while the 

 rice land and the copper mine would be unsaleable. 

 Yet need not the rice land and the copper mine be 

 valueless. As the electric fluid in the Leyden Jar 

 is imprisoned till approached by the conductor, so 

 would be the natural properties of the rice land and 

 the copper in the mine, until advancing 5 civilization, 

 improved communication, or other circumstances, set 

 them free. In an old country, therefore, the object 



