The Political Economist and the Land. 119 



that they purchased. It was just as erroneous to imagine that 

 power was wealth ; for though wealth could secure either 

 money or power, or both, no one of the three terms was syno- 

 nymous or interchangeable with any other. Nor was money 

 even the agency whereby wealth was produced. Labour is the 

 real purchase price for all things, which never varies in value 

 like the precious metals, and is therefore the ultimate and real 

 standard by which the value of all commodities, at all times 

 and in all places, can be estimated and compared. It was 

 labour which in primitive times fixed the prices of the various 

 spoils of the chase, and which now-a-days allows one gold-mine 

 to be worked at a large profit, while it prevents another being 

 worked at any profit at all. In labour, also, will be found an 

 explanation of the anomaly which caused the proportion of 

 college rents reserved in kind by 18 Eliz., though originally 

 only one-third of those reserved in money, to be yielding, by 

 Smith's day, double the value of the latter. 



Having thus directed his reader's attention back to the chief 

 theme of his discourse — viz., labour — he proceeds to apply this 

 great wealth-producing machine in the most efficient manner 

 to the ultimate end of all political economy. "Wealth is every 

 commodity which has an exchange value. It can only be in- 

 creased or diminished in proportion as its exchange value is 

 increased or diminished. If this definition of national riches 

 be true, — and there is no reason to doubt that it is, — it follows 

 that whenever the labour of agriculture produces an excess of 

 what is wanted by the consumer, it ceases to be wealth. The 

 necessaries of life may therefore become, even in an inhabited 

 country, valueless if there are no capabilities of commercial 

 intercourse. Though the soil is the source of all wealth, it 

 does not necessarily follow that the produce of the soil is 

 wealth. Wool, for example, is not wealth until converted by 

 labour into an exchangeable commodity, and it is only regarded 

 in commerce as wealth because it is presupposed that its pro- 

 prietor has it in his power thus to convert it. Without, then, 

 the existence of the manufacturer and trader the raw materials 

 of the earth would cease to be wealth, and a large quantity of 

 its food would fail in finding a consumer. 



