CHAP. xxi. INCREASE OF WEALTH. 133 



view of the rise, taken from accurate tables, does 

 not appear to correspond with that which the 

 acts of the legislature would lead us to infer. As 

 had been before noticed in 1593, the price of 

 wheat at twenty shillings the quarter was deemed 

 sufficiently low to warrant permission to export it ; 

 but in 1688 exportation was not allowed when 

 wheat was above forty-eight shillings. If these 

 enactments may be taken as the proportion of 

 price between 1593 and 1688, the advance would 

 be nearer to the increased quantity of the money 

 in circulation than is shown by the Oxford tables 

 of Mr. Lloyd. 



It is, however, scarcely possible that the in- 

 crease of prices should keep an even pace with the 

 rate of augmentation of the precious metals. It 

 may be so in the early increase of money, but 

 could not long continue. The additional quan- 

 tity of money, acting as a stimulus to industry, 

 would increase the mass of commodities to be ex- 

 changed, and thus a greater portion of money 

 would be needed to circulate them. This may be 

 familiarized by an hypothetical case. Let it be 

 supposed that the whole mass of commodities is 

 reduced to two articles, corn and cloth, in equal 

 quantities, as one hundred thousand quarters of 

 corn and one hundred thousand pieces of cloth 

 that the cost of production of each quarter of corn 

 and each piece of cloth is the same. The value 

 of them in exchange would then be equal. We 



