REGULATE THE INTERCHANGE OF COMMODITIES. 183 



will immediately and necessarily affect price. If only a certain quan- 

 tity of a product can possibly be procured, and a greater quantity is 

 sought for, the price is what a sufficient number of persons to take 

 the whole supply are willing to give rather than not have the article. 

 If a certain supply can be procured at any given cost of labour, but 

 the quantity can only be increased by a greater expenditure of labour, 

 then all that is consumed will have for its price the amount of labour 

 expended on that portion, however small, which requires the greatest 

 cost to produce it ; for it is clear that no one would exchange the 

 article for less than tlie labour lie had expended in producing it ; and 

 whilst one who assists in supplying the market requires a certain price, 

 all the others feel themselves equally entitled to it, — their power of 

 producing their share of the supply at less cost, is a natural advan- 

 tage of which they of course avail themselves. 



Two remarks may be needed to guard what has been stated from mis- 

 apprehension. 1st. That capital being nothing else than accumulated 

 results of labour employed for further production, the degree in which 

 it has contributed to the production of the article does not affect what 

 has been affirmed. Capital contributes to the goodness and cheapness 

 of very many things, but does not alter the natural laws which deter- 

 mine price. It is indeed quite true that the price of commodities 

 produced by the union in various proportions of capital and labour, 

 will be, according to those proportions, affected by the changes se- 

 parately produced by competition or otherwise in the value of each ; 

 and these circumstances would explain peculiar changes of price in 

 certain commodities, and afford reasons for probable success or failure 

 in certain kinds of production in particular situations, but they would 

 not withdraw these commodities from the dominion of the general 

 laws respecting exchange, and what belongs to the special cases does 

 not require investigation in reference to our present subject. 



2nd. The exchange being direct of products themselves, or being 

 accomplished by the intermediation of what we call money, cannot 

 any otherwise than nominally affect price. What we call money is 

 itself a commodity. Paper can have no value worth speaking of 

 but as a convenient mode of handing about a right to a certain quan- 

 tity of gold ; and the gold itself is appropriated and brought to 

 market by human industry, and finds its value like all other things. 

 Because it is eminently suited for the purpose, portions of it are used 

 in exchange ; but we know when price varies, that gold growing 



