134 
Rome it is more difficult to trace the 
changes in prices of food. Corn was some- 
times exacted as a tribute from conquered 
countries and sold by the state at less than 
cost and occasionally given away. The 
inerease of prices was particularly rapid 
after the concentration of the chief mining 
industry in the hands of the Roman gov- 
ernment. Cattle increased in price as well 
as corn. About 400 B.c. sheep sold for 7 
pence, 3 farthings. At the date of the 
Christian era the price was 25 shillings. 
After the Carthaginian wars the Romans 
acquired the valuable mines of their ene- 
mies in the western part of Africa, also in 
Sicily, Sardinia and the south of Spain. 
A few years later the mines of Greece and 
Asia Minor came into the possession of the 
Romans; still later the mines of Macedonia 
and Thrace. In their later conquest, spe- 
cial effort was made to acquire supplies of 
precious metal. 
In the year 1581 a dialogue was printed, 
attributed to one ‘‘W. S.,’’ probably Will- 
iam Smith, entitled ‘‘A Discourse of the 
Common Weal of this Realm of England.’’ 
The participants in the dialogue are a 
knight or owner of land, supposed to be 
Mr. Thomas Hales, a doctor of divinity, 
who, as it is conjectured, was Bishop Hugh 
Latimer, a husbandman, a tenant farmer, 
a merchant, a mercer and a capper. An 
enterprising publisher in the year 1751 re- 
published this dialogue and basing the au- 
thorship on the initials ‘‘W. S.’’ assigned 
it to William Shakespeare, a manifest ef- 
fort to obtain a greater sale by deceit. 
The real date of the dialogue as appears 
from more recent investigation was the 
year 1549. This document is exceedingly 
valuable for students who are considering 
the subject of high prices, for if we leave 
out the influence of the larger aggregations 
of capital, and the characteristic features 
of modern business, practically every rea- 
SCIENCE 
[N.S. Vou. XXXV. No. 891 
son for a rise in prices is advanced in it. 
Each ascribed to the occupation of the 
other the responsibility for the existing 
situation. Views are expressed upon the 
benefits of protective tariffs against foreign 
products, upon the balance of trade, upon 
the exactions of the middleman, upon the 
inerease in rents of agricultural land. One 
of the characters expresses the opinion that 
avarice is the cause of high prices. An- 
other mentions the great increase in the 
cost of necessary articles. One of them 
says: ‘‘ Within these 8 years you could buy 
the best pig or goose that I could lay my 
hands upon for 4 pence which now costs 
me 8 pence and a good capon for 3 pence 
or 4, a chicken for a penny, a hen for two 
which will now cost me double the money, 
and it is likewise of great ware as of mut- 
ton and of beef.’’ It was maintained in 
this discussion that price determined rent 
and not rent price. The husbandman con- 
ceded that if he were commanded to sell 
his wheat and other products at the old 
price he would have enough to pay his 
landlord as in times past, but he says that 
he must buy iron, salt, tar and pitch, all of 
which brought a higher price than for- 
merly. One cause of the increase of prices, 
which is pointed out in this dialogue, is the 
clipping of coin which caused the good 
coins to go abroad for use in foreign trade. 
There were, however, more universal causes 
than this. Bodin, a French political 
philosopher, of the last half of the six- 
teenth century, states as an undoubted 
fact that there had been a revolution in 
prices. He gives six reasons for it: 
1. The great abundance of gold and sil- 
ver which resulted in a decrease in its pur- 
chasing power. The discovery of America 
and the increase of commerce and the de- 
velopment of banks caused the great abun- 
dance. 
