79 



THE PRIMARY LAW OP VALUE OR PRICE. 

 Beasons Based Upon Statistical Data Showing that 

 Economic Cost op Production — not the Ratio of 

 Demand and Supply — is the Primary Law which 

 Regulates and Determines the Respectiye Ratios 

 and Prices at which the Precious Metals and 

 all other Commodities and Services Exchange 

 with each other. 



By R. M. Johnston, E.L.S. 



(Tables and Diagrams.) 



Bead September 9th, 1895. 



Introductory. 



No field of inquiry has suffered so much from the lack 

 of uniformity, precision, and proper classification aud 

 definition of terms as that branch of art or science 

 which relates to Social Economics. Perhaps these imper- 

 fections were unavoidable in the early stages of investi- 

 gation of matters so complex and variable, and may 

 have been perpetuated by the idea that the popular 

 appreciation of important Social and Economic questions 

 might be aided by the retention of words in common use. 

 The terms Capital, Utility, Wealth, Value, Price, Rent, 

 Profit, Wages Fund, Wages, Interest, Demand, Supply, Cost 

 of Production are of this class, and are still frequently a 

 source of confusion because of the very different meanings 

 which different writers loosely attach to them. Professor 

 Marshall and Guntou, among modern Economists, have done 

 good service in giving greater precision to our language 

 when making use of such generic words, by the adoption of 

 requisite qualifying terms, denoting the specific sense in 

 which the original, or root, term is to be understood. 



The terms thus adding greater precision to Economic lan- 

 guage are now becoming better understood, and prevent much 

 of the confusion in discussion which formerly was almost 

 unavoidable. The following is a list of the more important 

 of these specific terms now in constant use among Economic 

 students : — 



Wealth.— Wealth in Exchange, or Exchange Wealth, Social 

 Wealth, National Wealth, Cosmopolitan Wealth, Capital 

 Wealth, Consumable Wealth. 



Capital. — Individual Capital, Trade Capital, Social Capital, 

 L">nsurnption Capital, Auxiliary Capital, Potential 

 Capital, Circulating Capital, Fixed Capital, Personal 

 Capital. 



