83 



should be worth double of what is usually the produce of one 

 day's or one hour's labour." 



In quoting Adam Smith's views, with full approval, 

 Kicardo concludes : — " That this is really the foundation of 

 the exchangeable value of all things, excepting those which 

 cannot be increased by human industry, is a doctrine of the 

 utmost importance in political economy ; for from no source 

 do so many prrors and so much difference of opiuion in that 

 science proceed, as from the vague ideas which are attached 

 to the word value." 



The most important corollary to be drawn from such a 

 doctrine is, that all natural elements and their compounds, 

 which form the substance of commodities, whether rare as 

 gold, silver, or tin ; or common as coal, iron ore, salt, or 

 water, are, of themselves, free gifts of nature, and do not 

 form any part of Value or Economic Price. Man cannot 

 create the elements of material substances, but by his fore- 

 thought, intelligence, and labour, he can modify and transport, 

 andean provide favourable conditions for the natural increase 

 of specific forms of utility. The latter service of man and 

 its extent merely constitute the measure of the quality we 

 otherwise call value or price in the particular compounds of 

 natural elements in which, by the laws of Social Economy, it 

 has become so closely incorporated as to be confounded with 

 some supposed intrinsic value in the natural substance per se. 



The phrase "free gifts of nature " by most people is usually 

 restricted to those things — like pure common air, rain, anc, 

 sunshine, so necessary to man's life and comfort — which are 

 obtained directly by natural means without the intervention 

 of other men's services ; but the acceptance of the doctrine of 

 the Primary Law of Economic Price or Value leads us a step 

 further, and compels us to concede that although all monopo- 

 lised natural substances in which man's services are incor- 

 porated are inseparably associated with Economic Price or 

 Value, the natural elements themselves do not enter into it 

 in any degree whatever ; and, therefore, the rarer natural 

 element, gold, per se, adds as little to economic price or value 

 as the more common elements, carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, 

 silica, sodium, chlorine, nitrogen, etc., do to compounds of 

 common substances, such as coal, common salt, grain, and 

 other food products. 



Qualifications to be Admitted. 



There are some objections which may be raised, here, against 

 the doctrine that Cost of Production is the Primarv Law of 



