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sea to the English market, than it did to raise a bushel at 

 the English market. A large part of the previous price 

 represented rent. Not that the high rents caused the 

 high price, it was the scarcity that did that; but 

 the landlord got the benefit all the same, and when 

 the increased imports brought down the price, the landlord 

 lost and the consumer gained the difference. As to the next 

 example, meat, the same argument applies. The arts of 

 tinning and freezing meat had been discovered, and ship- 

 ments of live stock greatly increased. The increased supply, 

 not the reduced cost, checked the rise of price. As to the 

 third example, the increased rate of wages coupled with 

 increased purchasing power, that is too wide a question to 

 enter on here. I content myself with remarking that the in- 

 creased wage and increased purchasing power were a good 

 deal less than they appear, being largely discounted by 

 increasing rent, by increasing irregularity and uncertainty of 

 employment, and in many, especially in the most conspicuous 

 cases, by contributions to the war fund of the Union, by which 

 the rate of wage was kept up. However, let us keep to the main 

 point, which is that, looking at the matter broadly and taking 

 price as a whole, as it actually is with all its disturbing 

 influences, not as it might be without them, it is demand and 

 supply as such that determines it ; cost of production acting 

 only by affecting supply, and so disturbing the ratio, besides 

 being only one fact >r out of many, though no doubt the chief 

 one, in affecting supply. 



