180 Of Corn-Laws. Bk. iii. 



out any essential alteration in the comparative 

 abundance and cheapness of corn. 



Adam Smith attributes this cheapness to a rise 

 in the value of silver. The fall in the price of 

 corn which took place in France and some other 

 countries about the same time might give some 

 countenance to the conjecture. But the accounts 

 we have lately had of the produce of the mines 

 during the period in question does not sufficiently 

 support it ; and it is much more probable that 

 it arose from the comparative state of peace in 

 which Europe was placed after the termination of 

 the wars of Louis XIV., which facilitated the ac- 

 cumulation of capital on the land, and encouraged 

 agricultural improvements. 



With regard to this country, indeed, it is ob- 

 served by Adam Smith himself, that labour* and 

 other articles were rising ; a fact very unfavour- 

 able to the supposition of an increased value of 

 the precious metals. Not only the money price 

 of corn fell, but its value relative to other articles 

 was lowered, and this fall of relative value, toge- 

 ther with great exportations, clearly pointed to a 

 relative abundance of corn, in whatever way it 

 might be occasioned, as the main cause of the facts 

 observed, rather than a scarcity of silver. This 

 great fall in the British corn-market, particularly 



* It is certainly a very remarkable fact, that although Adam 

 Smith repeatedly states, in the most distinct manner, that labour 

 alone is the tme measure of the value of silver and of all other 

 commodities, he should suppose that silver was rising at the very 

 time when he says the money price of labour w&s rising. There 

 cannot be a more decided contradiction. 



