204 
because they lead to the supposition that cost of production 
is the direct cause of the price of commodities, whereas 
the reader of the paper contended that it is only an indirect 
cause, and in many instances is not a cause of it at all. 
He maintained that it would be better to say that the pro- 
portion between the demand and supply is the proximate 
cause of the price of an article, but that cost of production 
is generally, but by no means universally, an indirect cause 
through the influence which under certain circumstances 
it exercises on this proportion. 
But while jie^assen ted to the doctrine of the elder political 
economists, he recognized the service which had been rendered 
by the advocates of the new theory in pointing out that the 
variations of the proportion between the demand and the 
supply, and through it of prices also, was limited, and gene- 
rally speaking confined within very narrow limits by cost of 
production, whereas the language previously used created 
the impression that they might vary arbitrarily and almost 
indefinitely. 
In the discussion which followed, Mr. Chadwick expressed 
his opinion that price is regulated entirely by the relation 
between supply and demand. Mr. Dyer said there could be 
no doubt that an increase in- the quantity of metallic money 
in circulation must have a great eflfect on the price of commo- 
dities. Mr. Templar thought that the relation between 
supply and demand remaining the same, great fluctuations 
may and do take place in prices which can only be explained 
by the varying cost of production, and that both supply and 
demand and cost of production have an influence on price. 
Dr. Smith was of opinion that the minimum price of a 
commodity was a fixed quantity determined ultimately by the 
cost of a bare living at any particular locality. 
A Paper communicated by Mr. Binney was then read, 
“ On the Vestiges of Extinct Glaciers in the Highlands of 
