than by comparing it with any other commodity, or set of commodities.
Corn, besides, or whatever else is the common and favorite vegetable food of the people, constitutes, in every civilized country, the principal part of the subsistence of the laborer. In consequence of the extension of agriculture, the land of every country produces a much greater quantity of vegetable than of animal food, and the laborer everywhere lives chiefly upon the wholesome food that is cheapest and most abundant. Butcher's meat, except in the most thriving countries, or where labor is most highly rewarded, makes but an insignificant part of his subsistence; poultry makes a still smaller part of it, and game no part of it. In France, and even in Scotland, where labor is somewhat better rewarded than in France, the laboring poor seldom eat butcher's meat, except upon holidays, and other extraordinary occasions. The money price of labor, therefore, depends much more upon the average money price of corn, the subsistence of the laborer, than upon that of butcher's meat, or of any other part of the rude produce of land. The real value of gold and silver, therefore, the real quantity of labor which they can purchase or command, depends much more upon the quantity of corn which they can purchase or command, than upon that of butcher's meat, or any other part of the rude produce of land.
Such slight observations, however, upon the prices either of corn or of other commodities, would not probably have misled so many intelligent authors, had they not been influenced, at the same time, by the popular notion, that as the quantity of silver naturally increases in every country with the increase of wealth, so its value diminishes as its
