Page:The wealth of nations, volume 1.djvu/319

but in very small quantities; such as the precious metals and the precious stones, the great objects of the competition of the rich. Though the mines, therefore, which supplied the Indian market had been as abundant as those which supplied the European, such commodities would naturally exchange for a greater quantity of food in India than in Europe. But the mines which supplied the Indian market with the precious metals seem to have been a good deal less abundant, and those which supplied it with precious stones a good deal more so, than the mines which supplied the European. The precious metals, therefore, would naturally exchange in India for somewhat a greater quantity of the precious stones, and for a much greater quantity of food than in Europe. The money price of diamonds, the greatest of all superfluities, would be somewhat lower, and that of food, the first of all necessaries, a great deal lower in the one country than in the other. But the real price of labor, the real quantity of the necessaries of life which is given to the laborer, it has already been observed, is lower both in China and Hindustan, the two great markets of India, than it is through the greater part of Europe. The wages of the laborer will there purchase a smaller quantity of food; and as the money price of food is much lower in India than in Europe, the money price of labor is there lower upon a double account; upon account both of the small quantity of food which it will purchase, and of the low price of that food. But in countries of equal art and industry, the money price of the greater part of manufactures will be in proportion to the money price of labor; and in manufacturing art and industry, China and Hindustan, though inferior, seem not to be much inferior to any part of Europe. The money price of the greater part of manufac-