18 
ON THE VALUE 
the term value of labour instead of wages, as 
might be done if the two expressions were 
used as synonymousand equivalent. We could 
not speak with propriety of ‘the labour and 
capital employed in producing the value of 
labour,” or of ¢ the real value of the value of 
labour.” 
The term wages, when thus used, appears in- 
tended to denote the commodities or money 
given to the labourer in exchange for his la- 
bour —not the value of his labour in money, but 
the money itself. This is either an unwarrant- 
able use of the term, or there is a double mean- 
ing in it as Ithink alittle consideration will show, 
although the distinction, which I shall attempt 
to make, may seem on a first glance to be adis- 
tinction without a difference. It will be ac- 
knowledged, that the value of labour can be ex- 
pressed only by the quantity of some commodity 
given for a definite portion of it. Thus, if silver 
is that commodity, the value of a day’s labour is 
expressed by the quantity of silver, or, what is 
the same thing, the number of shillings which