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