OF VALUE,

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to render such a conclusion erroneous. If two
samples of corn of equal quality, but from
different soils, were submitted to us, and we
were told that their prices were equal, we could
not pronounce with any certainty that they
were the results of equal labour. One might
have been produced by a fourth part of the
labour required for the other, and yet they are
of the same value. If gold and corn, or cloth
and corn, were compared in the same way,
there would be a similar impossibility of telling
that portions of these commodities of equal
value had been produced by equal quantities of
labour.
We shall now be prepared to take 2 general
survey of Mr. Ricardo’s doctrine on the subject
of the causes of value, and estimate it at its
real worth. He commences by stating, that
“ commodities derive their exchangeable value
from two sources: from their scarcity, and from
the quantity of labour required to obtain them.’
Articles of the first kind he regards as compa-
ratively unimportant, and therefore professes to