OF VALUE.

229

value of gold itself depends, not on the la-
bour necessary to produce every individual
portion of it, but on the labour necessary to
extract it from the least fertile mines that are
worked.

Mr. Ricardo did not, evidently, allow suf-
ficient importance to that source of value which
he calls scarcity; nor did he consistently bear
in mind, that it was the very same principle
which enabled the owner of land, or of mines,
of more than common fertility, to raise the
value of their articles beyond what would afford
the customary profit. Instead of scarcity, or,
in other words, monopoly, or protection from
competition, beng an unimportant source of
value, and the commodities which owe their
value to it forming a very small part of the
mass of commodities daily exchanged in the
market, we have seen that it is a most extensive
source of value, and that the value of many of
the most important articles of interchange must
be referred to this as its origin.

With regard to the causes of the value of