VALUE OF LABOUR. 
47 
obviously the only interpretation of which the 
terms rise and fall of labour admit, consistently 
with the definition of value. 
Before proceeding to apply these positions 
to the current doctrines of the day, it will be 
necessary to call the reader’s attention to a 
comparison of the terms ¢ value of labour,” 
and “ wages,” and to the way in which they 
are employed. The value of labour, as we 
have just seen, signifies the relation in which 
labour stands to commodities. The term wages 
has the same meaning — for we may say indif- 
ferently the wages of labour are three shillings 
a day, or the value of labour is three shillings 
a day; but it is often employed with greater 
laxity of signification. 
Mr. Ricardo, for example, talks of “the 
labour and capital employed in producing 
wages,” and of * the real value of wages*;’ 
in which instances it is impossible to substitute 
* © Wages are to be estimated by their real value, viz. 
by the quantity of labour and capital employed in producing 
them.” Pol. Econ., p. 50.