86 ON COMPARING COMMODITIES

of a and B does not depend on the compensation
 paid for the producing labour of a being
equal to, or greater, or less than the compensation
 paid for the producing labour of B: so that
this compensation might be equal in the two
cases, while the quantities in which A and 8
were exchanged for each other were unequal.
As far, however, as any thing can be gathered
from the confusion of thought and language
in Mr. Ricardos opening section, this is not
what he intended to assert. In the first clause
he was comparing a and B, and asserting the
cause which determined the relation between
them; but dropping B by the way, in this latter
clause he is speaking of A alone. By quantity
 of labour in the first clause, he meant
quantity of labour necessary to produce a, compared
 with the quantity of labour necessary to
produce B; but by compensation of labour in
the latter clause, he does not intend the compensation
 of labourin A compared to the compensation
 of labour in B, but the compensation
paid for the labour required to produce a at