mo
“

ON THE NATURE

ducing labour. There is no meaning certainly
in this last proposition, but there is so much of
the appearance of it, that the most cautious investigator
 might be led astray by the semblance.
After these critical strictures, it is a pleasure
 to cite a passage from an author, whose
views as to the nature of value appear to me
to be sounder than those of any other writer.
“ Even if a commodity,” says he, “could
be found, which always required the same expenditure
 for its production, it would not therefore
 be of invariable exchangeable value, so as
to serve as a standard for measuring the value
of other things. Exchangeable value is determined,
 not by the absolute, but by the relative
cost of production. If the cost of producing
gold remained the same, while the cost of producing
 all other things should be doubled, then
would gold have a less power of purchasing all
other things than before; or, in other words,
its exchangeable value would fall one half;
and this diminution in its exchangeable value
would be precisely the same in effect, as if the