GROUNDS OF THE SUSPICION THAT THE VALUE OF
SILVER STILL CONTINUES TO DECREASE
The increase of the wealth of Europe, and the popular notion
that, as the quantity of the precious metals naturally increases
with the increase of wealth so their value diminishes as their
quantity increases, may, perhaps, dispose many people to believe
that their value still continues to fall in the European market;
and the still gradually increasing price of many parts of the
rude produce of land may confirm them still further in this
opinion.
That that increase in the quantity of the precious metals,
which arises in any country from the increase of wealth, has no
tendency to diminish their value, I have endeavoured to show
already. Gold and silver naturally resort to a rich country, for
the same reason that all sorts of luxuries and curiosities resort
to it; not because they are cheaper there than in poorer
countries, but because they are dearer, or because a better price
is given for them. It is the superiority of price which attracts
them, and as soon as that superiority ceases, they necessarily
cease to go thither.
If you except corn and such other vegetables as are raised
altogether by human industry, that all other sorts of rude
produce, cattle, poultry, game of all kinds, the useful fossils
and minerals of the earth, etc., naturally grow dearer as the
society advances in wealth and improvement, I have endeavoured to
show already. Though such commodities, therefore, come to
exchange for a greater quantity of silver than before, it will
not from thence follow that silver has become really cheaper, or
will purchase less labour than before, but that such commodities
have become really dearer, or will purchase more labour than
before. It is not their nominal price only, but their real price
which rises in the progress of improvement. The rise of their
nominal price is the effect, not of any degradation of the value
of silver, but of the rise in their real price.