Page:Life of Sir William Petty 1623 – 1687.djvu/236

 Holland itself could be pointed at as an example to be shunned rather than to be followed, for taxes on commodities levied with a fatal facility to meet the needs of a war policy had reached such a point that they seriously injured the manufactures of the country.

In the 'Treatise on Taxes' an examination of the possibility of finding a standard or 'par' of value which can be stated in terms follows the discussion of the origin of value. The precious metals, especially silver, Petty points out, are principally adapted and used as a standard or measure of value, owing to their durability and universally recognised value; but even their value, he points out, may vary, according to the supply and other circumstances, and for that reason, not being altogether satisfied with them as standards, he desires to find a universal 'par,' not only for commodities, but for gold and silver as well: an inquiry which may be called the North-West Passage of political economy. 'All things,' he says, 'ought to be valued by two natural denominations, "land and labour:" that is, we ought to say a ship or garment is worth such a measure of land, with such another measure of labour; forasmuch as both ships and garments were the creatures of lands and men's labours thereupon. This being true, we should be glad to find out a natural par between land and labour, so as we might express the value of either of them alone, as well or better than by both, and reduce one into the other as easily and certainly as we reduce pence into pounds.' He does not, however, attempt a further development of the idea, although there is another reference to the subject in the 'Political Anatomy of Ireland,' where he describes it as the most important subject 'in political economics.' In this passage he assumes that there is a certain equality of the cost of production 'in the easiest gotten food of the respective countries of the world,' and that the cost of transporting it from one country to another will be about equal. He apparently alludes to the coarser and healthier forms of diet: oatmeal, rice, &c, which are of general distribution. He next