Page:Malthus 1823 The Measure of Value.djvu/28

 with each other, and the natural conditions of their supply in each country, and partly by the different value of the precious metals in different situations, which must necessarily have a most powerful effect on the rate at which foreign commodities are exchanged.

Knowing then the elements of the natural and relative value of commodities in the same country, if we knew also the difference in the value of money in different countries, we should know at once the rate at which the commodities of different countries would exchange with each other.

Now there is no supposition but one, relating to the value of money in different countries, which, combined with the natural elements of the value of produce in each, would constitute the present natural prices of commodities in these countries, or the rates at which they actually exchange with each other. This is the supposition that the differences in the value of money in different countries are proportioned to the differences in the money prices of agricultural labour.