Page:Malthus 1823 The Measure of Value.djvu/31

 India, it is quite obvious, that if, after ascertaining the natural conditions of the supply of a commodity in each country, we were to estimate the value of money either by its general power of purchasing, by a mean between corn and labour, or by the quantity of labour alone which had been actually employed in bringing the money from the mine to the market, or by any other measure whatever, except the labour which it would command, we should not account for the natural prices which are found actually to prevail in the two countries, and according to which Indian and English commodities are found to exchange with each other by experience.

Consequently, as no other supposition will suit the actual phenomena, and as it has already appeared that the value of commodities in the same country is determined by the quantity of labour which they will command, we may safely conclude that the value of the precious metals in different countries is determined by the same measure, or by the different quantities of common agricultural labour, taking the