Page:Malthus 1823 The Measure of Value.djvu/62

 The exceptions, therefore, to the general proposition that the labour which commodities will command may be considered as a standard measure of their value are only apparent, not real, and may all be consistently explained.

And if the proposition be true, a standard measure of value is of so much importance in political economy, and the one proposed is at all times so very ready and easy of application, that there is scarcely any part of the science in which it will not tend to simplify and facilitate our inquiries.

To advert shortly to a few points on which there have been some differences of opinion. On the subject of rents, such a standard would determine, among other things, that, as the increase in the value of corn is only measured by a decrease in the corn wages of labour, such increase of value is a very inconsiderable source of the increase of rents compared with improvements in agriculture; and on the same principle that, if tithes do not fall mainly on the labourer, the acknowledged diminution in the corn rents of the landlord.