Page:Malthus 1823 The Measure of Value.djvu/72

 of raw produce, will have a tendency to rise; but, in a large class of commodities, this tendency to rise will be more than counterbalanced by the effect of the fall of profits.—Some therefore will rise, and some will fall, as I stated in my last work, according to the nature of the capitals employed upon them, compared with those which produce money; and while the money prices of corn and labour very decidedly increase, the prices of commodities, taken on the average, may possibly remain not far from the same.

On the other hand, when the value of metallic money falls, from the secondary causes above noticed, there will be a tendency to a proportionate rise of all commodities as well as of corn and labour, though in some cases it may take a considerable time before it is completely effected. And, in general, whenever a fall in the value of money takes place, without a fall in the rate of profits, an event which is generally open to observation, it is to be attributed to incidental and secondary causes affecting the relations of money to labour, and not to that which is connected with the taking of poorer land into cultivation.

Of these two classes of causes the second