Page:Thoughts on the causes and consequences of the present high price of provisions.djvu/22

[ 14 ] cause, the increase of riches; for no artifices of traders can make their commodities dear in a poor country; that is, sell things for a great deal of money, where there is little to be found. It seems therefore to no purpose, to search out for causes of the present high price of provisions, from facts, whose operations are uncertain, and reasons at best but speculative, when it is sufficiently accounted for from these two great principles, the increase of taxes, and the increase of riches, principles as absolutely indisputable, and as demonstrable as any mathematical problem.

I shall now make some cursory observations and short conclusions on the principles here advanced, which, allowing these to be true, can admit of no doubt. First then, although the price of provisions is at present very high, they cannot with propriety be said to be dear. Nothing is properly dear, except some commodity, which, either from real or ficti- tious