oyage, and also
the greater expense attending the conveying of gold to Poland.

This difference in the value of gold, or which is the same thing, this
difference in the price of corn in the two countries, would exist
although the facilities of producing corn in England should far exceed
those of Poland, from the greater fertility of the land, and the
superiority in the skill and implements of the labourer.

If however Poland should be the first to improve her manufactures, if
she should succeed in making a commodity which was generally desirable,
including great value in little bulk, or if she should be exclusively
blessed with some natural production, generally desirable, and not
possessed by other countries, she would obtain an additional quantity of
gold in exchange for this commodity, which would operate on the price
of her corn, cattle, and coarse clothing. The disadvantage of distance
would probably be more than compensated by the advantage of having an
exportable commodity of great value, and money would be permanently of
lower value in Poland than in England. If on the contrary, the advantage
of skill and machinery were possessed by England, another reason would
be added to that which before existed, why gold should be less valuable
in England than in Poland, and why corn, cattle, and clothing, should be
at a higher price in the former country.

These I believe to be the only two causes which regulate the comparative
value of money in the different countries of the world; for although
taxation occasions a disturbance of the equilibrium of money, it does so
by depriving the country in which it is imposed of some of the
advantages attending skill, industry, and climate.

It has been my endeavour carefully to distinguish between a low value of
money, and a high value of corn, or any other commodity with which
money may be compared. These have been generally considered as meaning
the same thing; but it is evident, that when corn rises from five to ten
shillings a bushel, it may be owing either to a fall in the value of
money, or to a rise in the value of corn. Thus we have seen, that from
the necessity of having recourse successively to land of a worse and
worse quality, in order to feed an increasing population, corn must rise
in relative value to other things. If therefore money continue
permanently of the same value, corn will exchange for more of such
money, that is to say, it will rise in price. The same ris