Chapter CLIX: Section VI: Paper Money—A Curse Or A Blessing? (10)

770 The first clear germ of this doctrine, which is one of the most
important theoretical principles of international-trade politics, is
to be found in _David Hume_, On Interest; _Cantillon_, Nature du
Commerce, 226, 369 ff. _Ricardo_, Principles, ch. 7. “Gold and
silver having been chosen for the general medium of circulation,
they are, by the competition of commerce, distributed in such
proportions amongst the different countries of the world, as to
accommodate themselves to the natural traffic which would take place
if no such metals existed, and the trade between countries were
purely a trade of barter.” _Rebenius_, Oeff. Credit, I, 29 ff. Still
further developed, especially by _John Stuart Mill_, Elements, 1821,
III, 4, 13 f.; _Torrens_, The Budget, 1844. _John Stuart Mill_,
Essays on some unsettled Principles of Political Economy, 1844, No.
1, and Principles, III, ch. 19, § 3, 5th ed.: “The opening of a new
branch of export trade from England; an increase in the foreign
demand for English products, either by the natural course of events
or by the abrogation of duties; a check to the demand in England for
foreign commodities, by the laying on of import duties in England,
or of export duties elsewhere; these and all other events of similar
tendency, should make the imports of England, bullion and other
things taken together, no longer an equivalent for the exports; and
the countries which take her exports would be obliged to offer their
commodities, and bullion among the rest, on cheaper terms, in order
to re-establish the equation of demand; and thus England would
obtain money cheaper, and would acquire a generally higher range of
prices.”

Obscurely surmised by _Beccaria_, E.P., 3, 18, and even by
_Galiani_, Della Moneta, II, 2. _Senior’s_ admirable work, Three
Lectures on the Cost of Obtaining Money, 1830, follows up the
thought that every country obtains indigenous and foreign products
at a cost which grows smaller in the same proportion as the
productiveness of its people’s labor is large. This would,
certainly, explain why it is that perhaps one hundred English days’
work in cotton manufactures will exchange against as much silver as
is produced by two hundred days’ work in Mexican mines and
foundries. This would not, by any means, produce a lowering of the
price of the precious metals relatively to other English
commodities, but the influence would be felt equally by all the
products of English national industry.

771 To be found in germ in _Cantillon_, Nature du Commerce, 1755, 249
ff. 307. _Büsch_, Geldumlauf, 14. _Kaufmann_, Untersuchungen, I, 75
ff. Many of the doctrines of the so-called Mercantile System, of
which I shall treat in my projected work on the Political Economy of
Commerce, have given expression to this truth in an inexact and
exaggerated way; but they were not entirely erroneous, as is
supposed by the adherents of Hume and Smith. However, _J. S. Mill_,
Principles II, ch. 19, § 2, does not fully admit the degree of the
cheapness of money in England usually assumed. According to him it
is wants of luxury (luxury-wants) become such through habit, that
produce “the dearness of living in England.”

_ 772 Petty_ considers the search for a measure which could be applied
both to land and labor as one of the principal problems of Political
Economy. (Political Anatomy of Ireland, 62 ff.) _Sir J. Steuart_,
Principles, III, ch. I, took the matter very easy by considering the
so-called “coin of account,” for instance, “bank-money,” as an
invariable value-magnitude. Compare _Jacob_, Grundsätze der National
Œkonomie, II, 441 ff. _Cazaux_, Economie politique et privée, 1825,
16 ff., has a not uninteresting study on this subject; but he goes,
throughout his argument, on the assumption that the rate of interest
is the price of money! If the rate of interest in two countries = I
and i, the prices of the same commodity = P and p, the true
thing-values, V and v; then we have v: V:: i p: I P!

_ 773 Law_, Trade and Money, 181. Before him, and quite correctly,
_Montanari_, Della Moneta, I, p. 84 ff., compares the means employed
of measuring one commodity by another, to the means used to estimate
time in terms of space, as when it is measured by the revolutions of
the hands of a clock, and again, space in terms of time.

774 The solvability or capacity to pay of buyers cannot be taken into
consideration here, because it is synonymous with the amount of
counter-values which are to be measured.

_ 775 Adam Smith_, Wealth of Nations, I, ch. 5. Similarly _Luther_, vom
Kaufhandel: Werke, ed. _Walch_, X, 1098 f. _B. Franklin_ considered
the labor employed in the production of wheat as the best measure of
prices. (Letter to Ld. Kames: Works, ed. _Sparks_, VII.) As Adam
Smith, so also _Sismondi_, Richesse commerciale, I, 371 f.; _Kraus_,
Staatswirthschaft, I, 84,; v. _Schlözer_, Anfangsgründe, I, 41. Also
_Malthus_, in the second and succeeding editions of his Principles,
ch. I, 6, and Definitions, ch. 8, 9. The Measure of Value, 1823.
_Zachariä_, Vierzig Bücher, VII, 53 f., maintains that, at least
within the limits of every separate nation, the average labor-power
of one man is invariable. Assuming this principle, therefore, to be
true, the means of subsistence necessary to support a laborer for
one work-day constitutes, indirectly, a measure of prices. _Tooke_,
History of Prices, I, 56, says that the amount of a day’s wages is
always a better measure of the price of the precious metals than the
price of wheat. Even in 1750, _Galiani_, Della Moneta, II, 2, had
denied the impossibility of an entirely invariable measure of price
in this world of change, but he considered man himself the least
variable of measures, and in a country where slavery prevailed,
slaves. He thought that the _macuta_ of the negroes were a part of
the average price of slaves. Practically, Adam Smith’s proposed
measure was used in the French constitution of 1791, in as much as
it provided that participation in primary assemblies should depend
on the participant’s paying an annual tax equal to the wages of
three days’ work, and eligibility as an _èlecteur_, on the
possession of an income equal in value to the wages paid for two
hundred days’ day-labor. _Owen_ endeavored to base the value of the
paper money in circulation in his Utopian commonwealth, not on any
metal of a certain weight or stamp, but on hours of labor as the
unit. (_Reybaud_, Réformateurs Contemporains, I, 255.)

776 The wretched condition, until within a short time since, of the
Irish working class, is well known; how they dwelt in mud cabins
without windows, board-floors or chimneys etc., in the same
apartment with their pigs; how they lived almost exclusively on
potatoes, and went about in rags. These same Irish, _coelum, non
animum mutantes_, received in North America for the coarsest kind of
labor, 50 to 75 cents wages, besides wheat bread and meat three
times a day, coffee and sugar twice a day, butter once, and seven or
eight glasses of whisky or brandy. (_M. Chevalier_, Lettres sur
l’Amérique du Nord, I, 159.)

777 Thus in Mauritius, the immigration of the coolies has produced a
decrease of negro wages, but an increase of negro industry. In the
Barbadoes, the negroes are more industrious and their wages lower
than in Jamaica. The wages of good workmen, as for instance during
the commercial crisis in Manchester, often sink, while the wages of
bad workmen rise; as, for example, in a village through which a
railroad is made to pass. Compare _Lauderdale_ Inquiry, ch. 1;
_Sartorius_, Abhandlungen, 1806, I, 16 ff.; _Lotz_, Revision, I, 99
ff.; _M. Chevalier_, Cours, III, 88 f.

778 Besides the passages cited in § 107, compare also _Harris_, On Money
and Coins, II, 1757 f.; _Jacob_ also preceded _Ricardo_. See the
German translation of _Say_, II, 435, 507.

779 The introduction of the words “the socially necessary time of labor”
into the formulæ does not make the measure any more practical for
political economists or for socialists.

_ 780 Cantillon_, who reduces all the cost of production to land and
labor, considers the “at par” between these two to be this: that the
labor of the meanest slave corresponds to the quantity of land which
the owner is obliged to employ for his support, and the support of
the slave and of the children who are to take his place. (Nature du
Commerce, 42.) The Physiocrates thought that the internal (_innere_)
value of two commodities stood in the same relation to each other as
the area of land directly or indirectly necessary to their
production. _Schlettwein_, Grundfeste der Staaten, 1792, 230.

781 The so-called _Sachwerth_ (thing-value, real-value) of _Hermann_,
St. Untersuchungen, 101 ff. Thus _Poulett Scrope_ recommended a
“tabular standard,” to be officially established and renewed from
time to time, to serve as an anchor to those persons who wished
permanently to fix their money in such a manner as to make it
exchangeable for an equal value in _things_. (Principles of
Political Economy, 1833, 406.) Something of this kind was tried for
50 commodities, between 1833 and 1837, by _Porter_, Progress of the
Nation, 1st ed., II, 236 ff., then for 40 commodities by _Jevons_ in
the Statistical Journal, 1865. Of course, all commodities of a given
price are not equally important in this respect. Thus, for instance,
a fluctuation in the price of diamonds would have no effect on the
thing-value or real-value of a day’s wages, but it certainly would
on the thing-value of a princely income. There are some excellent
remarks on this very important subject in _Lowe’s_ work, On the
Actual Condition of England, chs. 8 and 9. The controversy carried
on between _Jevons_, A serious Fall in the Value of Gold, and its
social Effects, 1863; Statist. Journal, 1865; and _Laspeyres_,
_Hildebrand’s_ Jahrb., 1864, 81 ff.; 1871, I, 296 ff; in which the
former recommends the geometric mean of the relative prices of
separate commodities at different points of time, in order to
calculate the average relative price: and the latter, as usual, the
arithmetical mean, is very thoroughly reviewed and criticised by
_Drobisch_, who shows that neither of these methods is sufficient,
but that the quantity of every separate commodity must also be taken
into account, for which he furnishes practical formulæ. (Math. phys.
Berichte der _K._ Sächs. Gesellsch., 1871, I, 143 ff, 416 ff.) It is
certain that a fixed income in money could maintain its real value
or thing-value (_Sachwerth_) just as little if the cwt. of bread
rose by as many dollars as the cwt. of pepper had fallen; as if the
increasing price of bread depended on a decreasing price of pepper.

_ 782 Senior_, Outlines, 187. In addition to this, we may draw from the
thing-value of a day’s wages a right conclusion as to the economic
condition of the majority of the people; and assuming the customary
division of the national wealth, also as to the degree, to which the
people have subjected the forces of nature to their service.

_ 783 Ricardo_, ch. 22, refuted, indeed, only the view that an increase
in the wages of labor produced by the higher prices of corn, would
necessarily make all goods or products of labor, correspondingly
dearer.

784 Compare § 103. In Paris, in 1817, the _setier_ of wheat cost March
5, 55½ francs; April 2, 57 fr.; April 23, 60 fr.; May 14, 63 fr.;
May 21, 66 fr.; May 28, 75 fr.; June 4, 82 fr.; June 11, 92 fr.
(_Tooke_, History of Prices, II, 17.)

_ 785 Locke_, 98. When _Condillac_ asserts that wheat is the best measure
of prices, he adds, when free trade in wheat obtains. (Commerce et
Gouvernement, 1, 23.) _Fichte_, on the other hand, while advocating
the despotic guidance of all trade by the state, would employ wheat
as the fundamental measure of prices. (Geschl. Handelstaat, 47 ff.)
That grain does not afford a good measure of prices in very highly
cultivated nations nor in barbaric ones, see _Hermann_, II, Aufl.,
451.

786 The average price must be based on the prices of a great many years,
since crops vary not only from year to year in price, but from
decade to decade. See _Roscher_, Nationalökonomik des Ackerbaues, §
152, and _Roscher_, Kornhandel und Theuerungspolitik, 47 ff. Great
wars are wont to disturb agriculture in such a manner that the price
of corn is very much increased by them. Hence, it is not
unfrequently possible to use the prices of grain as a species of
barometer to determine the real pressure of a war upon the economic
life of a people. Judging by this standard, England suffered much
less from the War of the Roses in the fifteenth century, than from
the civil wars in the seventeenth; and less than France from the
religious wars of the sixteenth. The war year 1631-2, in which
Gustavus Adolphus and the emperors had to spare the country, must
have been far less oppressive for Saxony than the later Swedish
campaigns. _Roscher_, in the Tübinger Zeitschrift, 1857, 471.

787 Most countries go through these successive periods in their corn
trade: in the first, exportation preponderates; in the second, there
is an equilibrium; in the third, importation preponderates. (_M.
Chevalier_, III, 74 ff.) Compare _Tacit._, Ann., XII, 43. Omitting
the two dearest and the two cheapest years, the Prussian provinces
were circumstanced as follows:

In The Whole Kingdom, the price of Rye, 1816 to 1837, was 40.
silver groschens. The population per square mile, 2,776
In Prussia, 32.2 silver groschens, and 1,827
In Posen, 34.3 silver groschens, and 2,180
In Brandeburg, Pomerania, 38.4 silver groschens, and 2,093
In Saxony, 40.3 silver groschens, and 2,366
In Silesia, 38.0 silver groschens, and 3,612
In Westphalia, 47.7 silver groschens, and 3,600
In Rhine Province, 49.4 silver groschens, and 5,078

_Rau_, Lehrbuch, I, § 183. As to when it may be assumed that the
price of corn has remained unchanged, see _Hermann_, loc. cit., 125
ff.

_ 788 Petty_ recommended the average daily food necessarily required by
one man as the measure of price, estimated on the basis of the
cheapest means of subsistence. (Polit. Anatomy of Ireland, 62 ff.)
_Thaer_ used as such a measure the smallest day’s wages; as he
supposed, expressed in rye, that is, 1/9 of the Prussian _scheffel_.
Similarly, _Malthus_, in his first edition, and _Buquoy_, Theorie
der Nationalwirthschaft, 240. But this is simply to substitute for
wheat an arbitrarily determined quantity and quality of the same as
a measure of prices. For practical experiments of this kind, made by
the depreciation of paper money during the French Revolution, see
_M. Chevalier_, Cours, III, 98; and Constitution de 1795, V, 68, VI,
173. _Count Soden_, Nat. Œk., II, 338 f., demands that all taxes,
salaries of state officials etc., should be regulated in accordance
with the price of corn. This same view has been suggested recently
in many German States.

789 Recognized generally by _Locke_, Considerations 24. Further,
_Galliani_, Della Moneta, II, 2; _Adam Smith_, I, ch. 5. _Schäffle_,
N. Œk., II, Aufl., 127, maintains that a constant measure of price,
such as would enable a person to stipulate for a salary for instance
that would be always of the same value, is impossible. Similarly,
_Hildebrand’s_ Jahrb., 1871, 315 ff.

790 Compare _J. Tucker_, Four Tracts on political and commercial
Subjects, 28 ff., who maintains that it is a rule, almost without
exception, that “operose or complicated manufactures” are cheapest
in rich countries; “raw materials,” in poor ones. Thus, for
instance, corn (?), garden products in the former; cattle, wool,
milk, skins, flesh-meat, in the latter. Ships and movable property
are cheaper in the former, whereas wood may be said to be almost the
free product of nature here. See especially _Adam Smith_, Wealth of
Nations, ch. 11, Digr.

_ 791 Senior_, Outlines 119 f., makes the following calculation: Of the
15d. which a loaf of bread costs in England, 10d. goes to buy the
wheat, the other 5d. to the miller, baker etc. If now, we suppose,
that in consequence of an increased demand, and therefore of
increased production under more unfavorable circumstances, the price
of wheat should rise to 20d., the cost of production would possibly,
because of an improved division of labor, come down to 3-¾d., and
hence the price of the loaf of bread would be increased to 23-¾d. It
is quite the reverse in the case of lace, because here a piece of
raw material worth only 2 shillings may, by reason of the labor
expended on it, become worth as much as £105. If the consumption of
lace should increase so that the value of the raw material rose to 4
shillings, the simultaneous decrease of the cost of manufacture to
the extent of one-quarter of the aggregate price, would leave the
price of the manufactured article £78, 19s.

792 When, for instance, the inhabitants of the Baltic coasts, by way of
preference, kept up their relations with the Hanseatic cities, the
Dutch and English, that is with the most important industrial and
commercial nations in their own sphere, they in all this pursued
only their own interest. As to how this intercourse between “old”
and “new” countries is susceptible of the very highest development,
see _Torrens_, The Budget: On Commercial and Colonial Policy, 1844,
and earlier, _Wakefield_, England and America, II, 1823.

793 The clearing up of primeval forests, the cultivation of natural
meadows, etc.

794 In Hungary, during the sixteenth century, the choicest venison was
consumed by plebeians and nobles alike. _Herberstein_, Rer. Moscov.
Comm., 97. In Russia, even the lowest classes not unfrequently
partake of roast hare and duck etc. _Kohl_, Reise in Russland, II,
386. Still, in St. Petersburg, wild-fowl game rose between the time
of Peter the Great and Alexander I. 600 per cent. in price.
(_Storch_, Handbuch, I, 368.) In Pittsburg, in 1807, mutton, beef
and veal cost from 4 to 6 cents a pound, and game only from 3 to 4-½
cents a pound. (_Melish_, Travels through the United States, II,
57.) The more the game laws are enforced, the longer does the low
price of game continue, especially when it is not easy for the poor
to procure them. The moderns have seldom thought of raising game
artificially; among the Romans, artificial raising was confined to
the hare and fieldfare. (_Varro_, R.R., III, 12 ff.; _Columella_,
R.R., VIII, 10.) Hence, the enormous prices paid for game, of which
_Pliny_, H. N. X., 43, relates an example from the time of the
emperors. On the other hand, Polybius assures us that, in his time,
game was to be had as good as gratis in Lusitania. XXXIV, 8, 7.

795 In Buenos Ayres, in the nineteenth century, beggars on horseback
were to be seen. (_Robertson_, Letters on South America, II, 294.)
In Krasnojarsk, in 1770, 1-½ rubles was the price of an ox, 1 ruble
of a cow, from 2 to 3 of a horse, from O.3 to O.5 of a sheep; O.15
of a deer. (_Pallas_, Sibirische Reise, III, 5, II 12.) According to
the Tables of Prices in _Sir F. M. Eden_, State of the Poor, Append.
I, and _Rogers_, History of Agriculture and Prices (1866), I, 245,
361, the following prices obtained in England;

(On an average.)

in 1125-26, one ox, 1 shilling; one quarter of wheat, 20 shillings;
in 1260-1400, one ox, 13 shillings 1-¼d; one quarter of wheat, 5
shillings 10-¾d;
in 1406, one ox, 9-½ shillings; one quarter of wheat, 4-½
shillings;
in 1463, one ox, 10-20 shillings; one quarter of wheat, 1-⅔-4-⅔
shillings.

Compare _Hume_, History of England, a. 1327. Under Henry VIII. veal,
beef, mutton and pork were food for the poor in England, and cost on
an average 1-½d per pound; while wheat cost from 7 to 8 shillings a
quarter. (24 Henry VII, c. 3. _Price_, Observations, II, 148 f.) The
same appears from the “reasonable prices” which Charles I, in 1663,
had established by sworn juries viz.: that the different kinds of
meat were much cheaper comparatively than corn in our days.
_(Rymer_, Foedera, XIX, 511. _Anderson_, Origin of Commerce, a.
1633.) In many places in the highlands of Scotland, in the middle of
the seventeenth century, one pound of oat-bread cost as much or more
than one pound of the best meat. The union of Scotland with more
highly civilized England soon changed the relation, so that in _Adam
Smith’s_ time, good meat, in nearly all parts of Great Britain was
worth from 2 to 4 times as much as the same weight of wheat bread.
(Wealth of Nations, I, ch. 11, 1.) The Thomas Hospital in London
paid, on an average, for good beef per stone weight:

1701-1710: 1s. 7.9d.
1764-1773: 1s. 3.7d.
1794-1803: 1s. 5.d.
1804-1821: 1s. 10.9d.
1822-1842: 1s. 1.5d.

(_Porter_, Progress of the Nation, III, 112.) Among the most certain
proofs of the high degree of economic civilization attained in upper
Italy about the close of the medieval times is the fact, that the
price of cattle, compared with that of wheat in the thirteenth and
fourteenth centuries, varies very little from what it is to-day.
(_Cibrario_, Economia politica del medio Evo, III, 335-383.) Compare
_Rau_, Lehrbuch I, § 185. In Athens, the cost of a _medimnos_ of
wheat was as great as that of a sheep in Solon’s time. In the age of
Demosthenes, it cost only half as much. (_Böckh_, Staatshaushalt der
Athener, I, 107, 132.) It is obvious, however, that the price of
meat compared with that of corn, was lowered by the great extension
of the artificial cultivation of meadows; for, when the former has
reached its maximum, it becomes a great spur to the promotion of the
latter. Thus, in England, the price of meat, at the beginning of the
sixteenth century, was on an average, higher than in _Adam Smith’s_
time. (loc. cit.) To the same cause is to be ascribed the state of
things in Prussia mentioned by _v. Podewils_, Wirth
schaftserfahrungen, II, 15.

As a common basis for such calculations, the following may be
accepted. It is plain that meadows, pasturages and forage-fields
must yield as much in meat, as corn-fields of the same dimensions of
equal goodness, and situated as favorably, in corn. According to
_Block_, a Prussian acre (_Morgen_) of the best quality, used as a
meadow, produces a hay-value equal to 1,000 pounds, a clover-value
equal to 2,420; as a vegetable field, a beet or potato-value equal
to 6,050-6,930 pounds, _v. Lengerke’s_ estimate is that 110 pounds
of cattle-fodder expressed in terms of hay, produces on an average
40 pounds of milk, and from 3-½ to 4 pounds of meat. This would, at
most, give 36, 88 and 220-252 pounds of meat. The yield of wheat,
_v. Lengerke_ estimates, on the best soil, and on an average, at 14
Prussian _scheffels_ (at 80 pounds, i.e. 1,120 pounds) yearly per
acre (_Morgen_). The three periods in the history of the prices of
cattle were clearly recognized by _Thaer_, Landw. Gewerblehre, 1815,
100.

796 It is a very characteristic fact, in relation to the river
fisheries, that the fable that servants formerly stipulated not to
eat salmon except twice a week is to be found in so many places.
Thus on the Elbe and the Rhine. Compare _Thaarup_, Dänische
Statistik, I, 112. In Scotland, about the end of the seventeenth
century, the story in places ran, that it was five times a week.
(_Walter Scott_, Old Mortality, ch. 8.) In England, fish seems to
have been a tid-bit among the poorer classes in the fourteenth
century. (_Rogers_, I, 606.) It was dearer especially during Lent.
(Statist. Journ., 1861, 544 ff.) The artificial production of
sea-fish seems to have been tried only by the ancient Romans. On the
whole, _Adam Smith’s_ law that a ten-fold demand can, as a rule, be
met only by a greater than ten-fold labor, applies here. (I, 370,
ed. Basil.) But this relation is obscured to a certain extent, from
the fact that the source of the production of sea-fish, the ocean,
which may be claimed at any time by occupation, is, practically,
boundless. Here, therefore, the improvements made in nautical
science, and the progress of geographical knowledge, may yet for a
long time compensate for the exhaustion of the nearer seas, and even
more than counterbalance it.

797 Among a great many nations in a low stage of civilization,
agriculture consists in the burning down of the forest. In 1594, the
Lauenförder forest produced 1,110 thalers’ worth of food for hogs,
and wood to the amount of 44 thalers. (_v. Berg_,
Staatsforstwirthsch., 213.) The Harzgerode woods, at the ducal line
of Anhalt-Bernburg, were estimated at 6,000 thalers. A hundred years
later, they brought in yearly 70,000 thalers, although, in the
meantime, very little progress was made in the science of
cultivating them, (_v. Justi_, Staatswirthschaft, II, 211.) We may
form a notion of the relativity of the idea of the dearness of wood
from the fact that in Bavaria, for instance, in 1840, there was a
great deal of complaint, that in the district of Isark the price
rose from 6 to 9 florins; in the districts of Regen and the lower
Maine, from 11 to 14 florins to from 15 to 18; in the Rhine
district, from 20 to 26 florins per cord (_Klafter_). (_Rau_,
Lehrbuch, III, § 150, a.) Besides, the price of wood in the forest
rises, with an advance in civilization, much more rapidly than it
does in the market; in which last, labor and capital play a greater
part. (_Rau_, I, § 385.)

798 Plan for the artificial production of pearl oysters. (Novara-Reise,
I, 303.) Ostriches seem now to be ceasing to be objects of mere
occupation, and to be becoming objects of breeding. (Ausland, 1869,
§ 13.)

799 Thus Wolff’s experiments made at Möckern have shown that in the case
of sheep fed with hay, the wool becomes much heavier and the flesh
leaner than those of sheep fed with a more concentrated food. While
it is estimated in England, at the present time, that the wool of
South-Down sheep is worth scarcely one-tenth what their flesh is
(_Jacob_, On Corn Trade, 166), mutton, from the year 1260 to 1400,
was, on an average, worth 17 pence; and this even at a time when
prices were gradually rising; but the wool of one animal (1 lb., 7-¾
ounces), 5-¼ pence. (_Rogers_, I, 362, 395.) Even under Anglo-Saxon
kings the fleece was worth 40 per cent. of the value of the whole
sheep, (_David Hume_.) And so _W. Macann_, Two Thousand Miles Ride
through the Argentine Provinces, 1853, I, 151, says that in the
interior of Buenos Ayres, he purchased 8,000 sheep at 18 pence a
dozen, and after a march of 200 English miles, sold the skins for
sixty pence a dozen. In Goya, formerly, a live horse cost 3 pence,
its skin on the coast 12 pence; and the slaughtering of the beast
cost 3 pence, the removal and cleaning of the skin 3 pence; and 3
pence were paid for transportation. (_Robertson_.)

In Ireland, in 1763, it not unfrequently happened that the skin and
tallow of an ox cost as much in a commercial city as the whole ox
had cost in the nearest market town. (_Temple_, Works III, 13.) In
England, from 1260 to 1400, the average price of a whole cow was 9s.
9d.; of the hide 1s. 8d., and cows were cheapest in the first
decade, i.e., 6s. 2d., and the hides dearer than they were generally
afterwards, i.e., by from 1-9-¼d. (_Rogers_, I, 361, 451.) In
Saxony, according to _Engel_ (1853), the average price of horned
cattle was about 46 thalers; of their hide, 4 thalers and 21 silver
groschens. Russia exported, 1842-1847, 72,636,166 silver rubles
worth of tallow, 1,832,137 silver rubles worth of horse hair,
10,811,735 worth of bristles (_Borsten_), 7,387,140 of uncured
skins, 36,159,452 of sheep’s wool, but flesh-meat only to the amount
of 370,362 rubles, and entire animals to the value of 6,853,241
rubles. (_P. Storch_, Der Bauernstand Russlands, 289 ff.) Tallow is
there ten times dearer than the same volume of wheat. (_Steinhaus_,
Russlands industrielle und commercielle Verhältnisse, 294 ff.);
while in Saxony, according to _Engel_ (1821), a pound of wheat cost
on an average 7.8 _pfennigs_, and a pound of tallow 30 _p._ However,
Russia’s recent progress in civilization has had for effect: that
the exportation of tallow (1833 = 4-½ million _puds_; 1869 = 2-¼
mill.) has greatly fallen off; while that of butter and live stock
has increased. (_v. Lengefeld_, R. im 19. Jahrh., 220 ff.)

In England, during the fourteenth century, a pound of meat cost, on
an average, ¼d.; of lard, from 1-½ to 2. (_Rogers_, I, 411.) On the
other hand, from 1848 to 1856, the average January price of beef
from America was 110 shillings; of tallow from St. Petersburg, 48s.
11d. per cwt. (_Newmarch_.) And so, in the time of _Pallas_, the
Cossacks chased the deer of their steppes only for the sake of its
skin and horns. (_Pallas_, Reise, III, 524.) While the Greeks got
horn from Macedonia and Thrace (_Herodot._, VII, 156), it is a
striking proof of high civilization that at Athens (?), about the
time of the hundredth Olympiad, an ox-hide was worth only 3
drachmas, and the whole ox 77 drachmas. (_Böckh_, Staatshaushalt, I,
105 ff.)

As the ox is primarily serviceable as an object of food and an
instrument of labor, and the sheep on the other hand, only an
instrument to produce wool, it is easy to understand why, with the
further advance of civilization, the price of oxen rises
comparatively much more than the price of sheep. In Athens, during
the time of Solon, an ox was equal in value to five sheep.
(_Plutarch_, Solon, 23.) So also in countries with a low
civilization in the time of Polybius. (_Polyb._, XXXIV, 8; _Gell._,
XI, 1.) Why the same was the case in Rome at the beginning of the
Republic? (_Plut._, Popl., 11). In England the proportion between
the price of an ox and that of a sheep was,

in 927 as 6:1 (_Henry_.)
in 1125 as 3:1
in 1182 as 6.3:1
in 1197 as 9:1
in 1229 as 8:1 (_Eden_.)
in 1260-1492 (av.) as 9.2:1 (_Rog._)
in 1497 as 10:1
in 1500 as 11.6:1
in 1511 as 8:1
in 1528 as 10:1
in 1529 as 12.8:1
in 1531 as 9.4:1
in 1551 as 10.6:1
in 1597 as 8.2:1 (_Eden_.)

At present the proportion may be from 10 to 20:1. In Saxony, it is
as 48 thalers to 5.27. (_Engel_.)

800 About 1793, Russia exported 10,000 rubles worth of fish, 452,000 of
sturgeon bladders, 188,000 of caviar. (_Storch_, Russland, II, 184.)
But this had undergone a great change even in 1850. At present,
there are 64 per cent. of sturgeon bladders, 27 of caviar, and 7 of
whole fish. (_Steinhaus_, Russland’s industrielle und commercielle
Verhältnisse, 102, 368.) Yet the Astrakan fishermen still throw the
greater number of the sturgeon they catch back into the water.
(_Pallas_, Reise im süd. Russland, I, 189; _Steinhaus_, 99.) Salt
fish are adapted for transportation to a distance not only because
they can be preserved, but also because they may be caught and
prepared on the great highway of the water. Athens got from the
Black Sea besides wood, tar, wool, hides, cordage, honey, wax and
slaves, also salt fish. (_Wolf_, z. Demosth. Leptin., 252; _Bockh_,
Staatshaush. I, 51.) The latter from Sardinia, Egypt and Spain.
(_Pollux_, VI, 48.)

801 The principal countries that produce potash are Russia and North
America. It is estimated that a cwt. of potash requires, on an
average, 480 cwt. of wood. (_Pfeil_, Grundsätze der Forstwirthsch.
in Bezug. auf National-Oekon. etc., I, 128.) From 1800 to 1840, wood
for fuel in Würtemberg trebled its price; for building material the
price increased 1.6 times. (Deutsche Vierteljahrsschrift, 1847, No.
4, 104.)

802 Whereas barbarous nations take little trouble to turn the milk from
their cows to account (_Roscher_, Ideen z. Politik und Statistik der
Ackerbausysteme, Archiv. der politische Œkonomie, neue Folge, III,
202), _Reuning_, in 1844, calculated that the milk from all the cows
in Saxony amounts to a value of 10,000,000 thalers, their meat to
over 2,000,000, and the labor performed by them in various ways to
3,000,000. In Silesia, in the last decade of the eighteenth century,
a quart of milk was estimated to be worth 2 _pfennigs_ (Festschrift
der deutschen Landwirthschaftsversammlung, 1869, 343), whereas as
now it is sold almost everywhere for 12 _pfennigs_. (_Schmoller_.)
In the rather high state of civilization which Saxony had reached at
the end of the sixteenth century, when game was already dear, and
the prices of other meat were almost as high as in 1800, a _sheffel_
of rye was worth 44 measures (_Mass._) of milk, and recently 82-⅔
measures. (_Schmoller_, Tübinger Ztschr., 1871. 336 ff.)

803 The principal cheese-producing countries and cities are Holland,
Limburg, Switzerland, Gloucester, Chester, Ayrshire etc. Compare
_Roscher_, loc. cit., 195 ff.

804 In England, in the year 1000, a cow was worth only as much as two
sheep. (_Anderson_, Origin of Commerce, a., 979.) The best butter
was worth only 1d. per pound in 1550, while pork was worth 1-1/8,
veal and mutton, 1-½, and beef, 2-¼d. The price of butter was
exceedingly variable in the sixteenth century. (_Eden_.)

805 During the middle ages, pork constituted the most usual animal food
even of the best classes. (_Büsching_, Ritterzeit und Ritterwesen,
I, 164.) Immense importance attached to pork by the _Lex Salica_.
(Tit., II, XIV; Emendatt. Caroli Magni, II, 1 ff.) The archbishop of
Cologne used every day 24 large and 8 medium-sized hogs, and four
more on the three great festivals. The abbot of Corvey used daily
five fat and one lean hog, besides two young ones. (_Kindlingen_,
Münsterische Beitr., Urkunden, 147, 126.) In 1345, at the court of
Dauphiny, there were used annually for 30 persons, 30 salt and 52
fresh hogs; whereas, in modern Paris, with 800,000 inhabitants, only
32,000 hogs are consumed yearly. (_Roquefort_, De la Vie privée des
Fr., I, 310 f.) Compare herewith the place occupied by the
swine-herds in the Odyssey in Greece’s age of chivalry. In England,
in the time of William I., woods were taxed according to the number
of hogs they might feed. At present, there is an enormous production
of hogs in Servia, which, in many places, constitutes the only
source of ready money to the agricultural population.

And about the end of the eighteenth century, it is said that Servia
received from Austria alone 1,300,000 florins yearly for hogs.
(_Ranke_, Serb. Revolution, 95.) In 1864, Servia’s total exports
amounted to 62,500,000 piasters, of which 28,162,260 were for hogs,
7,043,000 for wool, 7,662,000 for the skins of sheep and deer,
5,732,000 for cattle, 1,222,400 for tallow. (_Kanitz_, Serbien, 598
ff.) Great production of hogs also in the Moldau and in Wallachia,
in the United States and Mexico, where, instead of butter, only lard
and suet are used; also in Lombardy, the Prussian Rhine province,
Belgium, the English milk-producing districts, Gloucester, Wilt,
Dumfries, Galloway and the districts where agricultural proletarians
abound—Ireland and Yorkshire. It is a consequence of the same law
that, among the South Sea Islanders, the hog was the principal
domestic animal, as it still is among the Chinese. Similarly in the
whole of Asia, beyond the Ganges (_Ritter_, Erdkunde, IV, 938,
1101); in semi-barbarous upper Italy in the time of _Polybios_ (II,
15); in Gall itself, in the time of Augustus. (_Strabo_, IV, 192,
197.) The America of the ancient Greeks, Sicily, exported hogs,
mainly, in the time of Hermippos. (_Athen._, I, 27.) And even among
the Romans, the consumption of pork was much greater than the
consumption of beef. (_Marquard-Becker_, Handbuch, V, 2, 39.)

806 In the cities of Prussia subject to a tax for the privilege of
maintaining slaughter houses, a pound of beef cost on an average, in
1846, from 2 silver groschens, 5 _pfennigs_, to 3 s. gr. 4 pf.;
pork, from 3 s. gr. 2 pf. to 4 s. gr. 4 pf. (_Dieterici._) In
Moscow, also, the latter is dearer at present. Before the time of
Peter the Great, it was cheaper. (_Storch_, Handbuch I, 364.) It was
a sign of high civilization, too, that in Florence, in the fifteenth
century, veal cost, on an average, 2-½ soldi; mutton, 2-⅓ soldi; but
pork, 4 soldi. (_Pagnini_, Saggio sopra il giusto Pregio delle Cose,
325 f., Cust.) It is especially the lower middle class who ask for
fat meats. The very fat English sheep are taken not to London, but
into the manufacturing districts. (_Lauderdale_, Inquiry, 322 f.) As
to whether the relatively high price of pork, and the fact that in
the later times of Rome, the wild boar was the most fashionable
dish, compare _Becker_, Gallus, II, 186.

807 The production of fowl is similar in this, that they are frequently
fed from remains of consumption; only their production is not
adapted to uncivilized countries, because it is difficult to protect
them there. In Texas, it is said, it costs more to raise ten
chickens than to bring up ten children. (_Kennedy_, Czarnkowski’s
translation, 1846, 115.) The independent breeding of fowl is
advisable only where there are a great many rich consumers; for the
reason that they are naturally a delicacy. Enormous production of
pigeons in Cambridge, Huntington etc. (_McCulloch_, Statistical
Account, I, 189.) In Paris the consumption of pork and fowl has
gained somewhat since the Revolution. (_M’Chevalier_, Cours. I,
113.)

808 According to _Schuckburg_, Philosophical Transactions of 1798, and
_Kraus_, Vermischte Schriften, I, tab. I, the prices of the
following species of animals rose in England between 1550 and 1795:
horses, 904 per cent.; oxen, 896 per cent.; sheep, 876 per cent.;
cows, 2050 per cent.; hogs, 1964 per cent.; geese, 300 per cent.;
butter rose from 5d. per pound to 11-½d.; beer from 1d. per gallon
to 2-¾d.; agricultural day wages from ½s. to 1s. 5-¼d.; wheat 326
per cent. Compare, however, Edinburg Review, III, 246 ff. In Germany
also, cows and hogs have increased much more in price than horses
and sheep. (Tübinger Ztschr., 1871, 342.) _Dutot_, Réflexions, 946
ff., éd. Daire, says that the value of the precious metals in France
decreased in value between the times of Louis XII. and Louis XV. in
the ratio of 3-79/91:1. On the other hand, the prices of different
commodities rise in very different degrees:

Fat sheep, from 7 sous to 10 livres.
Lean sheep, from 5 sous to 5 livres 10 sous.
Hogs, from 10 sous to 25-35 livres.
Capons, from 1 sou to 12 sous.
Hens, from 1-½ sous to 6 sous.
Pigeons, from 1-½ sous to 3 sous.
Deer, from 1-½ sous to 15 sous.

809 Thus, in Thuringia, the average price in silver of corn from the
sixteenth century until the period 1848-61 increased in the ratio of
from 1 to 3-4; the price of the different kinds of animals, on the
other hand, from 1 to 5-10. (_Knies_, in _Hildebrand’s_ Jahrbb.,
1863, 78.) The price of the different kinds of corn as compared with
one another may, however, be modified by many different
circumstances. Thus the Capitulare Saxoniæ of 797, c., II, estimated
the prices of rye, barley and oats to be to one another as 30:30:15;
while the Magdeburg Chamber of 1804 estimated them to be as 17:14:8.
In the kingdom of Saxony, in 1841-9, the average prices of wheat,
rye, barley and oats stood to one another in the ratio of
144:100:75:47 (_Engel_); while, in the middle ages, wheat, rye and
oats were as 9:6:3 (_Gersdorf_, Cod. Depl. Sax., II, p. XXXIV);
under Prince August, corn, barley and oats were as 24:22:12.
Assuming the price of rye to be equal to 100, the cost was:

At Brussels, in the 16th century, wheat 126.7, barley 80, oats 50
At Brussels, in the 17th century, wheat 138.8, barley 82.9, oats
51.9
At Brussels, in the 18th century, wheat 147, barley 86.7, oats 55.2
At Brussels, 1815-1844, wheat 156
At Brussels, 1841-1850, wheat 153, barley 82.7, oats 51
At Berlin, 1789-1818, wheat 135, barley 74.8, oats 54
At Berlin, 1819-1832, wheat 143.5, barley 74.9, oats 52

(_Rau_, Lehrbuch, I, § 183.) To understand this, it is necessary to
bear in mind the relatively great increase of wheat bread, beer made
of barley, and horses, as objects of luxury. The unusually low price
of oats in North America, as compared with the price of wheat, is
dependent on the facility of exporting the latter. In Florence, in
the fifteenth century, the price of wheat was 22-⅔, of rye, 12, of
barley, 8 _soldi_. (_Pagnini_, Sopra il giusto Pregio delle Cose,
325.)

810 The English so called custom-house prices (_Zollhauspreise_)
correspond to the market prices of 1696. If these are assumed = 100,
the price

Of steel and iron was, in 1826, 83, in 1831, 56
Of coal was, in 1826, 47, in 1831, 45

Between 1835 and 1850, Scotch iron had already become cheaper by
one-half (_Meidinger_, 387), and coal in London by one-third
(_Porter_).

_ 811 Rogers_, History of Agriculture, I, 67.

812 In England, in 1172, an ox cost 2 shillings; in 1175, green cloth
cost per ell, 2-10/12 shillings; red cloth, 5-½ shillings. (_Eden._)
In the western states of North America, the farmer gives two pounds
of coarse wool for one pound of woolen yarn; he sends 4 bushels of
wheat to the miller for the flour of three bushels (Ausland, 1843,
No. 68), while in Ravenna, in the thirteenth century, the miller’s
fee was 1/10 (_von Raumer_, Hohenstaufen II, 437); according to the
fixed prices in _Fantazzi_, (Monumen. Ravennet.); in Germany, during
the last centuries of the middle ages, 1/8 (_J. Grimm_, Weisthümer,
III, 8); at the end of the sixteenth century from 1/8 to 1/5
(_Coler_, Oeconomia, II, 3); in modern Germany, generally 1/16 of
the raw material, and in the steppes of southern Russia, when the
wind is still, in summer, even the half. (Mitth. der freien ökonom.
Gesellsch. zu Petersburg, 1853, 85.) In Guiana, in 1806, a very
ordinary saddle and bridle could not be had under 10-½ guineas.
(_Pinckard_, Notes on the West Indies, III, 1806.) _Count Görtz_ was
obliged to pay 2 dollars, in Demarara, for the cleansing of a rifle,
and another person for the oiling of a carriage, 5 dollars. (Reise
um die Welt, 1864, 327.) A lady’s dress in Mobile costs four times
as much as in London or Paris. (_Ch. Lyell_, Second Visit to the
United States, II, 70.) In Athens, articles of clothing, even for
the poorer classes, were never as cheap as they are in civilized
countries to-day. (Compare _Plutarch_, De Tranquill. Anim., 10.)

813 In Upper Italy, between 1261 and 1400, a lady’s chemise and the
making of it cost 14.77 lire; Rheims linen, 7.04; ordinary mourning
cloth, O.45; black cloth from Moriana, 2.83; cloth from Mecheln,
43.83; from Ypres, 47.04; scarlet cloth, 80.44 per ell. (_Cibrario_,
1. 1.) On the other hand, to-day, in the Leipzig market, the
difference in price of the dearest and of the cheapest cloth will
scarcely surpass the ratio 18:1. Even _Scaruffi_, Sulle Moneta,
1679, 163, Cust, remarks that hemp-linen and similar coarse articles
had increased much more in price than brocades; but he ascribes this
circumstance to the disordered state of the coinage. It is much
better accounted for by _Adam Smith_, Wealth of Nations, I, 386, ed.
Basil.

814 Before the plague in the fourteenth century, the cwt. of lead was
worth 10-½d.; of iron, 4s. 1d. (_Rogers_, I. 599.) On the other
hand, between 1848 and 1856, the average January price of bar-iron
was £7, 11s.; of lead, over £20. (_Newmarch._)

815 Thus, in England, the price:

Of glass was, in 1826, 387; in 1831, 369 per cent.
Of leather was, in 1826, 285; in 1831, 123 per cent.
Of silk goods was, in 1826, 158; in 1831, 249 per cent.

of the price of the same articles in 1796. (_Rau._) Of 29 chemical
products of the Parisian manufacture, the wages of labor is on an
average only 7.4 per cent. of the selling price; and, in some cases,
only from 1 to 2 per cent. (_Chabrol_, Richerches Statistiques sur
la Ville de Paris, 1821; _Hermann_, Staatsw. Untersuch., 137.) In
Buschtiehrad, between 1670 and 1870, barley rose from 1 to 4.8; hops
to 6.52; fire wood to 6.14; the excise to 6.54; but beer only to
2.81; although wages increased ten fold. (_Inama Sternegg_, Gesch.
der Preise im österreich. Ausstellungsbericht von 1873, 43.)

816 A silk cloak lined with fur cost in the time of Charlemagne, 400
scheffels of rye, one not so lined 200. (_Hullmann_,
Finanzgeschichte, 212 ff.) In Florence in the fifteenth century, one
pound of sugar was equal in value to 15 pounds of mutton.
(_Pagnini_, 326.) In Turin, in the fourteenth century, 1 pound of
pepper was equal in value to 28 pounds of salt. (_Cibrario_, III,
359, 362.) As late as the middle of the fifteenth century, the court
of Duke William of Saxony paid for one pound of sugar 1 thaler and 8
groschens, while ducal fees paid to servants and workmen seldom
exceeded 2 gr. Hence, even at a princely meal, often scarcely ½ a
pound was consumed. (_Büsching_, Ritterzeit, I, 137 f.)

817 Charlemagne’s capitularies suppose a merchant’s profits to be from
100 to 200 per cent. (a. 809, c. 34.) And even in our own day,
merchants in the markets of Cabul are frequently not satisfied with
a profit of from 300 to 400 per cent. (_K. Ritter_, Erdkunde, VII,
244), and the caravans which leave Maroc for the Soudan are wont, in
exchange for commodities amounting in price to 1,000,000 piasters,
to return with a supply of other commodities worth 10,000,000.
(_Stein-Wappäus_, Handbuch, Africa, 33.) According to _Büsch_,
Geldumlauf, II, 10, the price of East Indian products in Hamburg was
some 70 per cent. higher than at home, while _Pliny_, H. N. IV, 26,
speaks of a price one hundred times (?) as high; and its spices, at
the time of Portuguese dominion, were sold at a profit of at least
600 per cent., in Europe. (_Crawfurd_, History, VII, 360; _Ritter_,
Erdkunde, V, 872.)

818 When Humboldt found a missionary near Cumana who paid 7 piasters for
a cow, and was obliged to pay 17 piasters for blood-letting, rather
unskilfully performed, he found an illustration of one of the
peculiarities of colonial life—to have all the wants of higher
stages of civilization but not the means of satisfying them.
(Relation historique, I, 374.)

819 Enormous payments made to distinguished virtuosi, actors, sophists
and hetares at the time in question, also to Appelles, Aristides
etc., for works of art. (_Plin._, XXXIV, 19, 2, XXXV, 36, 19.) The
actor Aesopus (see § 233, note 6) had a fortune worth 20,000,000
sesterces, while Pompey, for instance, had 70,000,000. Roscius
received from the state for every day he played, 286 thalers, and
earned 43,000 a year. (_Mommsen_, Römische Geschichte, III, 483,
547.) Compare _Cicero_, pro Roscio Comœdo, 10, and _Plin._, H. N.
IX, 59, X, 72. The zither-player, Amoebaeos, received one talent for
each appearance. (_Athen._ XIV, 623.) According to _Pliny_, H. N.
XXIX, 5, the Roman _principes_ gave the most distinguished doctors
yearly 250,000 sesterces, and even more as an honorarium. At the end
of the eighteenth century, the greatest Parisian actors received
from 4,000 to 5,000 francs per annum. Now 100,000 is considered a
moderate income for one. (Journ. des Economistes, May, 1854, 279.)
It is said that Frederick Hase earned $30,000 in America in ten
weeks. (Leipz. Tagebb., 15 Jan., 1871.) _Steuart_, Principles, II,
ch. 30. _Adam Smith_ frequently represents it as a rule, that
superfluous goods like gold and silver, are dearest among the
richest nations, necessary goods among the poorer, and _vice versa_.
But the supply has much more to do with the permanent price of a
commodity than the demand for it has. And the principle above
mentioned applies only in so far as the supply is here an unlimited
and there a limited one. Hence, the comparison of silver with
painters’ and sculptors’ works is not an apposite one—in the case of
these there is a natural monopoly, while the former, on account of
its durability and capacity for transportation, may, on the
contrary, be increased almost at pleasure.

820 Besides _Böckh._, Staatshaushalt der Athener, 1817, Book I, compare
_Arbuthnot_, Tables of ancient Coins, Weights and Measures, 2d ed.,
1754, _Reitmeyer_, Ueber den Bergbau der Alten, 1785, and Michaelis,
De Pretiis Rerum apud veteros Hebræos, in the Comment. Societ.
Gottingensis, vol. III. The principal sources of information among
the ancients are _Diodor._, V; _Strabo_, III, V; _Plin._, H. N.,
XXXIII.

821 The money revenue of the Persian king, to the amount of 14,560
talents yearly, was transformed into bars and thus deposited in the
treasury. _Herodot._, III, 95 f. Even the little vassal prince
Pythios of Celænæ had a treasure of 2,000 talents of silver and
4,000,000 pieces of gold. (Ibid, VII, 26 f.) On the money stores of
private persons, see _Plin._, H. N., XXXIII, 47.

822 An ox was worth, in Solon’s time, 5 drachmas; in 410 B.C., 51 dr.;
374 B.C., 77¼ dr.; a medimnos of wheat in Solon’s time, 1 dr., about
390, 3 dr., under Alexander the Great, on an average, 5 dr.
(_Böckh._, I, 102, f.) The usual amount of ransom paid for a
prisoner of war, in Kleomenes’ time, was 2 minæ (_Herodot._, V, 77,
VI, 79); under Dionys., I, 300 m. (_Aristot._, Oeconom, II, 21);
under Philip of Macedon, from 300 to 400 m. (_Demosth._, De fals.
Legat., 394); under Demetrios Poliorketes, 1,000 for a free man, 5
for a slave. (_Diod._, XX, 84.)

823 This booty for Susa alone amounted to from 40,000 to 50,000 talents;
for Persepolis, to 120,000; for Pasargadæ, to 600. _Curtius_, V, 2,
6; _Strabo_, XV, 731; _Justin_, XI, 14; _Arrian_, III, 16; _Diod._,
XVII, 66, 71; _Plutarch_, Alex., 36.

_ 824 Oros._, VI, 19; _Dio, C._, LI, 21; _Suet._, Aug., 41. Decline of
the value of money under Constantine the Great, when the precious
objects of the heathen temples were coined. (Monitio ad Theod., Aug.
de inbidenda Largitate, _Thes._, Antt. Renn., XI, 1415; _Taylor_, ad
Warm. Sandvic, 38.)

825 Compare I Kings, 10, 14, 27 ff.; I Chron., 22, 2 ff.; II Chron., 9,
15 f., 12, 10 ff. On Ophir: _K. Ritter_, Erdkunde, XIV, 407 f.; on
the wonders of the discovery of Spain: _Herodot._, IV, 152.
_Aristot._, De Mirab., 146; Diodor, V, 35 ff. On the other hand, of
Greece, _Athen._ VI, 19 ff.

826 Compare _Plin._, H. N., XIV, 1. Yet the value of money in the time
of the Cæsars seems to have stood much higher than it is now, as is
proved, for instance, by the endowments by Trajan (16 sesterces per
month for boys, and 12 sesterces per month for girls), as the
_alimenta_ furnished them according to Digest XXXIV, 1, embraced
their entire support. Compare the excellent essay on this subject by
_Rodbertus_, in _Hildebrand’s_ Jahrbb., 1870, I.

827 The conquest of the Avares seems to have temporarily produced a
considerable cheapness of the precious metals. (_Guérard_,
Polyptiques, I, 141.) Increase of the value of money in Scandinavia,
during the later part of the middle ages. (_Wilda_, Gesch. des
deutschen Strafrechts, I, 323 ff.)

828 In England, from 1279 to 1509, there were coined on an average only
6,868½ pounds sterling; from 1603 to 1830, on the other hand,
819,415 pounds sterling. The average in the time of George IV., per
annum, was 4,262,652 (_Jacob_, ch. IV.) An evidence of the
uncertainty of the history of prices in the middle ages is, that
_Jacob_, ch. 12, infers, from the price of corn, that the price of
silver remained rather stationary from 1120 to 1550, while _Adam
Smith_, I, ch. 11, 3, infers from the same fact, a remarkable rise
in the price of silver from 1350 to 1570. Concerning the latter, see
_Leber_, Fortune privée au moyen Age, 16 f. _Tooke-Newmarch_,
History of Prices, VI, 391; whereas _Rogers_, Statist. Journ., 1861,
544 ff., finds that in England, between 1300 and 1532, there was no
change whatever in the price of silver. According to _Soetbeer_,
Forschungen zur deutschen Geschichte, VI, 94, wheat and rye were, as
compared with silver, worth during the Carolingian period, about
one-fourth of its value, between 1750 and 1850. _Hegel_, Shassburger
Chroniken, II, 1012, ascribes to gold over 2½ times as great a
purchasing power in the 13th and 14th centuries as in the 19th
century; and to silver, a purchasing power about three times as
great.