be much the same thing as to overlook the distinction between the thermometer and the fire.'

This explanation explains nothing. If labour, as a measure of value, only ascertains what value is, and whether and how much it varies, not what it ought to be and must be, then it does not answer the purpose better than any commodity which might be selected, and scarcely so well as gold. And the comparison to the thermometer and the fire, though apparently apt, is in truth inappropriate and misleading; because the thermometer will always, at all times and in all places, show the same heat of the fire if the heat is the same. The relation of the thermometer to the fire is constant; the action of a certain degree of heat will always mark a certain temperature on the scale of the thermometer; the mercury will fall with the heat. It is such a measure of value which the economists have sought for and not found; because a certain amount of labour will not at all times and places be an expression of a certain amount of value in any single article. The two things-labour and value-will vary towards each other as well as in relation to other things. The value x will not represent the same amount of labour in Australia, in England, and in India; it will not indicate the same amount of heat converted into muscular motion, as 0° on a centigrade thermometer will indicate in each of these places the exact temperature of the point of congelation in water. The difficulty in the case of values can perhaps best be illustrated by the measurement of

dimensions, which must be artificial. We can measure values against an adopted standard like gold, as we can measure height or length or bulk by an adopted standard like the metre; but there is no more an inherent quality called value than there is an inherent size in any object.

It would have been advantageous to the development of economical science if this had been clearly recognised by the writers who for many years have chiefly influenced the public mind upon these subjects. The singular attempt to distinguish between price and value has, perhaps, helped to keep alive a fanciful belief in a natural value as pertaining to commodities.

But the subject affords a curious instance that even in the nineteenth century men of remarkable intellectual power and great attainments have occupied their time and their minds in speculations as unreal and practically worthless as the inquiries concerning the colour of the Virgin Mary's hair or the personal habits of angels, which engaged the attention of Duns Scotus and Thomas Aquinas.

ON INTERNATIONAL TRADE.

If we pursue our investigations further into other branches of economical science, such as international trade, we shall find that the error which we are considering-disregard of the fact that money is a substantive article of exchangehas led to very singular misapprehension of other facts.

A remarkable instance may be found at the beginning of the seventh chapter of Mr. Fawcett's Manual. After referring to the advantages which a country derives from obtaining through foreign commerce various commodities which she cannot produce herself, or cannot produce so cheaply, on account of difference of climate and other circumstances which advantages no one will deny-he proceeds to illustrate other benefits by examples which will not support his conclusions. He first supposes the case that in France a ton of iron can only be produced at the same expense of labour and capital as that required for twenty sacks of wheat; but that in England a ton of iron may be produced with the same amount as is necessary for production of only ten sacks of wheat. He argues that in this case it is greatly for the advantage of both

countries for England to exchange iron with France for wheat; and, because, if the French manufacture iron for themselves, it would cost them as much as twenty sacks of wheat at home, and if the English sold their own iron in their own country they would have to take only ten sacks of wheat, he represents that by France giving fifteen sacks of wheat to England for one ton of iron-instead of France producing iron and England wheat-they each obtain a profit upon the transaction equal to five sacks of wheat.

This argument and conclusion appear to be very fallacious. It is not shown that there is any greater production caused by the interchange. The articles to be exchanged are not augmented in quantity; there is no increase of value. The question is, who is to derive the profit, and in what the profit is to consist? If the manufacturer of iron in France gets twenty sacks of wheat for his ton of iron, wheat remaining at the same value, it is clearly better for him to sell in France than in England. If the wheatgrower in England gets a ton of iron for ten sacks of wheat, undoubtedly this exchange is better for him than the exchange of ten sacks of wheat in France for only half a ton. And in each case, if this advantage is lost, it is lost to the nation to which respectively the ironmanufacturer and the wheat-grower belong. It is simply impossible that both parties to a transaction of this kind can be gainers in value unless that value is estimated and embodied in some third article itself possessing intrinsic

value. If iron is exchanged directly for wheat in England, and the same is done in France, each nation keeps what it has. If in exchanging these articles internationally either party gains, it must be in quantity. The whole exchangeable property divisible is wheat + iron; and, unless both parties are just where they were, at the close of the transaction one of the two must have more of wheat + iron than it had before, and the other less.

This is another of the many instances showing, as Malthus says, that all attempts at illustrations by supposing advances of certain quantity of corn or other commodities instead of a certain quantity of money, which practically every year represents a variable quantity of corn, cannot fail to lead us wrong.

How it does so, is conspicuously shown in a further argument of Professor Fawcett, where he states that in order that two countries should enjoy the striking advantages which he pointed out in the passage to which I have referred, it is not necessary that of the two commodities. exchanged, the first should be dearer in the one country than the other, and that the second commodity should be cheaper. All that is necessary, he says, is that in the two countries there should be a difference in the relative value of the commodities which are exchanged. He then proceeds to suppose, for an example, that the cost price of a ton of iron in France is thirty pounds, and the price of a sack of wheat thirty shillings, and that a ton of iron would, according to this supposition, exchange in France for