might proceed, it would not affect the
prices of commodities in the same proportion. The same cause which would
lower the price of one from 10,200_l._ to 10,000_l._ or less than 2 per
cent., would lower the price of the other from 4200_l._ to 4000_l._ or
4-3/4 per cent. If they fell in any different proportion, profits would
not be equal; for to make them equal, when the price of the first
commodity was 10,000_l._, the price of the second should be 4000_l._;
and when the price of the first was 10,200_l._, the price of the other
should be 4200_l._

The consideration of this fact will lead to the understanding of a very
important principle, which I believe has never been adverted to. It is
this; that in a country where no taxation subsists, the alteration in
the value of money arising from scarcity or abundance will operate in an
equal proportion on the prices of all commodities; that if a commodity
of 1000_l._ value rise to 1200_l._, or fall to 800_l._, a commodity of
10,000_l._ value will rise to 12,000_l._ or fall to 8000_l._; but in a
country where prices are artificially raised by taxation, the abundance
of money from an influx, or the exportation and consequent scarcity of
it from foreign demand, will not operate in the same proportion on the
prices of all commodities; some it will raise or lower 5, 6, or 12 per
cent., others 3, 4, or 7 per cent. If a country were not taxed, and
money should fall in value, its abundance in every market would produce
similar effects in each. If meat rose 20 per cent., bread, beer, shoes,
labour, and every commodity, would also rise 20 per cent.; it is
necessary they should do so, to secure to each trade the same rate of
profits. But this is no longer true when any of these commodities is
taxed; if in that case they should all rise in proportion to the fall in
the value of money, profits would be rendered unequal; in the case of
the commodities taxed profits would be raised above the general level,
and capital would be removed from one employment to another, till an
equilibrium of profits was restored, which could only be, after the
relative prices were altered.

Will not this principle account for the different effects, which it was
remarked were produced on the prices of commodities, from the altered
value of money during the Bank-restriction? It was objected to those who
contended that the currency was at that period depreciated, from the too
great abundance of the paper circulat