ur would be
required in any of these occupations, but it would be paid for at a
higher price, and the same reasons which should make the hunter and
fisherman endeavour to raise the value of their game and fish, would
cause the owner of the mine to raise the value of his gold. This
inducement acting with the same force on all these three occupations,
and the relative situation of those engaged in them being the same
before and after the rise of wages, the relative value of game, fish,
and gold, would continue unaltered. Wages might rise twenty per cent.,
and profits consequently fall in a greater or less proportion, without
occasioning the least alteration in the relative value of these
commodities.

Now suppose, that with the same labour and fixed capital, more fish
could be produced, but no more gold or game, the relative value of fish
would fall in comparison with gold or game. If, instead of twenty
salmon, twenty-five were the produce of one day's labour, the price of a
salmon would be sixteen shillings instead of a pound, and two salmon and
a half, instead of two salmon, would be given in exchange for one deer,
but the price of deer would continue at 2_l._ as before. In the same
manner, if fewer fish could be obtained with the same capital and
labour, fish would rise in comparative value. Fish then would rise or
fall in exchangeable value, only because more or less labour was
required to obtain a given quantity; and it never could rise or fall
beyond the proportion of the increased or diminished quantity of labour
required.

If we had then an invariable standard, by which we could measure the
variation in other commodities, we should find that the utmost limit to
which they could permanently rise, was proportioned to the additional
quantity of labour required for their production; and that unless more
labour were required for their production, they could not rise in any
degree whatever. A rise of wages would not raise them in money value,
nor relatively to any other commodities, the production of which
required no additional quantity of labour, which employed the same
proportion of fixed and circulating capital, and fixed capital of the
same durability. If more or less labour were required in the production
of the other commodity, we have already stated that this will
immediately occasion an alteration in its relative value, but such
alteration is owing to the altered quantity of requisite labour, and not
to the