part of the existing capital of farmers and manufacturers.

Agriculture like all other trades, and particularly in a commercial
country, is subject to a re-action, which, in an opposite direction,
succeeds the action of a strong stimulus. Thus, when war interrupts the
importation of corn, its consequent high price attracts capital to the
land, from the large profits which such an employment of it affords;
this will probably cause more capital to be employed, and more raw
produce to be brought to market than the demands of the country require.
In such case, the price of corn will fall from the effects of a glut,
and much agricultural distress will be produced, till the average supply
is brought to a level with the average demand.

CHAPTER XVIII.

VALUE AND RICHES, THEIR DISTINCTIVE PROPERTIES.

"A man is rich or poor," says Adam Smith, "according to the degree in
which he can afford to enjoy the necessaries, conveniences, and
amusements of human life."

Value then essentially differs from riches, for value depends not on
abundance, but on the difficulty or facility of production. The labour
of a million of men in manufactures, will always produce the same value,
but will not always produce the same riches. By the invention of
machinery, by improvements in skill, by a better division of labour, or
by the discovery of new markets, where more advantageous exchanges may
be made, a million of men may produce double, or treble the amount of
riches, of "necessaries, conveniences, and amusements," in one state of
society, that they could produce in another, but they will not on that
account add any thing to value; for every thing rises or falls in value,
in proportion to the facility or difficulty of producing it, or in other
words, in proportion to the quantity of labour employed on its
production. Suppose with a given capital, the labour of a certain number
of men produced 1000 pair of stockings, and that by inventions in
machinery, the same number of men can produce 2000 pair, or that they
can continue to produce 1000 pair, and can produce besides 500 hats;
then the value of the 2000 pair of stockings; or of the 1000 pair of
stockings, and 500 hats, will be neither more nor less than that of the
1000 pair of stockings before the introduction of machinery; for they
will be the produce of the same quantity of labour. But the value of the
general mass of commodities will nevertheless be diminished; for
although the