erting that nature has stamped a real value
on corn, which cannot be altered by merely altering its money price, Dr.
Smith confounds its value in use, with its value in exchange. A bushel
of wheat will not feed more people during scarcity than during plenty;
but a bushel of wheat will exchange for a greater quantity of luxuries
and conveniences when it is scarce, than when it is abundant; and the
landed proprietors, who have a surplus of food to dispose of, will
therefore, in times of scarcity, be richer men; they will exchange their
surplus for a greater value of other enjoyments, than when corn is in
greater plenty. It is vain to argue, therefore, that if the bounty
occasions a forced exportation of corn, it will not also occasion a real
rise of price." The whole of Mr. Buchanan's arguments on this part of
the subject of bounties, appear to me to be perfectly clear and
satisfactory.

Mr. Buchanan however has not, I think, any more than Dr. Smith, or the
writer in the Edinburgh Review, correct opinions as to the influence of
a rise in the price of labour on manufactured commodities. From his
peculiar views, which I have elsewhere noticed, he thinks that the
price of labour has no connexion with the price of corn, and therefore
that the real value of corn might and would rise without affecting the
price of labour; but if labour were affected, he would maintain with
Adam Smith and the writer in the Edinburgh Review, that the price of
manufactured commodities would also rise; and then I do not see how he
would distinguish such a rise of corn, from a fall in the value of
money, or how he could come to any other conclusion than that of Dr.
Smith. In a note to page 276, vol. i. of the Wealth of Nations, Mr.
Buchanan observes, "but the price of corn does not regulate the money
price of all the other parts of the rude produce of land. It regulates
the price neither of metals, nor of various other useful substances,
such as coals, wood, stones, &c.; _and as it does not regulate the price
of labour, it does not regulate the price of manufactures_; so that the
bounty, in so far as it raises the price of corn, is undoubtedly a real
benefit to the farmer. It is not on this ground, therefore, that its
policy must be argued. Its encouragement to agriculture, by raising the
price of corn, must be admitted; and the question then comes to be,
whether agriculture ought to be thus encouraged?"--It is then,
according to Mr. Buchanan, a rea