y, the natural
price would rise in France; and this would of course affect also the
price of corn in England. All that I contend for is, that it is the
natural price of commodities in the exporting country, which ultimately
regulates the prices at which they shall be sold, if they are not the
objects of monopoly, in the importing country.

But Dr. Smith, who has so ably supported the doctrine of the natural
price of commodities ultimately regulating their market price, has
supposed a case in which he thinks that the market price would not be
regulated either by the natural price of the exporting or of the
importing country. "Diminish the real opulence either of Holland, or the
territory of Genoa," he says, "while the number of their inhabitants
remains the same; diminish their power of supplying themselves from
distant countries, and the price of corn, instead of sinking with that
diminution in the quantity of their silver which must necessarily
accompany this declension, either as its cause or as its effect, will
rise to the price of a famine."

To me it appears, that the very reverse would take place: the diminished
power of the Dutch or Genoese to purchase generally, might depress the
price of corn for a time below its natural price in the country from
which it was exported, as well as in the countries in which it was
imported, but it is quite impossible that it could ever raise it above
that price. It is only by increasing the opulence of the Dutch or
Genoese, that you could increase the demand, and raise the price of corn
above its former price; and that would take place only for a very
limited time, unless new difficulties should arise in obtaining the
supply.

Dr. Smith further observes on this subject: "When we are in want of
necessaries, we must part with all superfluities, of which the value, as
it rises in times of opulence and prosperity, so it sinks in times of
poverty and distress." This is undoubtedly true; but he continues, "it
is otherwise with necessaries. Their real price, the quantity of labour
which they can purchase or command, rises in times of poverty and
distress, and sinks in times of opulence and prosperity, which are
always times of great abundance, for they could not otherwise be times
of opulence and prosperity. Corn is a necessary, silver is only a
superfluity."

Two propositions are here advanced, which have no connexion with each
other; one, that under the circumstances supposed, co