der to disengage it; work which I have been spared, and which I
must refund. If I am told that there are other things to pay for, as
expense, materials, apparatus, I answer, that still in these things it
is the work that I pay for. The price of the coal employed is only the
representation of the [time and] labor necessary to dig and transport
it.

We do not pay for the light of the sun, because nature alone gives it
to us. But we pay for the light of gas, tallow, oil, wax, because here
is labor to be remunerated;--and remark, that it is so entirely [time
and] labor and not utility to which remuneration is proportioned, that
it may well happen that one of these means of lighting, while it may
be much more effective than another, may still cost less. To cause
this, it is only necessary that less [time and] human labor should be
required to furnish it.

When the water-boat comes to supply my ship, were I to pay in
proportion to the _absolute utility_ of the water, my whole fortune
would not be sufficient. But I pay only for the trouble taken. If more
is required, I can get another boat to furnish it, or finally go and
get it myself. The water itself is not the subject of the bargain, but
the labor required to obtain the water. This point of view is so
important, and the consequences that I am going to draw from it so
clear, as regards the freedom of international exchanges, that I will
still elucidate my idea by a few more examples.

The alimentary substance contained in potatoes does not cost us very
dear, because a great deal of it is attainable with little work. We
pay more for wheat, because, to produce it, Nature requires more labor
from man. It is evident that if Nature did for the latter what she
does for the former, their prices would tend to the same level. It is
impossible that the producer of wheat should permanently gain more
than the producer of potatoes. The law of competition cannot allow it.

Again, if by a happy miracle the fertility of all arable lands were to
be increased, it would not be the agriculturist, but the consumer, who
would profit by this phenomenon; for the result of it would be
abundance and cheapness. There would be less labor incorporated into
an acre of grain, and the agriculturist would be therefore obliged to
exchange it for less labor incorporated into some other article. If,
on the contrary, the fertility of the soil were suddenly to
deteriorate, the share of nature in production