therefore, which supplied the Indian market,
had been as abundant as those which supplied
the European, such commodities would naturally
exchange for a greater quantity of food
in India than in Europe. But the mines
which supplied the Indian market with the
precious metals seem to have been a good deal
less abundant, and those which supplied it
with the precious stones a good deal more so,
than the mines which supplied the European.
The precious metals, therefore, would naturally
exchange in India for a somewhat greater
quantity of the precious stones, and for a
much greater quantity of food than in Europe.
The money price of diamonds, the greatest of
all superfluities, would be somewhat lower,
and that of food, the first of all necessaries, a
great deal lower in the one country than in the
other. But the real price of labour, the real
quantity of the necessaries of life which is
given to the labourer, it has already been observed,
is lower both in China and Indostan,
the two great markets of India, than it is
through the greater part of Europe. The
wages of the labourer will there purchase a
smaller quantity of food: and as the money
price of food is much lower in India than in
Europe, the money price of labour is there
lower upon a double account; upon account
both of the small quantity of food which it
will purchase, and of the low price of that
food. But in countries of equal art and industry,
the money price of the greater part of
manufactures will be in proportion to the money
price of labour; and in manufacturing
art and industry, China and Indostan, though
inferior, seem not to be much inferior to any
part of Europe. The money price of the the
greater part of manufactures, therefore, will
naturally be much lower in those great empires
than it is anywhere in Europe. Through
the greater part of Europe, too, the expense of
land-carriage increases very much both the and
real and nominal price of most manufactures.
It costs more labour, and therefore more money,
to bring first the materials, and afterwards
the complete manufacture to market.
In China and Indostan, the extent and variety
of inland navigations save the greater part of
this labour, and consequently of this money,
and thereby reduce still lower both the real
and the nominal price of the greater part of
their manufactures. Upon all these accounts,
the precious metals are a commodity which it
always has been, and still continues to be, extremely
advantageous to carry from Europe
to India. There is scarce any commodity
which brings a better price there; or which,
in proportion to the quantity of labour and
commodities which it costs in Europe, will
purchase or command a greater quantity of
labour and commodities in India. It is more
advantageous, too, to carry silver thither than
gold; because in China, and the greater part
of the other markets of India, the proportion
between fine silver and fine gold is but as ten,
or at most as twelve to one; whereas in Europe
it is as fourteen or fifteen to one. In
China, and the greater part of the other markets
of India, ten, or at most twelve ounces
of silver, will purchase an ounce of gold; in
Europe, it requires from fourteen to fifteen
ounces. In the cargoes, therefore, of the
greater part of European ships which sail to
India, silver has generally been one of the
most valuable articles. It is the most valuable
article in the Acapulco ships which sail
to Manilla. The silver of the new continent
seems, in this manner, to be one of the principal
commodities by which the commerce between
the two extremities of the old one is
carried on; and it is by means of it, in a great
measure, that those distant parts of the world
are connected with one another.
In order to supply so very widely extended
a market, the quantity of silver annually
brought from the mines must not only be sufficient
to support that continued increase, both
of coin and of plate, which is required in all
thriving countries; but to repair that continual
waste and consumption of silver which
takes place in all countries where that metal
is used.
The continual consumption of the precious
metals in coin by wearing, and in plate both
by wearing and cleaning, is very sensible; and
in commodities of which the use is so very
widely extended, would alone require a very
great annual supply. The consumption of
those metals in some particular manufactures,
though it may not perhaps be greater upon
the whole than this gradual consumption, is,
however, much more sensible, as it is much
more rapid. In the manufactures of Birmingham
alone, the quantity of gold and silver
annually employed in gilding and plating,
and thereby disqualified from ever afterwards
appearing in the shape of those metals, is said
to amount to more than fifty thousand pounds
sterling. We may from thence form some
notion how great must be the annual consumption
in all the different parts of the
world, either in manufactures of the same
kind with those of Birmingham, or in laces,
embroideries, gold and silver stuffs, the gilding
of books, furniture, &c. A considerable
quantity, too, must be annually lost in transporting
those metals from one place to another
both by sea and by land. In the greater part
of the governments of Asia, besides, the almost
universal custom of concealing treasures
in the bowels of the earth, of which the knowledge
frequently dies with the person who
makes the concealment, must occasion the loss
of a still greater quantity.
The quantity of gold and silver imported at
both Cadiz and Lisbon (including not only
what comes under register, but what may be