wages; so that when we say the exchangeable value of wages, we say their
quantity, under another name.

Mr. Ricardo, however, did not use the word value in the sense of
exchangeable value.

Occasionally, in his writings, he could not avoid using the word as
other people use it, to denote value in exchange. But he more frequently
employed it in a sense peculiar to himself, to denote cost of
production; in other words, the _quantity of labour_ required to produce
the article; that being his criterion of cost of production. Thus, if a
hat could be made with ten days' labour in France and with five days'
labour in England, he said that the value of a hat was double in France
of what it was in England. If a quarter of corn could be produced a
century ago with half as much labour as is necessary at present, Mr.
Ricardo said that the value of a quarter of corn had doubled.

Mr. Ricardo, therefore, would not have said that wages had risen,
because a labourer could obtain two pecks of flour instead of one, for a
day's labour; but if last year he received, for a day's labour,
something which required eight hours' labour to produce it, and this
year something which requires nine hours, then Mr. Ricardo would say
that wages had risen. A rise of wages, with Mr. Ricardo, meant an
increase in the cost of production of wages; an increase in the number
of hours' labour which go to produce the wages of a day's labour; an
increase in the _proportion_ of the fruits of labour which the labourer
receives for his own share; an increase in the ratio between the wages
of his labour and the produce of it. This is the theory: the reasoning,
of which it is the result, has been given in the preceding paragraphs.