argument of Dr Smith, however, no such stimulus could have been
given to agriculture. The rise in the price of corn would have been
immediately followed by a proportionate rise in the price of labour
and of all other commodities; and, though the farmer and landlord
might have obtained, on an average, seventy five shillings a quarter
for their corn, instead of sixty, yet the farmer would not have been
enabled to cultivate better, nor the landlord to live better. And
thus it would appear, that agriculture is beyond the operation of
that principle, which distributes the capital of a nation according
to the varying profits of stock in different employments; and that
no increase of price can, at any time or in any country, materially
accelerate the growth of corn, or determine a greater quantity of
capital to agriculture.

The experience of every person, who sees what is going forward on
the land, and the feelings and conduct both of farmers and
landlords, abundantly contradict this reasoning.

Dr Smith was evidently led into this train of argument, from his
habit of considering labour as the standard measure of value, and
corn as the measure of labour. But, that corn is a very inaccurate
measure of labour, the history of our own country will amply
demonstrate; where labour, compared with corn, will be found to have
experienced very great and striking variations, not only from year
to year, but from century to century; and for ten, twenty, and
thirty years together;(1*) and that neither labour nor any other
commodity can be an accurate measure of real value in exchange, is
now considered as one of the most incontrovertible doctrines of
political economy, and indeed follows, as a necessary consequence,
from the very definition of value in exchange. But to allow that