History Of The Prices Of The Chief Wants Of Life.
The higher civilization advances, the dearer all those commodities in the
production of which the factor nature with value in exchange predominates
are apt to become; and the cheaper, on the other hand, all those in which
labor and capital play the principal productive part.(790) This is
accounted for, not only by the almost unlimited capacity of labor and
capital to be increased, while the natural forces which have value in
exchange are susceptible of increase to so small an extent; but also, and
especially, because new additions of labor and capital are wont to cause
relatively smaller results in the production of raw material, and
relatively larger ones in industry and commerce. (§ 33, ff).(791)
Hence, from the relations the prices of the different classes of
commodities bear to one another, we may draw important conclusions as to
the degree of civilization which a country has attained. The above law
also affords an explanation of the fact, that a young nation, which has
made no great strides in the way of development, and in which, of course,
the production of raw material preponderates, draw their commercial and
manufactured necessaries, by way of preference, from precisely the most
highly civilized foreign nations. The latter are in a condition, and
accustomed, to give the largest quantity and the best quality of
manufactured articles for a required quantity of raw material; and, of
course, _vice versa_. Hence, in this intercourse of nations, the most
urgent want, and the completest and easiest possibility of satisfying it,
meet.(792) Only very highly civilized mother-countries can hold fast to
colonial possessions in our day.