29 7

a less turbulent ^ra, when the duties were commuted for chapter
a rent in kind, with the reservation of but a small propor- ^^^'
tion in money, it was not of material import that money
should constitute, for a period of long duration, one and the
same measure of value ; but, when society again attained to
a state of civihzation, and the public revenue of the country,
the appropriated income of the crown, the emoluments
of the great oflficers of state, the pay of the army and
navy, the rent of land, the interest of annuitants, and the
wages of labour, became exclusively regulated by the
medium of money, and fixed at a determinate sum, it
was highly important that money should discharge the
functions of its intermediate agency with due efficiency.

But the reasoning of the preceding chapter sufficii^ntly
shews, that money has hitherto formed an inefficient
instrument for carrying into effect the conditions of per¬
manent compacts; and that those, who have accepted
a fixed income in compensatiom for certain advantages^
which would have been otherwise conferred, have been
constantly receiving a less and less than their due pro¬
portion, as the same sum has been constantly losing
more and more of its primitive power. At one and the
same period the same sum is uniformly made to measure
the same value in every part of the world, exclusive of
the charge of transit, as a sufficient profit is attainable on
the fluctuation of its valUe, above or below this charge,
to support the principle of equivalency ; but so far is any
principle from being in motion to cause the same sum to
measnre the same value at different periods, that a strong
interest is regularly operating to prevent it, and mines