“How strangely the values of things are turned topsy-turvy!” exclaimed Charles. “Time was when our peasantry would no more have thought of dining off woodcocks than I of giving my servants a daily dessert of pine-apples. Dainty game of that sort is commonly thought to rise in value with the progress of improvement.”
“And so it does; and that it now exchanges for less either of money or bread, than the commonest sorts of meat did three years ago, is a proof that our condition has gone back instead of improving. It is a proof that the produce of our toil is scantier than it was; that the produce which we cannot command—that which comes and goes without our will and pleasure—exchanges for less when there are more to demand it.”
“We may say the same of cattle.”
“Just at present; because our cattle is for the most part wild, having got abroad into the woods at the time of the hurricane. But when we have collected our flocks and herds again, and can attend to their breeding, so as to proportion the supply to the demand, we shall find their value permanently depend, like that of the crops with which they will then be fed, on the cost of production.”
“Of course, if they feed on crops grown for their use. At present, when they pasture themselves on land which would otherwise lie waste, they are cheap when there happens to be, a sufficient supply of fish and woodcocks, because there is little cost of production;—no rent, little capital, and less labour. Any sudden rise of value proceeds from a temporary increase of demand. It is to equalize the demand for butcher’s meat, that I and some of my neighbours want to procure a regular supply of fish.”
“Yet fish is an article whose value rises with the progress of improvement. It must do so in proportion as more labour is required to procure an equal supply for an extended market. As years pass on, Antoine, we shall have to fit out more boats for the river, and to build them larger, and man them better, as we have to send them out farther. But then there will be more of other things to give in exchange for fish.”
“True; but at present we cannot give our fishermen what they think a fair premium upon their cost of production, because our cost of production, the cost of the labour we give in exchange, is extraordinarily high.”
“Do they complain of the price you give?”
“Very much, but that cannot be helped. We complained of their social price in old days,—of having to pay, not only the profits and wages necessary to procure the article, but the market dues, which were very oppressive. They answered that they did not pocket the dues, and could not help the high price. Now they complain that (the dues being lately remitted) they cannot even secure their natural price,—that is, a reasonable profit in addition to the cost of the labour.”
“If they cannot do this, why do they supply you? They will not surely go on furnishing the market with fish at prime cost.”