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from Elba was still more remarkable. The price had been as low, in the spring of 1815, as 4l. 9s., and without any known change in the currency price of labour, it rose suddenly to 5l 5s., or 18 per cent.; and consequently, to purchase an ounce of gold it was necessary at that time to give commodities worth 18 per cent, more of agricultural labour than it might have been purchased for a month or two before. Whatever might have been the case with the paper, there could not, on any view of the subject, be the slightest foundation for the supposition of a sudden abundance and cheapness of labour just before the battle of Waterloo. In fact, agricultural labour had not fallen, and manufacturing labour was higher than usual; so that even without considering labour as a standard, it must have been acknowledged, that, of these two objects which had altered in relative value, it "was the gold which had risen, not the labour which had fallen.
In attempting to measure the rise in the value of the currency since the period of the high prices, we shall be greatly assisted by the following very valuable document respecting the price of labour in the county or stewartry of Kircudbright. It is considered that the prices in this table represent pretty nearly (though they are rather below) the wages in
