which commerce is carried on in a country where there are no bank notes or paper money of any kind, and where gold and silver alone constitute the currency; and, as it would be carried on in every country, if there did not exist paper money.
CHAPTER I.
OF THE INTRINSIC VALUE OF THE PRECIOUS METALS, AND OF THEIR ADAPTATION TO THE PURPOSES OF A CIRCULATING MEDIUM.
Gold and silver, it is well known, are produced in various parts of the globe, at the cost of labor and capital, precisely in the same manner that iron, lead, and other metals are produced; and with regard to all the mining countries, they constitute, if not the only, at least the most inviting product of industry to which a portion of the land, labor, and capital, of their inhabitants can be applied. As products, therefore, of industry, they possess an intrinsic value, like all other commodities, dependent upon the cost of producing them; that is, upon the amount of the rent paid to the owner of the land for the privilege of mining them, the amount paid for the wages of the laborers employed in digging and smelting the ore and in refining the metal, and the amount of the ordinary profits on capital invested in the enterprise. Were this not the case, it is evident that mines would not be worked, for no proprietor of land or capitalist would embark in an undertaking that would lead to certain loss, the object of mining not being to produce gold and silver, but to produce gold and silver of a value greater than that of the capital expended in its production. This much is premised, in order that the
