Note 47 — VI. WEALTH.

The Earl of Lauderdale, from adopting the false principle which the author here exposes, fell into the same error, maintaining that “an increase of riches, when arising from alterations in the quantity of commodities, is always a proof of the immediate diminution of wealth,” and that a diminution of riches is evidence of an immediate increase of wealth; and that “in proportion as the riches of individuals are increased by an augmentation of the value of any commodity, the wealth of the nation is generally diminished; and in proportion as the mass of individual riches is diminished by the diminution of the value of the commodity, the national opulence is generally increased.” This melancholy paradox Lord Lauderdale maintained stoutly in a set treatise. See Inquiry into the Nature and Origin of Public Wealth by the Earl of Lauderdale. Edition 1804, p. 50. Mr Ricardo has given an exposition of the “Distinctive Properties of Value and Riches” in his work on the Principles of Political Economy. Third Edition, p. 320.—Translator.