"On this passage it should be remarked, in the first place, that the question stated in it is not the main question in referenceto the new meaning which Mr McCulloch must give to the term labour, in order to make out his proposition.lieacknowledges that the increased value acquired by the wine is either owing to the operation of nature during the year inimproving its quality, or to the profits acquired by the capitalist for being deprived for a year from using his capital of ?0 inany other way.But in either case Mr McCulloch's language is quite unwarranted.When he uses the expression, `additionallabour actually laid out upon the wine,' who could possibly imagine that, instead of meaning human labour, he meant theprocesses carried on by nature in the cask of wine during the time that it is kept? This is at once giving an entirely newmeaning to the term labour.
"But, further, it is most justly stated by Mr Ricardo, that when the powers of nature can be called into action in unlimitedabundance, she always works gratis; and her processes never add to the value, though they may add very greatly to theutility of the objects to which they are applied.
"This truth is also fully adopted and strongly stated by Mr McCulloch himself'.`All the rude products (he says) and all theproductive powers and capacities of nature are gratuitously offered to man.Nature is not niggardly or parsimonious; sheneither demands nor receives an equivalent for her favours.An object which it does not require any portion of labour toappropriate or to adapt to our use may be of the very highest utility, but as it is the free gift of nature, it is utterly impossibleit can be possessed of the smallest value.' Consequently, as the processes which are carrying on in the cask of' wine, while itis kept, are unquestionably the free gift of nature, and are at the service of all who want them, it is utterly impossible, even iftheir effects were ten times greater than they are, that they should add in the smallest degree to the price of the wine.It is,no doubt, perfectly true, as stated by Mr McCulloch, that if wine were not improved by keeping, it would not be worth asingle additional farthing after being kept a hundred or even a thousand years.But this proves nothing but that, in that case,no one would ever think of keeping wine longer than was absolutely necessary for its convenient sale or convenientconsumption.
"The improvement which wino derives from keeping is unquestionably the cause of its being kept; but when on this accountthe wine-merchant has kept his wine, the additional price which he is enabled to put upon it is regulated upon principlestotally distinct from the average degree of improvement which the wine acquires.It is regulated exclusively, as stated by MrRicardo, by the average profits which the capital engaged in keeping the wine would have yielded if it had been activelyemployed; and that this is tile regulating principle of the additional price, and not the degree of improvement, is quite certain:
because it would be universally allowed that if, in the case supposed by Mr McCulloch, the ordinary rate of profits had been20 per cent., instead of 10 per cent., a cask of new wine, worth ?0, after it had been kept a year, would have beenincreased in value ?0 instead of ?, although the processes of nature and the improvement of time wine were precisely thesame in the two cases; and there can not be the least doubt, as I said before, that if the quality of wine, by a year's keeping,were ordinarily improved in a degree ten times as great as at present, the prices of wines would not be raised; because, ifthey were so raised, all wine-merchants who sold kept wines would be making greater profits than other dealers.
"Nothing then can be clearer than that the additional value of the kept wine is derived from the additional amount of profitsof which it is composed, determined by the time for which the capital was advanced and the ordinary rate of profits.
"The value of the oak-tree of a hundred years' growth is derived, in a very considerable degree, from the same cause;though, in rich and cultivated countries, where alone it could be worth ?5, rent would necessarily form a part of this value.
"If the number of acorns necessary on an average to rear one good oak were planted by the hand of man, they would beplanted on appropriated land; and as land is limited in quantity, the powers of vegetation in the land cannot be called intoaction by every one who is in possession of acorns, in the same way as the improving operations of nature may be called intoaction by every person who possesses a cask of wine.But setting this part of the value aside, and supposing the acorns to beplanted at a certain expense, it is quite clear, that almost the whole of the remaining value would be derived from thecompound interest or profits upon the advances of the labour required for the first planting of the acorns, and the subsequentprotection of' the young trees.A much larger part, therefore, of the final value of the tree than of the final value of the winewould be owing to profits.
"Now, if we were to compare an oak-tree, worth ?5, with a quantity of hardware [for instance, axes,] worth the same sum,the value of which was chiefly made up of human labour; and as the reason why these two objects were of the same value,were to state that the same quantity of labour had been worked up in themwe should obviously state a direct falsity,according to the common usage of language; and nothing could make the statement true, but the magical influence of a newmeaning given to the term labour.But to make Labour mean profits, or fermentation, or vegetation, or rent, appears to mequite as unwarrantable as to make stones mean plums."Are Profits justifiable?
