[32] See one of the leading articles in _The Times_ of Sept. 23, 1863, upon the then panic as to the depreciation of gold, excited by the considerable fresh discoveries of the precious metal in California and Australia. [From "The Daily Telegraph," October 28, 1864.] _THE LAW OF SUPPLY AND DEMAND._ _To the Editor of "The Daily Telegraph."_ SIR: In your valuable article of to-day on the strike of the colliers, while you lay down the true and just law[33] respecting all such combinations, you take your stand, in the outset, on a maxim of political economy, which, however trite, stands yet--if I am not deceived--in need of much examination and qualification. "Labor," you say, like every other vendible commodity, "depends for its value on the relation of supply to demand." But, Sir, might it not be asked by any simple and practical person, who had heard this assertion for the first time--as I hope all practical persons will some day hear it for the last time--"Yes; but what does demand depend upon, and what does supply depend upon?" If, for instance, all death-beds came to resemble that so forcibly depicted in your next following article, and, in consequence, the demand for gin were unlimitedly increased towards the close of human life,[34] would this demand necessitate, or indicate, a relative increase in the "value" of gin as a necessary article of national wealth, and liquid foundation of national prosperity? Or might we not advisably make some steady and generally understood distinction between the terms "value" and "price," and determine at once whether there be, or be not, such a thing as intrinsic "value" or goodness in some things, and as intrinsic un-value or badness in other things; and as value extrinsic, or according to use, in all things? and whether a demand for intrinsically good things, and a corresponding knowledge of their use, be not conditions likely, on the whole, to tend towards national wealth? and whether a demand for intrinsically bad things, and relative experience in their use, be not conditions likely to lead to quite the reverse of national wealth, in exact proportion to the facility of the supply of the said bad things? I should be entirely grateful to you, Sir, or to any of your correspondents, if you or they would answer these short questions clearly for me. I am, Sir, yours, etc., J. RUSKIN.[35] DENMARK HILL, _Oct._ 26. FOOTNOTES: [33] The strike was amongst the South Staffordshire colliers: the law laid down in the article that of free trade. [34] Upon the then recent and miserable death of an Irish gentleman, who had been an habitual hard-drinker.