[114] _Ibid._, 76. [115] _Ibid._, p. 83. [116] The claim regarding the subordination of the law of costs is set forth emphatically as follows: “If it appears generally that the cost of production only determines the prices of commodities, as the payment of it is the necessary condition of their supply, and that the component parts of this cost are themselves determined [_i. e._, as values] by the same causes which determine the whole, it is obvious that we cannot get rid of the principle of demand and supply by referring to the cost of production. Natural and necessary prices appear to be regulated by this principle, as well as market prices, and the only difference is that the former are regulated by the ordinary and average relation of the demand to the supply, and the latter when they differ from the former depend upon the extraordinary and accidental relations of the demand to the supply.” _Principles_, 1st ed., pp. 84-85. [117] Gonner ed., p. 376. [118] _Letters to Malthus_, p. 176. Malthus’s contrary opinion is defended at length by him in Sec. 11 of Chap. xi, on value, in the _Principles_, 1st ed. [119] Gonner ed., p. 6. The same thought is expressed in the first paragraph of Chapter xiii, p. 171. [120] The case is not presented by Malthus as one of two main arguments with seven counts in total, but all except this division and the numbering are his. [121] 1st ed., pp. 104-5. This passage happens not to reappear in the 2d ed., but all the points in it are still maintained there. [122] As Malthus said in another place, “The effects of slow or quick returns, and of the different proportions of fixed and circulating capitals, are distinctly allowed by Mr. Ricardo, but in his last edition he has much underrated their amount. They are both theoretically and practically so considerable as entirely to destroy the position that commodities exchange with each other according to the quantity of labour which has been employed upon them, but no one that I am aware of has ever stated that the different quantity of labour employed on commodities is not a much more powerful source of difference of value.” _Measure of Value Stated and Illustrated_, pp. 12-13. [123] We have not happened upon a passage by Ricardo referring to the third count, respecting good and bad crops, but Ricardo would undoubtedly have considered that it did not invalidate his position. If agricultural capital and labor remain the same in quantity while good and bad crops alternate, the _cost of production per unit of crop_ varies as well as the price. When the wheat crop is good the cost per bushel is low. The price per bushel would also be low. If good crops mean low cost and low value at the same time, they probably do not mean sinking of value and cost in the same degree. The consequent deviation of value from cost is probably what Malthus had in mind. [124] 1st ed., pp. 102-3.