The marks which distinguish a fall in the value of the precious metals, arising from the primary cause, are,--a rise in the money price of raw produce and labour, without a general rise in the price of wrought commodities. All of them, indeed, as far as they are composed of raw produce, will have a tendency to rise; but, in a large class of commodities, this tendency to rise will be more than counterbalanced by the effect of the fall of profits.--Some therefore will rise, and some will fall, as I stated in my last work,[Q] according to the nature of the capitals employed upon them, compared with those which produce money; and while the money prices of corn and labour very decidedly increase, the prices of commodities, taken on the average, may possibly remain not far from the same. On the other hand, when the value of metallic money falls, from the secondary causes above noticed, there will be a tendency to a proportionate rise of all commodities as well as of corn and labour, though in some cases it may take a considerable time before it is completely effected. And, in general, whenever a fall in the value of money takes place, without a fall in the rate of profits, an event which is generally open to observation, it is to be attributed to incidental and secondary causes affecting the relations of money to labour, and not to that which is connected with the taking of poorer land into cultivation. Of these two classes of causes the second produces much the greatest part of those differences in the value of metallic money, which are the most observable in different countries, and at different periods in the same country. If India and England had each of them mines of equal natural fertility, the superior efficiency of English labour, assisted by machinery, would extract a much greater quantity of metal from such mines; and the money price of labour might be three or four times higher, and the value of money three or four times lower in England than in India. The same effect is, at present, practically produced by the skill and machinery employed on the manufactures with which England purchases her gold. If she can prepare exportable commodities which are in demand abroad, with much less labour than other nations, she will be able to buy gold at a much lower natural value, and will continue to import it under favourable exchanges, till its value falls in proportion.