impulse has shown itself in Great Britain during the last fifteen or twenty years [before 1847]. In England and Scotland agricultural skill has of late increased considerably faster than population, insomuch that food and other agricultural produce, notwithstanding the increase of people, can be grown at less cost than they were thirty years ago; and the abolition of the Corn Laws has given an additional stimulus to the spirit of improvement. In some other countries, and particularly in France, the improvement of agriculture gains ground still more decidedly upon population, because though [pg 485] agriculture, except in a few provinces, advances slowly, population advances still more slowly, and even with increasing slowness, its growth being kept down, not by poverty, which is diminishing, but by prudence.
§ 5. Effect of the Progress of Society in moderating fluctuations of Value.
Thus far, of the effect of the progress of society on the permanent or average values and prices of commodities. It remains to be considered in