come, even to him, to have an additional price fixed upon them. He must then
pay for the licence to gather them, and must give up to the landlord a
portion of what his labour either collects or produces. This portion, or,
what comes to the same thing, the price of this portion, constitutes the
rent of land, and in the price of the greater part of commodities, makes a
third component part.

The real value of all the different component parts of price, it must be
observed, is measured by the quantity of labour which they can, each of
them, purchase or command. Labour measures the value, not only of that part
of price which resolves itself into labour, but of that which resolves
itself into rent, and of that which resolves itself into profit.

In every society, the price of every commodity finally resolves itself into
some one or other, or all of those three parts ; and in every improved
society, all the three enter, more or less, as component parts, into the
price of the far greater part of commodities.

In the price of corn, for example, one part pays the rent of the landlord,
another pays the wages or maintenance of the labourers and labouring cattle
employed in producing it, and the third pays the profit of the farmer. These
three parts seem either immediately or ultimately to make up the whole price
of corn. A fourth part, it may perhaps be thought is necessary for replacing
the stock of the farmer, or for compensating the wear and tear of his
labouring cattle, and other instruments of husbandry. But it must be
considered, that the price of any instrument of husbandry, such as a
labouring horse, is itself made up of the same time parts ; the rent of the
land upon which he is reared, the labour of tending and rearing him, and the
profits of the farmer, who advances both the rent of this land, and the
wages of this labour. Though the price of the corn, therefore, may pay the