Page 306 of 2651

The variations in the market price of such commodities,

therefore, can arise only from some accidental variation in the

demand. A public mourning raises the price of black cloth. But as

the demand for most sorts of plain linen and woollen cloth is

pretty uniform, so is likewise the price. But there are other

employments in which the same quantity of industry will not

always produce the same quantity of commodities. The same

quantity of industry, for example, will, in different years,

produce very different quantities of corn, wine, hops, sugar,

tobacco, etc. The price of such commodities, therefore, varies

not only with the variations of demand, but with the much greater

and more frequent variations of quantity, and is consequently

extremely fluctuating; but the profit of some of the dealers must

necessarily fluctuate with the price of the commodities. The

operations of the speculative merchant are principally employed

about such commodities.