To the Editor of the “Daily Telegraph”

Sir,—In your valuable article of to-day on the strike of the colliers, while you lay down the true and just law respecting all such combinations, you take your stand, in the outset, on a maxim of political economy, which, however trite, stands yet—if I am not deceived—in need of much examination and qualification. “Labour” you say, like every other vendible commodity, “depends for its value on the relation of supply to demand” But, Sir, might it not be asked by any simple and practical person, who had heard this assertion for the first time—as I hope all practical persons will some day hear it for the last time—” Yes; but what does demand depend upon, and what does supply depend upon?” If, for instance, all deathbeds came to resemble that so forcibly depicted in your next following article, and, in consequence, the demand for gin were unlimitedly increased towards the close of human life, would this demand necessitate, or indicate, a relative increase in the “value” of gin as a necessary article of national wealth, and liquid foundation of national prosperity? Or might we not advisably make some steady and generally understood distinction between the terms “value” and “price” and determine at once whether there be, or be not, such a thing as intrinsic “value” or goodness in some things, and as intrinsic unvalue or badness in other things; and as value extrinsic, or according to use, in all things?