THE PRESENT COMMERCIAL CRISIS. 495 



civilized world, multiplying much more rapidly than the population. 

 M. de Neumann-Spallert, a statistician of high reputation for accu- 

 racy, has shown that the trade of the civilized world in cereals more 

 than doubled between 1869 and 1879. Since then it has suffered a 

 slight recoil. The production of cotton, which was estimated at 

 1,192,000,000 pounds in 1840, and 2,474,000,000 pounds in 1860, re- 

 mained nearly stationary increasing only about three and a half per 

 cent between 1860 and 1870, on account of the American civil war ; 

 but between 1870 and 1880 the crop of the United States rose from 

 1,540,000,000 to 3,161,000,000 pounds, and the crop of the whole world 

 to 4,039,000,000 pounds, showing an increase of about sixty-seven per 

 cent in ten years. But this is insignificant by the side of the increase 

 that has been realized in the production of wool. A commercial cir- 

 cular, issued by one of the principal brokers of Antwerp, has recently 

 established in the most striking manner the relations of the price to 

 the quantity of wool imported into Europe. Taking into considera- 

 tion the stocks of colonial wools coming from the three principal pro- 

 ducing countries, Australia, the Cape Colony, and La Plata, we shall 

 find that in 1864 the importations amounted to only 458,000 bales ; in 

 1868 they had nearly doubled, and reached 879,000 bales. The price 

 then fell to one franc eighty-five centimes (about twenty-five cents), 

 and for a short time in 1869 to eighty-five centimes (or about seven- 

 teen cents), the lowest price that had then been known. For five or 

 six years the importations remained stationary, or only increased a lit- 

 tle, and prices stiffened. But in 1877 the importation was much more 

 considerable, amounting to 1,272,000 bales, or forty per cent more 

 than five years previously, and prices fell in nearly a corresponding 

 proportion. For the next two or three years the colonial importations 

 were stationary, and prices rose. But the increase in production was 

 resumed ; the importation of wools into Europe was estimated at 

 1,740,000 bales in 1885, and prices descended correspondingly.* A 

 considerable increase, though not so great, has taken place in the pro- 

 duction of coffee, which has risen from 321,000 tons in 1855 to 588,000 

 tons in 1881, or sixteen per cent. This is not very great, but the in- 

 crease in the use of coffee is still slower. The production of sugar has 

 increased more rapidly. The increase in the production of cane-sugar 

 in 1882 amounted to about one third in five years, and that of beet- 

 sugar in 1883 to forty per cent in three years. Since these dates the 

 production seems to have taken a new start. 



A glance at the statistics of metal-working ought also to convince 

 a reasonable man that the cause of the fall in prices should be sought 

 in the conditions of the production of each article. Fine copper is one 

 of those metals which have fallen most within fifteen years. The 

 production of it, which was only 45,250 tons in 1850, and 67,370 tons 

 in 1860, reached 82,120 tons in 1870, and over 120,000 tons in 1880, 



* See this circular in " l'ficonomiste francos," February 7, 1886. 



