498 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



mission of gold is really equivalent to an increase in the available 

 quantity of it. Furthermore, the methods of payment by balances be- 

 tween one market and another have become more varied and abun- 

 dant. The simple development of international credit permits us to 

 transfer funds from one country to another without a grain of gold 

 being moved. Bank-notes circulate among all classes of the population 

 in all countries, and checks have become everywhere a more usual 

 means of payment. Piled up in the great banking-houses, the precious 

 metals suffer less diminution by wearing, by material loss, and by 

 hoarding. The whole world is thus managing to make less and less 

 actual use of metallic money. To all the causes of decline we have 

 passed in review may be added another cause, accidental and tem- 

 porary, but effective while it continues in operation the check to spec- 

 ulation. Speculation is as necessary to commerce as Achilles was to 

 the army of the Greeks. It is that which gives life to trade, sustains 

 prices, and fills the heart with hope. Without it everything languishes. 

 The reader may now be ready to infer from this review that an 

 excess of production is the cause of the crisis. We are producing 

 too much, and mankind is poor because of its wealth. Men are 

 troubled to get enough to eat, to dress themselves, and to find lodging, 

 because we are producing too much food, making too many clothes, 

 and building too many houses ! It can hardly escape any one that 

 this explanation, when presented in this straightforward way, has a 

 queer look. Have we really produced too much ? Can we produce 

 too much ? At any rate, can it ever happen that an excess of produc- 

 tion will engender misery ? Such an hypothesis, at least in respect 

 to the production of articles of subsistence, can hardly be admitted. 

 Humanity has so many wants, natural or artificial, that it will never 

 be satisfied, and we shall always have work to do for it. The old 

 needs are extensible, and new ones are arising every day. When the 

 man is warmly clad and he can not put on more clothes without load- 

 ing himself down, he thinks about putting carpets on his floors and 

 pictures on his walls. Consumption has unlimited appetites. It may, 

 however, be admitted that there can be over-production of particular 

 articles. Some humorous fellow, for instance, has suggested that we 

 might make too many coffins, and, be they ever so cheap, the demand 

 for them would not increase. But even in this case, perhaps, the 

 taste would be stimulated for finer and more expensive coffins, and 

 manufacturers would still have something to do. So there are a few 

 other articles of which the number or quantity capable of being made 

 useful is limited, but the quality of which is capable of indefinite ex- 

 pansion. In articles of personal use, like shoes and clothing, more 

 abundant production and cheapening are apt to have the effect of caus- 

 ing us to change them often and to be more careless about having 

 them repaired, and thus open the way to a larger demand for them. 

 There are also articles not essential, but serving as instruments of 



