THE ECONOMIC DISTURBANCES SINCE 1873. 449 



trol which mankind has acquired over the forces of Nature, and in the 

 increased utilization of such control mainly through machinery for 

 the work of production and distribution, is to be found a cause amply 

 sufficient to account for the economic disturbance, which, since the 

 year 1873, has been certainly universal in its influence over the domain 

 of civilization, abnormal to the extent of justifying the claim of hav- 

 ing been unprecedented in character, and which bids fair in a greater 

 or less degree to continue indefinitely. Other causes may and doubt- 

 less have contributed to such a condition of affairs, but in this one 

 cause alone (if the influences referred to can be properly considered as 

 a unity) there has been sufficent of potentiality to account not only 

 for all the economic phenomena that are under discussion, but to 

 occasion a feeling of wonder that the world has accommodated itself 

 so readily to the extent that it has to its new conditions, and that the 

 disturbances have not been very much greater and more disastrous. 



A question which these conclusions will naturally suggest may at 

 once be anticipated. Have not these same influences, it may be asked, 

 been exerted during the whole of the present century, and in fact ever 

 since the inception of civilization ; and are there any reasons for sup- 

 posing that this influence has been different during recent years in 

 kind and degree from what has been heretofore experienced ? The 

 answer is, Certainly in kind, but not in degree. The world has never 

 seen anything comparable to the results of the recent system of trans- 

 portation by land and water, never experienced in so short a time 

 such an expansion of all that pertains to what is called business, and 

 has never before, as was premised at the outset of this argument, been 

 able to accomplish so much in the way of production with a given 

 amount of labor in a given time. Thus it is claimed in respect to 

 the German Empire, where the statistics of production and distribu- 

 tion have doubtless been more carefully studied by experts than else- 

 where, that during the period from 1872 to 1885 there was an expan- 

 sion in the railroad traffic of the empire of ninety per cent ; in mari- 

 time tonnage, of about a hundred and twenty per cent ; in the gen- 

 eral mercantile or commercial movement, of sixty-seven per cent ; in 

 postal matter carried, of a hundred and eight per cent ; in telegraphic 

 dispatches, of sixty-one per cent ; and in bank discounts, of two hun- 

 dred and forty per cent. During the same period population increased 

 about eleven and a half per cent ; and from such data there has been 

 a general deduction that, " if one unit of trade was the ratio to one 

 unit of population in Germany in 1872, the proportion in 1885 was 

 more than ten units of trade to one of population." But, be this as it 

 may, it can not be doubted that whatever has been the industrial ex- 

 pansion of Germany in recent years, it has been at least equaled by 

 England, approximated to by France, and certainly surpassed by the 

 United States. 



There is very much that contributes to the support of the idea 

 vol. xxxi. 29 



