THE 



POPULAR SCIENCE 

 MONTHLY. 



SEPTEMBER, 1887. 



THE ECONOMIC DISTURBANCES SINCE 1873. 



By Hon. DAVID A. WELLS, LL. D. 



III. 



[In the preceding article of this series (No. II) two propositions were submitted : 

 First, that in the increased control during the last quarter of a century, which mankind 

 has acquired over the forces of Nature, and the increased utilization of such control for 

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

 for the almost universal and extraordinary economic disturbance which has prevailed 

 since 1873, and bids fair in a greater or less degree to continue. Second, that all the 

 other causes which have been popularly regarded as having directly occasioned or essen- 

 tially contributed to the economic disturbance in question with the exception of such as 

 are in the nature of natural phenomena, as bad seasons and harvests, diseases of plants 

 and animals, disappearance of fish and the like, and such as are due to excessive taxation, 

 consequent on war expenditures, all of which are local, and the first temporary in char- 

 acter naturally group themselves about the one great cause that has been suggested, as 

 sequences or derivatives, and as secondary rather than primary in their influence. A sum- 

 mary of the evidence in support of the first proposition having been submitted, it is pro- 

 posed in the following article to ask attention to the facts which seem to be confirmatory 

 of the second.] 



Over-production. Consider first the most popular alleged cause 

 of recent economic disturbances, that to which the Royal Com- 

 mission of Great Britain in its final report* (December, 188G), and 



* " One of the commonest explanations of this depression or absence of profit is that 

 known under the name of over-production ; by which we understand the production of 

 commodities, or even the existence of a capacity for production, at a time when the de- 

 mand is not sufficiently brisk to maintain a remunerative price to the producer, and to 

 afford him an adequate return on his capital. We think such an over-production has 

 been one of the most prominent features of the course of trade during recent years ; and 

 that the depression under which we are now suffering may be partially explained by this 

 fact." British Commission, majority report. 



" By over-production we understand the production of commodities (or existence of 

 the agencies of production) in excess, not of the capacity of consumption if their distri- 

 bution was gratuitous, but of the demand for export at remunerative prices, and of the 

 vol. xxxi. 37 



