578 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



the United States Bureau of Labor* (1886) have assigned a promi- 

 nent place ; and which the "Trades-Union Congress of England has 

 by resolution accepted as being, in the opinion of the workmen of 

 England," the most prominent cause, namely, " over-production.'''' In 

 a certain sense there can be no over-production of desirable products 

 so long as human wants for such products remain unsatisfied. But it 

 is in accordance with the most common of the world's experiences, 

 that there is at times and places a production of most useful and 

 desirable things in excess of any demand at remunerative prices to 

 the producer. This happens, in some instances, through lack of prog- 

 ress or enterprise, and in others through what may be termed an ex- 

 cess of progress or enterprise. An example of the first is to be 

 found in the circumstance that in the days of Turgot, the French 

 Minister of Finance under Louis XVI, there were at times in certain 

 departments of France such abundant harvests that wheat was almost 

 unmarketable, while in other and not far-distant sections of the coun- 

 try there was such a lack of food that the inhabitants perished of hun- 

 ger ; and yet through the absence of facilities for transportation and 

 communication of intelligence, the influence of bad laws, and the moral 

 inertia of the people, there was no equalization of conditions.f An 

 example of the second, intensified to a degree never before experienced, 

 is to be found in the results of the improvements in production and 

 distribution which have been made especially effective within the last 

 quarter of a century. A given amount of labor, operating through 

 machinery, produces or distributes at least a third more product on the 

 average, in given time, than ever before. Note the natural tendency 



amount of income or earnings available for their purchase in the home market. The de- 

 pression under which we have so long been suffering is undoubtedly of this nature." 

 British Commission, minority report. 



* " Machinery and the word is used in its largest and most comprehensive sense 

 has been most potent in bringing the mechanically-producing nations of the world to their 

 present industrial position, which position constitutes an epoch in their industrial develop- 

 ment. The rapid development and adaptation of machinery in all the activities belonging 

 to production and transportation have brought what is commonly called over-production ; 

 so that machinery and over-production are two causes so closely allied that it is difficult 

 to discuss the one without taking the other into consideration. . . . The direct results, so 

 far as the present period i3 concerned, of this wonderful and rapid extension of power- 

 machinery are, for the countries involved, over-production, or, to be more correct, bad or 

 injudicious production ; that is, that condition of production of things the value of which 

 depends upon immediate consumption, or consumption by that portion of the population 

 of the world already requiring the goods produced." Report of the United States Com- 

 missioner of Labor, 1886, pp. 88, 89. 



\ This experience of France in the last quarter of the eighteenth century is repeating 

 itself at the present day in China. General Wilson, in his recent " Study of China " 

 (188V), states that "over ten million people died from starvation about ten years ago 

 in the provinces of Shansi and Shensi alone, while abundance and plenty were prevailing 

 in other parts of the country. Every effort was made to send food into the stricken re- 

 gions ; but owing to the entire absence of river and canal navigation, as well as of rail- 

 roads, but few of the suffering multitudes could be reached." 



