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THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.— SUPPLEMENT. 



In 1873 a commercial depression set in which 

 has been growing in extent and intensity ever 

 since. It has attacked both quantities and prices. 

 The export and the import trade have both suf- 

 fered severely. Nor is it by any means clear that 

 the evil has reached its lowest limit. If we take 

 the trade and navigation returns for last Febru- 

 ary, as analyzed in the city article of the Times, 

 we shall meet with figures, most of which must 

 be characterized as melancholy. There is a de- 

 crease in the value of exports of about twelve 

 per cent., in that of imports of eight, as against 

 February of 1876. Trade is thus contracting 

 still — the long downward course is not yet ar- 

 rested. Less wheat, to the extent of 2,500,000 

 cwts., was imported ; the price of wheat, how- 

 ever, has not risen, and the inference may be ac- 

 cepted so far that England is becoming worse off 

 for food. In the export figures, the writer still 

 fails to see any cheering signs of the long-looked- 

 for revival of trade. Both quantities and values 

 continue to shrink in all save a few cases. Coal 

 and coke, iron and steel, copper, cotton goods, 

 linen goods, wool and woolen goods, all indicate 

 that the bottom prices have not as yet been 

 reached. " This fact, coupled with the still more 

 important decline in quantities, compels the con- 

 clusion that the dragging trade of the last two 

 years and a half has not as yet become more ani- 

 mated." This decline shows that buyers abroad 

 of English goods are fewer and weaker. This is 

 a fact of supreme significance for a nation whose 

 population, and wealth, and commercial strength, 

 are absolutely dependent, to an unexampled ex- 

 tent, on the exchange of her manufactured prod- 

 ucts for food, necessaries, and enjoyments of 

 every kind. If England were cut off from all 

 foreign trade, a large portion of her people must 

 surely perish, as surely as did more than a mill- 

 ion of Irish when the potato-disease left them 

 foodless on the land. This unwelcome symptom 

 calls for notice, wherever it tends to appear, how- 

 ever faintly, most of all if the suspicion occurs 

 that foreign competitors are endeavoring to over- 

 come us in, and to exclude us from, what are 

 called third markets. England must sell abroad, 

 and on a large scale too, if she is to continue to 

 be what she is now. 



Ample evidence abounds on all sides, besides 

 the returns of the Board of Trade, to show the 

 extent and severity of the commercial depression 

 in England. In the foremost place stands the 

 iron-trade, one of the great staples of the nation. 

 After a period of overflowing prosperity, adver- 

 sity has stepped in with unprecedented severity. 



Prices were run up to extravagant heights ; coals 

 were easily sold at rates unheard of before ; new 

 coal-mines were opened ; so also were iron mines ; 

 immense industrial activity spread over large 

 populations ; laborers were eagerly sought after ; 

 unions found a splendid field for their action ; 

 strikes urged on masters — already panting to hire 

 workmen, so abundant were the orders coming 

 in — to concede unwarrantable wages ; profit still 

 held on successfully ; and it was hard to say how 

 wide would be the conquests of British iron. But 

 where has the iron-trade been during the past 

 three years ? Let Cleveland answer, with her 

 shut-up mines, her unemployed population, her 

 depressed wages, her in many cases extinguished 

 profits. Finished iron, steamers, rails, and other 

 departments of iron production, are all faint with 

 slackness. In Wales, some of the greatest iron- 

 works of the kingdom were brought to a stand- 

 still. The export of British iron to America has 

 become so slack as to seem on the point of ex- 

 tinction altogether. The heart of business-men 

 has become sick with disappointment over an- 

 nounced but never realized revivals. 



Both the prosperity and the depression of the 

 coal and iron trades have a very significant bear- 

 ing on the cause and on the remedy, if any, of 

 depressions such as that which now weighs down 

 upon England ; the one needs as much attention 

 as the other, as will presently be shown. 



Throughout the whole kingdom the blow has 

 fallen heavily on wages. In vain have unions 

 combined with extreme combativeness to resist 

 the fall ; natural forces were too mighty for 

 them. Wages which were not earned by the 

 value of the products created could not last 

 without the ruin of the employers. The prod- 

 ucts had ceased to be demanded in the same 

 quantities; to submit to half-time or lengthened 

 hours, which would cheapen the goods manufact- 

 ured, was inevitable under the alternative of a 

 total cessation of work. None knew better the 

 strength and range of the depression than the 

 wage-receiving workmen in British factories. 

 Even members of Parliament, selected to pro- 

 tect the wages of the working-classes, have come 

 forward to press on their constituents and sym- 

 pathizers the stern necessity of submitting to 

 laws which could not be extinguished by vehe- 

 ment clamor and artificial doctrines. 



But now let us widen our horizon, and direct 

 our eyes to foreign lands. In these latter days 

 the steamboat, the railway, and the electric 

 telegraph, have created an intercommunion of 

 nations, a binding of them up together into one 



