ONE PER CENT. 



83 



and unproductive; but the German asked for 

 gold, and here was gold ready to be given to him 

 without any injury to the paying nation. The 

 peasant lent his gold to his government, who 

 passed it on to Germany ; he was compensated 

 with an annuity derived from an augmented na- 

 tional debt ; and that interest, that annuity, he 

 helped his country to pay by the sacrifice of more 

 time and labor on his work, and the giving up of 

 many of his small comforts. These are the reali- 

 ties of political economy — and what fruit do they 

 not bear ? 



If, now, we cross over to England, we still find 

 that the same general causes have been at work, 

 producing similar results, but their mode of ac- 

 tion has been somewhat different. England has 

 not, in the period we speak of, broken out into 

 an excessive construction of railways, nor has 

 she experienced a war, much less had to pay a 

 great indemnity. The depression she now suffers 

 succeeded a period of exceptional and excited 

 prosperity. The Americans had bought largely 

 her iron for their railways ; the Franco-German 

 War stopped much of the manufacturing trade 

 of both countries ; England filled up the gap, 

 and supplied materials which previously had 

 drawn many of their resources from the now 

 warring states. Business flourished with unpre- 

 cedented success, prices rose to a great height, 

 large profits were earned, and then the time for 

 mischief set in. New works were constructed, 

 new coal-mines opened, factories reared their 

 heads on every side ; Cleveland was busy in sink- 

 ing shafts — in other words, an undue quantity of 

 wealth was consumed in carrying on works which 

 were to repay their cost in a distant future. Sav- 

 ings were exceeded ; impoverishment was the in- 

 evitable result. The high profits and the raised 

 wages led to more expensive living ; unproductive 

 competition was enlarged; men thought that a 

 new era had dawned for a vast increase of the 

 coal and iron industries of the nation, and all 

 rejoiced together in augmented consumption of 

 the stock of wealth. Presently, the exceptional 

 causes of the excitement ceased ; the action of 

 peace drew back the unusual orders for English 

 goods; prices fell, and the half-finished works 

 only attested the waste they had created. The 

 point to grasp is not that England had had a good 

 time of selling, while competitors were idle, and 

 other nations were spending, not their income or 

 savings, but their capital, in the purchase of her 

 goods ; and then the irregular prosperity had 

 ceased. The commercial depression, so long, so 

 monotonous, so heavy, and so dull, came from 



the excessive consumption of English capital in 

 unwarranted constructions beyond savings, and 

 unwarranted expenditure in living by all classes, 

 which destroyed wealth without repairing it with 

 new productions. English saving, unlike the 

 French, has not yet replaced the loss. The whole 

 of the capital of a nation might easily be eaten 

 up and consumed in pleasant things even in three 

 years ; how long would, be the depression that 

 would follow ? If a farmer spent the whole of 

 his crops in buying fresh horses and agricultural 

 machines, in raising new barns and putting in 

 fresh drains, where would he and his people be 

 in the succeeding year ? A mere return to ordi- 

 nary prices and profits from the cessation of ex- 

 ceptional activity would not generate a depression 

 of any importance ; it is what is done during the 

 prosperity that breeds the evil to come and to last. 

 The influx of unusual orders for the products 

 of English industry developed a cause of impover- 

 ishment which grew to formidable proportions. 

 Ideas founded on a profound ignorance of the 

 nature of all trade and industry had long fer- 

 mented in the minds of large numbers of the 

 working-classes, and they took advantage of the 

 unwonted and urgent demand for labor to enforce 

 demands which have ultimately led to very heavy 

 disaster. That when trade is abnormally brisk, 

 and much work is going on at highly-remunera- 

 tive prices, the laborers should ask for and obtain 

 an important increase of wages, is not only rea- 

 sonable and fitting, but, by raising their condi- 

 tion, is a real gain for the whole community ; and 

 if even they stand out for and secure more than 

 their fair share of the products of labor, the harm 

 is of small moment ; they are sellers in an open 

 market, and the turn went in their favor. But 

 the situation becomes radically changed when, on 

 the return to ordinary sales and prices, the labor- 

 ers refuse to adapt themselves to altered circum- 

 stances, and insist, by most mischievous methods, 

 that the exceptional wages shall be permanent. 

 They then shut their eyes to the fact that their 

 real position is that of sellers of a commodity in 

 a market, and that, if its value is substantially 

 and permanently altered, the law of supply and 

 demand will assert its supremacy ultimately, 

 whatever be their efforts to repel its rule. If 

 they persevere to the bitter end, production must 

 cease, and their labor with its reward must dis- 

 appear. Meanwhile the process of resistance en- 

 tails sufferings on the whole people which may 

 be incalculable. Our point here is, not the harm 

 which perverse and ignorant action may bring on 

 the laborers themselves — we speak from the point 



