MICHIGAN ACADEMY OF SCIENCE. Ill 



the doniiiiiou for the date of January 1910. and the records show an 

 almost nndeviatino- correspondence witli the prices of similar articles 

 in this country. 



The distributive effects of high prices in appor-tioning- incomes to the 

 various members of the economic classes are much less ca])able of ac- 

 curate exposition than is the fact itself of high prices. Within the field 

 of the economic shares statistical inquiry has not been so successful as 

 with prices and our most perfectly recorded investigations of any of 

 these shares — namely the census reports concerning land rentals — are 

 now a full decade removed. Under these circumstances no resource 

 remains apparently save that of common observation for the explana- 

 tion of the class results which have issued from high prices. 



Of all the economic classes which have benefited from this situation, 

 the profit receiver has doubtless fared best. Looking behind the rows of 

 figures which represent the money value of our yearly product of manu- 

 factured commodities — a row wiiich has now become far too long for 

 intelligent comprehension — and we see newly built factories and busi- 

 ness blocks, recently opened mines and improved transportation facili- 

 ties on even- hand as the substantial evidences of the existence of profits. 

 The external transformation and enlargement which has overtaken the 

 financial and business center of the land — New York City — within the 

 the last decade^ — a change which a recent visitor, Mr. H. G. Wells, de- 

 clares "found this city of brown stone the color of dessicated chocolate 

 and will leave it of white and colored marble" speaks eloquently of the 

 prevalence of business profits. In the not infrequent view of a real 

 profit which a newspaper reader gets throtigh the disbursements of divi- 

 dends on the ])art of some large concern, one sees nothing to dissuade 

 him from the belief that business men find prosperity in high prices. 



A special class of profit receivers, the farmers, has apparently enjoyed 

 especial benefits from high prices during the latter part of this decade. 

 •'Most prosperous of all years is the place to which 1909 is entitled in 

 agriculture" is the opening sentence in the report from the Secretary 

 of AgTiculture for 1909. The money value to which the farm crops 

 of last year was entitled exceeded 8% billions of dollars — an amount 

 almost exactly twice as large as that of eleven years ago. The recent 

 overspreading of the Canadian Northwest by the American farmer of the 

 west and middle west may be attributed to high prices in two ways. 

 First, it has been made profitable to open these distant lands. Second, 

 they have made the rental price of the home land almost prohibitively 

 high to the would-be jnirchasers. The products of this region should 

 by right of logic apparently be added to the aggregates which the secre- 

 tary of agriculture has made for the American farmer. 



The attempts to discriminate the tone or spirit of an indtistry as a 

 basis for judging its prosperity may seem to many the very climax in 

 the use of the observational method. Nevertheless, there are many evi- 

 dences which support the belief that a more prosperous air pervades 

 agriculture than was formerly the case. 



The agricultural discussions of the decade Avhich closed with the 

 Industrial Commission of 1901, for example, and even the expert testi- 

 monies which were given to this commission had much to say of the 

 ills of the farmer. The underlying note of all these discussions is the 



