AGRICULTURAL DEVELOPMENT. IQl 



of the last summer were not occasioned by over-production, 

 and argue that it was due to a mistaken notion on the part of 

 trade unions and other workingmen's associations, that over- 

 production was a danger against which they must protect 

 themselves. But while over-production simply means a lack 

 of market on account of a lack of work and wages of labor- 

 ing men, it will take but a moment's consideration to show 

 that improved appliances, increased facilities, and enlarged 

 capital have led to an over-production of the commodities 

 which enter into daily use and business, which has had much 

 to do with the present stagnation. It is an axiom in political 

 economy that production and consumption should, like the 

 two wheels of a carriage, move together and at the same rate 

 of speed. But see how the war stimulated production. A 

 million of men in the field who were consumers instead of 

 producers, excited inventive genius to its utmost, while the 

 expenditures of the rebellion — ten thousand millions of dol- 

 lars — tempted a reckless investment of capital, and led to the 

 development of labor saving machinery and the increase of 

 productive resources, throughout the nation at large, such as 

 had never been known before. Think of it for a moment ; 

 take the improvements and multiplication of machinery for 

 the manufacture of boots and shoes — a single pegging machine 

 doing the work of a dozen men ; the use of steam punches 

 and dies in the manufacture of tin and copper ware ; the use 

 of steam crushing, drilling and pumping machines in mining 

 operations, the use of steam planers for wood work — which 

 are but a part of the increased uses of machinery in supersed- 

 ing hand labor. Two or three watch ftictories in our country 

 supply a world with time keepers, and actually threaten the 

 national industry of Switzerland ; through the aid of new ma- 

 chinery, both of horse and steam power, more wheat was 

 raised in the western States during the last years of the war, 

 than had been done in the same time previously, notwith- 

 standing the withdrawal of immense armies of able-bodied 

 men from the farms ; the diamond and sand-blast drill through 

 mountains and cut granite from the quarries ; donkey engines 



