THE ECONOMIC DISTURBANCES SINCE 1873. 3 



affecting their supply and demand, ought to have exhibited evidence, 

 in a decline of prices, of the influence of the scarcity of gold, if any 

 such had been exerted ; but they not only do not, but the drift of the 

 evidence deducible from their price-experiences is rather in favor of 

 the position recently taken by some economists, that gold in recent 

 years, in place of becoming scarce for purposes of exchange, has really 

 been more abundant. 



The record of extreme changes in prices by reason of circumstances 

 that are acknowledged to have been purely exceptional, is also most 

 instructive, and removes not a few commodities from the domain of 

 any controverted economic theory respecting monetary influences. 

 Thus, from 1862 to 1870, cotton, owing to war influences, ruled so 

 high — from 70 to 800 per cent in excess of normal prices — that its 

 inclusion in computations, with a view of determining any average of 

 prices, or generalization of causes affecting prices during the years 

 mentioned, would, without proper allowance, completely vitiate any 

 conclusions. 



War and interruption of traflic on the Upper Nile have increased 

 the prices of " gura-Arabic," and of the drug " senna " in recent years 

 more than 100 per cent. The prices for French and other competing 

 light wines and brandies are much higher than the average for 

 186G-'67, because the phylloxera has so impaired the production of 

 French vineyards that France now imports more wines than she ex- 

 ports. " Cochineal " and " madder " have greatly declined in price 

 since 1873, because their use as dye-stuffs has been to a great extent 

 superseded by equivalent and cheaper coloring-materials derived from 

 coal-tar ; and within a very recent period the discovery of a method 

 of cheaply preparing a chemical preparation from cloves, having all 

 the flavoring qualities of the vanilla-bean, has already diminished the 

 demand, and bids fair to greatly impair the price of this heretofore 

 scarce and costly tropical product. Certain animal products, notably 

 entering into commerce, have rapidly advanced in price in recent years 

 by reason of a rapid diminution in the number of the animals afford- 

 ing them, as buffalo-horns, ivory, and whalebone, which latter prod- 

 uct has increased in price from 324^ cents per pound in 1850 to 85 

 cents in 1870, and $3.50 in 188G. 



An agency which has been most influential in recent years, in 

 occasioning a decline in the price of commodities, which has acted uni- 

 versally, which is entirely the outcome of new processes, construction, 

 and machinery, and has no connection whatever with matters pertain- 

 ing to currency or standards of value, has been the reduction in the 

 cost of transportation or distribution. Its influence has also neces- 

 sarily manifested itself very unequally, occasioning the greatest price- 

 reductions in the case of articles — like cereals, meats, fibers, ores, and 

 all coarser materials — in respect to which transportation constitutes the 

 largest element of cost at the place of consumption ; and least in the 



