6 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



summary of the evidence in support of the view that this recent phe- 

 nomenal decline of prices is due so largely to the great multiplication 

 and cheapening of commodities through new conditions of production 

 and distribution, that the influence of any or all other causes com- 

 bined in contributing to such a result has been very inconsiderable, if 

 not wholly inappreciable. Reasoning also from what may be termed 

 the gold standpoint, the evidence to the same effect is not less con- 

 clusive. 



It would seem, in the first place, that if the scarcity influence of 

 gold on prices had originated and operated as the advocates of this 

 theory claim, such influence would have been as all-pervasive, syn- 

 chronous, irresistible, and constant as the influence of gravitation ; 

 and that something of correspondence, as respects time and degree, 

 in the resulting price-movements of commodities, would have been 

 recognized. But no such correspondence has been or can be estab- 

 lished. On the contrary, the movement of general prices since 1ST3 

 — although generally downward — has been exceedingly irregular ; 

 declining until 1878-'79 ; then rising until 1882-'83 ; then again de- 

 clining to an almost unprecedented low average in 1886 ; and in the 

 year 1887 exhibiting, in respect to some commodities, a slight upward 

 tendency. It might also have been expected that the influence of a 

 scarcity of gold would have especially manifested itself at or shortly 

 subsequent to the time (1873-74) when Germany, having demonetized 

 silver, was absorbing gold, and France and the Latin Union were sus- 

 pending the coinage of silver. But the years from 1875 to 1879, in- 

 clusive, taking the English market as the criterion, were characterized 

 generally by an excessive supply of money and currency of all kinds ; 

 and the same has been true of the period from 1880 to 1886-87, when, 

 if the supply of money from gold was constantly diminishing, contrary 

 results would seem to have been inevitable. 



The divergency in the price-movements of different and special 

 commodities has also been very notable — so much so that, out of the 

 long list of articles embraced in the numerous tables that have been 

 prepared by European economists for determining the general average 

 of prices during recent periods, the price-movements of no two com- 

 modities can be fairly regarded as harmonizing. "While in the case of 

 some staple products, prices fell immediately and rapidly after 1873, 

 the prices of others, although subjected to the same gold-scarcity in- 

 fluence, and which did not have this influence neutralized by a decline 

 of production concurrent with continuing demand, exhibited for a 

 long time comparatively little or absolutely no disturbance. This was 

 especially the case in respect to wool, the price of which, long after 

 metals, breadstuffs, chemicals, and cotton goods had succumbed to the 

 •wave of depression subsequent to 1873, "continued" (to use the lan- 

 guage of the trade) " remarkably healthy," notwithstanding a contin- 

 ually-increasing product was recognized ; and it was not until 1884 



