8 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



occasioning the recent decline in the prices of sugars having been an 

 extraordinary artiiieial stimuhis ; in quinine, the changes in the sources 

 of supply from natural to artificially-cultivated trees ; in wheat, the 

 accessibility of new and fertile territory, and the reduction of freight ; 

 in freights, on land, the reduction in the cost of iron and steel, and 

 on the ocean new methods of propulsion, economy in fuel and undue 

 multiplication of vessels ; in iron and steel, new processes and new 

 furnaces, affording a larger and better product with less labor in a 

 given time ; in certain varieties of wool, changes in fashion, and in 

 others an increase of production in a greater ratio than population and 

 their consuming capacity ; in ores and coal, the introduction of the 

 steam-drill and more powerful explosive agents ; in cheese, a dispro- 

 portionate market price for butter ; in cotton cloth, because the spin- 

 dles which revolved four thousand times in a minute in 1874 made 

 ten thousand revolutions in the same time in 1885 ; in " gum-ara- 

 bic "and "senna," a war in the Soudan; in wines, a destruction of 

 the vines by disease, etc., etc. And yet all these "so diverse factors 

 of influence evolve and harmonize under and, at the same time, dem- 

 onstrate the existence of a law more immutable than any other in 

 economic science — namely, that when production increases in excess 

 of current market demand, even to the extent of an inconsiderable 

 fraction, or is cheapened through any agency, prices will decline ; and 

 that when, on the other hand, production is checked or arrested by 

 natural events — storms, pestilence, extremes of temperature — or by 

 artificial interference — as war, excessive taxation, or political misrule 

 or disturbances — prices will advance ; and, between these extremes of 

 influence, prices will fluctuate in accordance with the progressive 

 changes in circumstances and the hopes and fears of producers, ex- 

 changers, and consumers.* 



It should also not be overlooked that extraordinary price-move- 

 ments — mainly in the direction of further decline, and as the result of 

 continually changing conditions in the production and supply of com- 

 modities — are constantly occurring, and are likely to continue to occur, 

 unless further material progress is in some way to be arrested. Bes- 



* In new countries, or countries where industry is confined to the production of a few 

 staple products, like wool, wheat, sugar, etc., a decline in prices exerts a wider and much 

 more disturbing influence than in countries where there is great diversity of industry, and 

 where the sources of income and the opportunities for employment are more numerous 

 and more varied. In the latter all branches of industry are rarely depressed at the same 

 time, and prosperity in some compensates to a certain extent for adversity in others. But, 

 in countries of inferior industrial organization and diversification, the interests of the 

 entire community are so common and united that the tendency is always, for a change of 

 price in one cf)mmodity — either rise or fall — to unduly influence the prices of all com- 

 modities. And this, according to the London " Statist," is what has been particularly 

 noticeable in Australia, where such a sympathy obtains between the three great products 

 of that country — wool, wheat, and copper — that it rarely happens that one of them droops 

 in price without the price of the others rapidly weakening. 



