THE ECONOMIC DISTURBANCES SINCE 1873. 1 1 - 



gold has been sufficient to give to these nations all the gold that they re- 

 quired, without apparently affecting the requirements of other countries. 



Again, while the continuing increase in the population of the 

 world, and a more rapid increase in recent years in its production and 

 trade, have certainly necessitated a continually increasing supply of 

 money for effective exchanges, evidence is not wanting to prove that 

 all such requirements have been met and any possible deficiencies in 

 the supply of metallic money fully supplemented through various agen- 

 cies. The present annual production of gold is enormous compared 

 with any period antecedent to 1850.* Before 1840 its annual produc- 

 tion was about $14,000,000 ; it rose to its highest point — $157,000,000 

 — about 1853 ; and for the year 1885 (according to the estimate of the 

 Director of the United States Mint) was 8101,500,000. The produc- 

 tion of silver has also largely increased in recent years ($39,000,000 in 

 1850, 851,000,000 in 1870, and 8124,900,000 in 1885), and no evidence 

 can be produced to show that there has been any actual diminution in 

 its aggregate use by reason of its so-called "demonetization" in any 

 country. 



Never before in the history of the world have there been so many 

 and such successful devices invented and adopted for economizing the 

 use of money. Every increase in facilities for banking and for the 

 granting and extension of credits largely contributes to this result ; 

 the countries enjoying the maximum of such facilities requiring the 

 smallest comparative amount of coin for their commercial transactions, 

 as is illustrated by the circumstance that while in Great Britain (ac- 

 cording to Mulhall) the ratio of metallic money used to the whole com- 

 merce of the country is only 20 per cent, the ratio rises in Germany to 

 34 per cent, in the United States to 58 per cent, and in France to 85 

 per cent. 



Furthermore the banking facilities of the world, according to the 

 same authority, have increased since 1840 eleven-fold ; or three times 

 greater than the increase in commerce, and thirty times greater than 

 that of population. 



The great reduction in the time and cost of distribution of com- 

 modities, and the facility with which purchases can be made and cred- 

 its transmitted by telegraph, have also resulted, not only in an enor- 

 mous saving of capital, but also in an ability to transact an increased 

 business with diminished necessity for the absorption and use of actual 

 money. A most striking illustration in proof of this, given by IMr. 

 Fowler ("Appreciation of Gold,'* London, 1885) is, that while the total 

 British export and import trade, aggregating £6,000,000,000 from 1866 

 to 1875, was accompanied by an aggregate export and import of 

 £530,000,000 of bullion and specie, an aggregate value from 1876 to 

 1885 of £6,700,000,000, was moved with the aid of only £439,000,000 



* " In the last thirty-five years, one and one third times as much .cold has been pro- 

 duced as in the three hundred and fifty-eight years preceding 1S50." — Laughlin. 



