THE ECONOMIC OUTLOOK. 589 



employes : " A great reduction in price from wliich there has been no 

 recovery. Business has invariably, and with scarcely notable friction, 

 adjusted itself to new conditions ; and save only in exceptional cases 

 — new companies struggling for a place — the capital invested has been 

 fairly remunerative. Best of all, the wages of operatives have been 

 maintained ; for one reason among others, that reductions in rates 

 paid for piece-work have operated to stimulate the intelligence of the 

 workman, so that he devises for his special works methods and ap- 

 pliances which not only increase his speed but his product also, and. 

 improve its quality. The great decline in recent years in the price of 

 American watches has not been caused by the importation of foreign 

 watches, but has sprung wholly out of an intense competition between 

 American manufacturers ; and from this and other causes the industry 

 has experienced all the vicissitudes incident to the occurrence of what 

 are generally denominated 'hard times.' " 



The following examples of the increase in the consumption of com- 

 modities, consequent on reductions of price through abatements of taxa- 

 tion, also indicate how largely the opportunities. for labor and of the 

 sphere of exchanges or business can be increased in the future by an 

 extension of this policy : 



Reductions in the price of tea in Great Britain, following a pro- 

 gressive reduction in the duties on the imports of this commodity, from 

 2s. 2\cl, in 1852 to 6c7. (the present rate), have been accompanied by an 

 increase in its annual consumption from 58,000,000 pounds in 1851 

 to 337,000,000 in 1885, or from TO pound per head of the population 

 to 5 pounds. 



A removal in 1883 of the comparatively small tax of one cent on 

 every hundred matches imposed by the United States, is reported to 

 have reduced the price about one half, and to have increased the do- 

 mestic consumption to the extent of nearly one third. 



In 1883 a few additions were made to the free list under the tarilT 

 of the United States, and among them were included unground spices, 

 which had been previously subjected to duties, which, although heavy 

 as ad valorem, were in themselves so small specifically (as five cents 

 per pound each on pepper, cloves, and pimento) that their influence on 

 the consumption of the American people, with their acknowledged 

 tendency to extravagance, would not have been generally regarded as 

 likely to be considerable ; and yet the removal of the duties on these 

 commodities, which pass almost directly into consumption, carried up 

 their importations in the following remarkable manner : In the ease of 

 pepper, from 6,973,000 pounds in 1883 to 10,995,000 pounds in 1886 ; 

 pimento, from 1,283,000 pounds to 2,500,000 pounds ; cassia-buds, from 

 27,739 pounds to 238,000 ; cloves, from 989,000 pounds to 1,298,000 ; 

 nutmegs, from 601,132 pounds to 1,189,456 ; while the importation and 

 consumption of mace in the country more than doubled and that of 

 cayenne pepper more than trebled during the same period. It is evi- 



