THE ECONOMIC OUTLOOK. 593 



tation of works of art of a high character and large cost, under the as- 

 sumption that it is desirable to tax all such articles as luxuries, and 

 that it is for the interest of the masses to adopt such a policy ! In 

 illustration, let us suppose a man of wealth to purchase and import a 

 costly and beautiful art product. Having obtained it, he rarely finds 

 a compensating return for his expenditure in an exclusive and selfish 

 inspection, but rather in exhibiting it to the public ; and the public go 

 away from these exhibitions with such higher tastes and culture as im- 

 pel them to desire to have in their life-surroundings, as much that is ar- 

 tistic and beautiful — not the work of one, but of many — as their means 

 will allow ; even if it be no more than a cheerful chromo-lithograph, 

 a photograph, a carpet or a curtain of novel and attractive design, 

 a piece of elegant furniture, or of bronze, porcelain, or pottery. And 

 to supply the new and miscellaneous industries that are created or en- 

 larged by such desires and demands, labor will be, as it were, con- 

 stantly drained off from occupations in which improved machinery 

 tends to supplant it, into other spheres of employment in which the 

 conditions and environments are every way elevating, because in them 

 the worker is less of a machine, and the rewards of labor are very 

 much greater. 



The phenomena of the overproduction of certain staple commodi- 

 ties, although for the time being often a matter of difliculty and the 

 occasion of serious industrial and commercial disturbances, are also 

 certain, in each specific instance, to sooner or later disappear in virtue 

 of the iniluence of what may be regarded as economic axioms, namely : 

 that we produce to consume, and that, unless there is perfect reciprocity 

 in consumption, production will not long continue in a disproportionate 

 ratio to consumption ; and also that, under continued and marked re- 

 duction of prices, consumption will quickly tend to increase and equal- 

 ize, or accommodate itself to production. Illustrations of the actual and 

 possible under this head, and of the rapidity with which conditions are 

 reversed and "overproduction" disappears, are most curious and in- 

 structive. For example, all authorities in 1885 were agreed that the 

 then existing capacity for manufacturing cotton was greatly in excess 

 of the world's capacity for consumption ; the season of 1885-86 closing 

 with a surplus of nearly 400,000,000 yards on the British market, for 

 which the manufacturers found no demand. Since that date, how- 

 ever, and with no special renewal of business activity in any country 

 except the United States, the world's consumption of cotton fabrics 

 has reached a larger total than ever before, and there are probably at 

 the present time (1888) no more spindles in existence than are neces- 

 sary to supply the current demands for their products. In the case of 

 sugar, also, an increase in consumption occasioned by low prices, and 

 a notable restriction of production through the same price influences, 

 has reduced an estimated actual surplus of sugar on the world's markets 

 in October, 1885, of 1,042,956 tons, to 568,188 tons in October, 1887, 



VOL. XXXII. — 38 



