THE DEPRESSION OF TRADE 189 



produced, while they also afforded a magnificent outlet for 

 our surplus population. With such advantages as these — 

 advantages which we shall in vain search through history 

 to find ever occurring before — it might be thought that we 

 should have got on very well, and must have had a period 

 of continuous prosperity even if we had had no infallible 

 guide to teach us how to conduct our trade and commerce. 

 Yet after fifty years of these unexampled advantages, 

 after fifty years of following what was professed to be an 

 infallible guide, we yet find ourselves at the present day 

 (1886) in the terrible quagmire of commercial depression. 

 All over the country trade is, and for many years now has 

 been, dull ; everywhere there are willing workers who 

 cannot find employment. In all our great cities we have 

 stagnation of business, poverty, and even starvation. 

 Certainly, according to the doctrines of the political 

 economy which we have followed none of these things 

 ought to have happened; we ought to have had a 

 continuous and enduring course of success. 



Now the need of a thorough inquiry into what are 

 really the causes of this commercial depression is very 

 great, because until we clearly perceive what has produced 

 it, we shall be virtually in the dark as to how to find a 

 remedy for it. I consider, then, that a true conception of 

 the various causes which have brought about this state of 

 things, which, according to our professed teachers, ought 

 never to have occurred, will enable us to lay down more 

 surely what ought to be the radical programme of the 

 future. 



In 1885, when the matter became the subject of ex- 

 tensive discussion in the press and in Parliament, we had 

 the most extraordinary chaos of opinion as to what was 

 the real cause. I noted at the time at least eight 

 different suggested causes. One great authority in 

 Parliament stated that there was no accounting for it, — 

 political economy did not explain it. Other great 

 authorities agreed in this view, and the result was the 

 appointment of a Parliamentary Commission of Inquiry. 

 Another suggestion was that it was all a fallac}^ and 

 that there was really no depression at all. This was put 



