190 STUDIES, SCIENTIFIC AND SOCIAL chap. 



forward by an eminent member of Parliament who was 

 connected with money-making in the city. To this class 

 of people no doubt there was no depression ; money-making 

 and speculation of all kinds went on as briskly as ever. 

 Another suggestion — I am sorry to say the one adopted 

 by the Conference of Trades Unions of England — 

 was general over-production, an explanation which hardly 

 needs refutation, since it has been refuted so often. 

 Other suggestions were, that it was our free trade that 

 caused it ; and that it was due to the protection which still 

 existed in foreign countries. Then, again, a very general 

 view, and to some small extent a true one, is, that the 

 continuous succession, for three or four years at all events, 

 of bad harvests had something to do with it ; but then 

 there was another remarkable suggestion made, that the 

 rather good harvest we had some few years ago was the 

 cause of the more recent depression. That was seriously 

 put forward in a pamphlet published under the authority 

 of the Cobden Club, for it was stated that this good harvest 

 rendered it unnecessary to import so much corn from 

 America, and thus led to a depression in the shipping 

 trade, and that affected all other trades. The last of this 

 series of explanations was, that it was all due to the 

 currency, — that it was due in fact to there having been an 

 appreciation of gold and a depreciation of silver, one or 

 both. 



The Main Features of the Depression. 



Now it appears to me that a little consideration of the 

 true character, extent, and duration of the depression, 

 will show us that none of these causes can possibly have 

 been the real and fundamental one, nor even all of them 

 combined. In the first place, the depression has lasted 

 almost continuously for twelve years. It commenced 

 suddenly at the end of the year 1874, and has extended 

 not only throughout this country but, more or less, to every 

 great commercial country in the world. I think, taking 

 into account this long continuance, that no such depres- 

 sion is on record, at all events during the present century. 

 Now the characteristic features of this depression are, 



