XII THE DEPRESSION OF TRADE 201 



is the cause, to an unknown but enormous and incalculable 

 extent, of the existing depression of our trade. 



Now these two great causes — loans to foreign nations, 

 at first inflating and then necessarily depressing our trade 

 by the impoverishment of the people ; and the increase of 

 war-costs, which, as I have shown you, have been always 

 enormous, and have been of late years ever increasing — 

 these two may be considered to be the great external 

 factors which have caused the depression of trade, by im- 

 poverishing our customers all over the known w^orld. The 

 effects of these two causes are clear as daylight ; the result 

 is an inevitable result ; and the amount of the evil is so 

 gigantic, that I think I am justified in placing them in the 

 front as the most important and inevitable causes of the 

 depression of trade. Yet, so far as I am aware, during 

 the many months that the Royal Commission has sat not 

 one word has been said about either of these causes ; and 

 I believe, when the final report of the Commission is 

 issued, that you will probably not find one word about 

 them. 



The Increase of Millionaires as a Cause of Depression of 



Trade. 



I now come to another branch of the subject, that 

 which deals with our home trade — with the causes of the 

 depression in our home trade in addition to that pro- 

 duced in our foreign commerce. I have given the increase 

 of speculation and of huge fortunes made by speculation 

 as one of the chief causes, and I will first adduce a few 

 facts to prove that it is really the case that millionaires 

 have been recently increasing. 



The sums paid for probate duty have been published, 

 and they show the amount of property on which probate 

 duty is paid, but this only covers what is called the 

 personal estate, it does not cover the landed estate ; conse- 

 quently, whatever the valuation is, it represents only a 

 portion, and sometimes only a small portion, of the whole 

 estate. To make it simple I have divided the results into 

 two periods — the ten years previous to the commencement 

 of the depression in 1874, and the ten years subsequent 



