XII THE DEPRESSION OF TRADE 200 



aires seldom have more than two or three millions, the 

 American millionaires often possess ten and twenty millions. 

 And of course the result is still more clear. All this 

 money must have been obtained out of the purses of the 

 community, and to that extent the labourers who produced 

 it are so much worse off than if the money had gone into 

 their own pockets instead of into the pockets of the 

 millionaires. 



There is yet another source of poverty in America which 

 we have not to so great an extent in this country, and 

 that is the " rings " that sometimes get possession of 

 municipalities in the States. We have all heard of that 

 wonderful " ring " in New York which got possession of the 

 municipality, and plundered the whole community. They 

 kept it up for years by wholesale bribery. That is a thing 

 we do not hear much of in this country, but we may be 

 sure that what was done so boldly in New York was imi- 

 tated in other towns, and the result may perhaps be seen 

 in the municipal debt piled up in America far beyond 

 what it is in this country. The municipal debts of this 

 country are held to be a great and growing evil, and help 

 to occasion depression of trade. But in America it is 

 worse. An estimate was given in an American paper 

 some time ago ; it may not be correct, but it gives per- 

 haps a fair approximation. It compared American with 

 English municipal debts. It compared the fourteen chief 

 cities in America with fourteen large English towns, leaving 

 out London, and it was found that the average taxation 

 per head in America was fourteen dollars, whereas in 

 England it was only seven dollars ; and that while the 

 municipal debt in America was forty-one dollars per 

 head, in England it was only twenty dollars. In addition 

 to that, it was stated that the area over which this muni- 

 cipal indebtedness extended was greater in America than 

 in England ; that small towns in America — the very 

 smallest towns in the country — are often burdened with 

 debt, to a much greater amount in proportion than the 

 large towns. It has often puzzled people why America 

 should have suffered from this depression, but I think the 

 few facts I have here given afford a sufficient clue to it. 



VOL. II. P 



