Sept. 22, 1887] 



NATURE 



493 



extreme degree of the fall, and I must express the greatest doubt 

 whether a mere difference of degree aggravates materially the 

 periodical disturbance of industry, tending to check production, 

 which a fall of prices from a high to a low level causes. So far 

 as past experience has gone, at any rate, no such cause has been 

 known to check production to any material extent. If any such 

 cause tended to have a serious effect we should witness the results 

 every time there is a shrinkage of values owing to the contrac- 

 tion and appreciation of an inconvertible paper currency, and I 

 am not aware of any such contraction having had the effect 

 described on production, though the effect in producing a feeling 

 of depression is beyond all question. The facts as to the great 

 contraction in this country between 1815 and 1820 are on record, 

 while the experience of the United States after the civil war is 

 also fresh in everyone's recollection. Contraction of currency 

 and fall of prices, though they are painful things, do not stop 

 production materially. 



Another explanation suggested is that there is in fact no ante- 

 cedent reason for supposing that the rate of material growth in 

 a' community should always be at the same rate — that a com- 

 miinity may, as it were, get "to the top " as regards its 

 development under given conditions, and then its advance 

 should be either less rapid than it had been or it should even 

 become stationary. The defect of this explanation is that it 

 assumes the very thing which would have to be proved. Is 

 there any other sign, except the alleged check to the rate of our 

 material growth itself, that in or about the year 1875 this country 

 got "to the top"? It has, moreover, to be considered that on 

 a priori grounds it is most unlikely a community would get to the 

 top per saltum, and then so great a change should occur as the 

 apparent change we are considering. The persistence of internal 

 conditions in a given mass of humanity is a thing we may safely 

 assume, and if these conditions are consistent with a given rate 

 of development in one period of ten years, it is most unlikely 

 that, save for an alteration of external conditions, there would 

 be another rate of development in the succeeding ten years. 

 Human nature and capacities do not change like that. Scientific 

 opinion, I believe, is also to the effect that the progress of 

 invention, and of the practical working of inventions, which 

 have been the main cause of our material growth in the past, 

 have been going on in the last ten years, are still going on, and 

 are likely to go on in the near future, at as great a rate as at any 

 time in the last fifty years. Except, as already said, the apparent 

 check to the rate of our material growth itself, there is no sign 

 anywhere of our having got to the top, so that a stationary 

 condition economically, or a condition nearly approaching it, 

 has been reached. 



Last of all, it is urged that the diminution in the material of 

 our growth, which is in question, must be due to the fact that 

 we are losing the natural advantages of coal and iron which we 

 formerly had in comparison with the rest of the world. This is 

 perhaps only another way of saying that we have got to the top 

 by comparison, though the community of nations generally has 

 not got to the top, and another way of saying also that foreign 

 competition affects us more than it formerly did — an argument 

 already dealt with. But the question whether coal and iron at 

 home are really so indispensable to our material growth as is 

 sometimes assumed appears itself so important that I may be 

 excused for specially discussing this question, notwithstanding 

 that it has virtually been disposed of, as far as any explanation 

 of past facts is concerned, by what has been already said. 



The argument proceeds on the supposition — which is no doubt 

 well founded in the abstr act and as far as the past experience of 

 mankind is concerned — that in addition to natural capacities of 

 its own a community requires for its prosperity certain natural 

 advantages, fertility of soil, rich and easily-worked mines, a 

 genial climate in which labour may conveniently be carried on, 

 and so forth. A community possessing all these things, or the 

 like things, will flourish, but as it ceases to lose any of them its 

 prosperity must become precarious, and population must flow to 

 the places where they can be secured. Of course climate is not 

 a thing which changes, as far as any practical experience is 

 concerned ; but relatively the advantage of a fertile soil may be 

 lost, as England has lately lost it in comparison with the United 

 States and other new countries, its soil having become inade- 

 quate for the whole population ; and still more the advantage of 

 mines, especially mines of coal and iron, on which the miscel- 

 laneous industries of a manufacturing country depend, may be 

 lost. Hence it is said the check to our rate of growth in recent 

 years. We have long since lost our agricultural advantages by 



comparison. Now we are also beginning to lose the special 

 advantages which coal and iron have given. Our mines are 

 becoming less rich than those of foreign countries, and the 

 balance is turning against us. Why should not population 

 relatively flow from England to the United States and other 

 countries as it has passed within the limits of the United King- 

 dom itself from Cornwall and Sussex to Staffordshire, Lanca- 

 shire, Yorkshire, and the north ? In this view the coal famine 

 of 1873 was the sign of a check such as Mr. Jevons anticipated. 

 What has happened since is only a sequence of the like causes. 



I need not repeat in opposition to this view what has already 

 been said as to the inadequacy of any actual decline in our 

 foreign trade to account for such a check to our general growth 

 as is supposed to have occurred. If the loss of our natural ad- 

 vantages of coal and iron in addition to agriculture are having 

 the effects suppose!, we ought to witness them in our foreign 

 trade, and in fact we do not witness them to the extent required 

 for the production of the phenomenon in question. 



What I wish now specially to urge is that in consequence of 

 the progress of invention and the practical application of inven- 

 tions in modern times the theory itself has begun to be less true 

 generally than it has been. It is no longer so necessary, as it 

 once was, as in fact it always has been until very lately, that 

 people should live where their food and raw materials are 

 grown. The industry of the world having become more and 

 more manufacturing and, if one may say so, artistic, and less 

 agricultural and extractive, the natural advantages of a fertile 

 soil and rich mines are less important to a manufacturing com- 

 munity than they were at any former period of the world's 

 history, because of the new cheapness of conveyance. Under 

 the new conditions, I believe it is impossible to doubt, climate, 

 accumulated wealth, acquired manufacturing skill, concentration 

 of population, become more important factors than mere juxta- 

 position to the natural advantages of fertile soil and rich mines. 

 The facts seem at any rate worth investigating, judging by what 

 has happened in England and other old countries in the last 

 half- century, and by what is still happening there. 



Take first the question of food. Wheat is now conveyed 

 from the American Far West to Liverpool and London and any 

 other ports in the Old World for something like five shillings 

 per quarter — equal to about half a farthing on the pound of 

 bread, or a halfpenny on the quartern loaf. The difference be- 

 tween the towns of a country with fertile soil, therefore, and 

 the towns of a country with inadequate soil is represented by 

 this small difference in the price of bread. At about fivepence 

 the quartern loaf the staff of life may be about 10 per cent, 

 cheaper in the fertile country than it is in a country which does 

 not grow its own food at all, and which may be thousands of 

 miles away. As the staff of life only enters into the expendi- 

 ture of the artisan to the extent of 20 per cent, at the outside, 

 and into the expenditure of richer classes to a smaller extent, 

 the difference on the whole income of a community made by 

 their living where the staff of life would be cheaper would be 

 less than 2 per cent. — too small to tell against other advantages 

 which may be credited to them. What is true of wheat is even 

 more true of meat and other more valuable articles of food, 

 where the cost of conveyance makes a less difference in the pro- 

 portionate value of the food in situ and its value at a distant 

 point. The same more and more with raw materials. Cotton 

 and such articles cost so little to transport that the manufacturing 

 may as well go on in Lancashire or any other part of the Old 

 World as in situ or nearly in situ ; and even as regards metals 

 or minerals, except coal and perhaps iron, the same rule ap- 

 plies, the cost of conveyance being as nothing in proportion to 

 the value of the raw material itself. As regards coal and iron, 

 moreover, there are many places where they are not in absolute 

 juxtaposition, and if they have to be conveyed at all they may 

 as well be conveyed to a common centre. Iron ore and iron at 

 any rate are beginning to be articles of import into the old 

 countries of Europe to which the cost, in fact, offers very little 

 difficulty. The additional cost to the miscellaneous manufac- 

 turing of a country through its having to bring iron and coal 

 from a distance may thus be quite inconsiderable, and apparently 

 is becoming more and more inconsiderable. As regards raw 

 materials generally it has also to be considered that, owing to 

 their immense variety, there is an undoubted convenience in a 

 common manufacturing centre to which they can be brought. 

 Hitherto they may have come to England and other old coun- 

 tries of Europe in part because coal and iron were abundant 

 there in juxtaposition ; but the habit once set up, there seems 



