CHAPTER XII 



THE DEPRESSION OF TRADE, ITS CAUSES AND ITS REMEDIES 1 



FOR more than half a century both our Government and 

 our mercantile classes have acknowledged the importance 

 of political economy, or the science of the production of 

 wealth ; and they have made it their guide in trade, in 

 manufacture, in foreign commerce, and in legislation. 

 During the same period we have had advantages that 

 perhaps no nation in the world's history ever enjoyed before. 

 It is during that period that steam has been applied 

 to railways ; during that time the great gold discoveries 

 which added so much to our wealth, and gave such an 

 enormous impetus to our trade, took place. We, especially, 

 profited by these things, because we had as it were the 

 start of other nations in possessing enormous stores of coal 

 and iron, in the working of which we were pre-eminent. 

 While the railway system was being developed all over 

 the world, it was we who, to a large extent, supplied the 

 coal and iron, and also the skill and labour, used in making 

 these railways. During this same period, too, our colonies 

 have increased with phenomenal rapidity, and have 

 supplied us with customers for the commodities which we 



1 This article is the substance of a lecture delivered at Edinburgh in 

 1886, and published as one of a series of Claims of Labour Lectures. 

 It is an abbreviation of my little book on Bad Times, and is reprinted 

 here because I believe it contains views which are as true and as 

 applicable now as they were then. I have not attempted to alter the 

 colloquial style of the lecture, nor have I brought up the figures and 

 statistics to the present time, because the argument it embodies is 

 a general one and will continue to be applicable so long as our political 

 financial, and social arrangements remain substantially unaltered. 



