42 W. G. Langivorthy Taylor 



occasion, which started 'the disturbance in the agricultural mar- 

 ket. The comparative cost of production was the long-time 

 cause, soon blending into the permanent materialistic environ- 

 ment, which prevented the return of agricultural production to 

 its pristine fields. It will usually be noted that those changes 

 that are to become permanent environmental conditions do not 

 operate except some adventitious or sportive element throw the 

 burden upon them. They do not come forward of their own 

 accord and directly change the current of affairs ; they exercise 

 their controlling power only upon occasion ; but the occasion 

 usually arises, provided there be in the industrial economy a 

 sufficient content of energy, action, motion, enterprise. 



It is not surprising that the demands of England for grain 

 were more permanent than those of the United States for iron 

 and steel, since the agriculture of England was decadent, 

 whereas the domestic American steel industry was nascent and 

 vigorous. The close of the Civil war, the liquidation of post- 

 bellum speculation fostered by paper-money financiering, the 

 return to specie payments, the oblivion of the losses of 1873, had 

 furnished the psychic, social conditions for a return of indus- 

 trial enthusiasm. This attitude of the industrial public was more 

 than an occasion for a positive movement : — so long as it lasted 

 it formed a subjective condition of the continuance of the move- 

 ment. The fact that England now greatly increased her unfa- 

 vorable balance of trade, however, acted as a temporary stim- 

 ulus, in turn, to English industry. The volume of trade was 

 large and consisted of raw material, such as grain brought from 

 India, America, or Russia, or of bulky articles, of no high or 

 remote degree of manufacture, such as rails. In marine trans- 

 portation comparative cost lay in favor of England. It was 

 twenty years since the equilibrium of transportation cost had 

 been permanently adjusted in her favor. 



The business of shipping, therefore, took a great boom in 

 England 1880-82, and this specialized prosperity obscured the 

 great calamity to agriculture. The domestic liquidation due to 

 that calamity was put off. The earnings of transportation were 

 diffused through the credit system of England and lightened the 



42 



