RECENT ECONOMIC CHANGES. 589 



afford some indication of the rapid increase in wealth in recent 

 years among the people of the United States. 



We have, therefore, in this experience, the phenomenon of the 

 strangely persistent value of a comparatively useless gem, during 

 a period when the prices of most other commodities were dimin- 

 ishing by leaps and bounds, as well as the extraordinary concur- 

 rent absorbent power of the world for a greatly increased product. 

 But the demand for diamonds latterly is thought not to have kept 

 pace with their increasing production ; and it is said that the stock 

 of diamonds in the hands of dealers in 1888 was fully twenty-five 

 per cent in excess of their requirements. To meet and neutralize 

 the influence of this condition of affairs, the South African dia- 

 mond-mining companies have limited production, which for the 

 time has advanced prices. But the tendency obviously is for dia- 

 monds to decline in value ; and the wonder, indeed, is that this has 

 not happened at an earlier date. " One thing, furthermore, seems 

 certain, and that is, that when the breakdown of speculation and 

 prices does occur, the consequences will be singular and far-reach- 

 ing. For it is to be remembered that for the most part the use of 

 diamonds is a mere whim of fashion, that may change at any 

 time. There is no way of stimulating the demand for them, ex- 

 cept by lowering prices, and, of course, if prices were materially 

 reduced, the wealthy votaries of fashion would inevitably cease 

 to wear diamonds, and would take up some other form of per- 

 sonal adornment/'* The price experience of diamonds in the 

 near future promises, therefore, to be even more interesting than 

 it has been in the recent past. 



In the United States during recent years there has been a re- 

 markable decline in the price of hides and in certain descriptions 

 of leather ; " Buenos Ayres " hides having sold in May, 1889, at the 

 lowest figures for thirty years, while the leather trade generally 

 has been depressed and unsatisfactory. The agency occasioning 

 the first result is ascribed to the great increase in the supply of 

 domestic hides consequent upon a notable extension of the Ameri- 

 can (Western) cattle industry ; and, in the case of the second, to 

 an over-production and decline in demand for upper-leather, in 

 consequence of a change in fashion, whereby lighter grades of 

 foot-wear have supplemented the use of " leg-boots." 



CHANGES OP INDUSTRIAL CONDITIONS IN TROPICAL COUNTRIES. 



The improvements in recent years in the production of sugar 

 from the beet, and the artificial encouragement of this industry 

 in the continental states of Europe through the payment of large 

 bounties, have in turn compelled the large producers of cane-sugars 

 in the tropics to entirely abandon their old methods of working, 



* London " Economist." 



