288 Gold, Silver and the Coinage of the Stiver Dollar. 



Steam power in Europe and the United States, is increasing 20,000 

 horse-power weekly, and hence further economy of labor and another 

 fall in prices. 



In 1880, 5,000,000 sewing machines were at work, doing the work of 

 60,000,000 sewing women with the needle. 



There were also 3,100 Boston boot-making machines turning out 

 yearly 150,000,000 pairs of boots and shoes.* Mulhall's Prices, pp. 



Sea-going freights since 1861, have declined thirty-three and one- 

 third percent — equal to reduction of five per cent in the cost of 

 all merchandise. The general price level of 1884 being fifteen per 

 cent lower than the said twenty years, we find that one-third the so- 

 called depression in trade is simply an economy in freight. Ib., 

 p. 41. 



" Steel is now produced at one-third the cost of twenty years ago." 

 Ib.,— p. 70. 



Pig iron, by a saving of thirty-three per cent in coal since 1857, is 

 reduced eleven per cent in cost of production. 



Copper ores are worked at a saving of fourteen per cent. 



Petroleum which now stands for seven per cent of the total value of 

 mining products of the world, has fallen eighty per cent in prices in 

 twenty years. Mulhall, p. 77. 



An economy of thirty-three per cent in the whole range of hardware 

 merchandise has powerfully contributed to the present lower price- 

 level among nations, which is erroneously called trade depression. Ib., 

 p. 136. 



But I forbear further evidence to show that declining prices of 

 commodities alone cannot be relied upon to prove that the money 

 medium in which they are valued is appreciating. It is manifest to 

 the reflecting mind that every invention by which human labor is 

 relieved and aided — every machine which enables one man to do the 

 work of two or more in a given industry — every improved process or 

 manipulation in manufacture — every new means of harnessing nature's 

 forces in aid of productive industry, tends to cheapening the cost of 

 production, and that cheapened cost must be reflected in the prices of 

 commodities. With the world's advance in invention, in the applica- 

 tion of steam and electricity to the work of production, and the circu- 

 lation of intelligence in the last twenty-five, or even the last fifteen 



* The machine enabling one man to make 300 pairs of boots daily Mulhall, 

 Dictionary of Statistics, art. Boots, p. 55. 



