MONEY FALLACIES. 
377 
average embraces the sum of the widest inequalities in the 
distribution of ownership of capital, from a fortune of 
$100,000,000 or more down to the ownership of a sewing- 
machine or typewriter. 
Third, in respect to rents. Throughout the greater part 
of the country they have increased. The term rent, of 
course, is used in its economic sense. The increase of rents 
has been unequal, being greater in city and town property 
than in country property. In some farm lands, notably 
those of New England, rents have greatly fallen; in the 
Central and Southern States they have generally increased ; 
on the frontier of the agricultural states, Dakotas, Nebraska, 
and Kansas, they have lately begun to exist at zero, and are 
steadily increasing. We must, however, distinguish between 
the profits of farming and the economic rent of farm land. 
Agricultural profits have during the last ten years greatly 
fallen all over the world, and the cause is world wide. 
As this thought brings me to the real lesson contemplated 
in my address, I will, as briefly as possible, develop it in its 
outline, and show what part money fallacies play in the 
drift of human sentiment and human action. The de¬ 
pression of agriculture, as has been remarked, is world wide. 
It has of late years been felt not only in Europe and America, 
but has spread to tropical countries in Asia and, to a less 
extent, even to the unprogressive states of South America. 
It has pressed with severe force upon the colonies of Aus¬ 
tralia and South Africa and the Mohammedan provinces of 
the Levant. Extremely few countries or districts have es¬ 
caped. A few have had the good fortune to be shielded from 
the pressure by reason of some special crop not produced 
elsewhere or producible on its native soil only in limited 
quantity, or grown under special conditions of market not 
common to the rest of the world. The causes have already 
been alluded to. Proximately, the cause has been the rail¬ 
road and steamship, by which vast areas of good land 
has been brought under cultivation, the cost of production 
cheapened, and the produce brought to market at won- 
