Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 29.djvu/510

494 1855 the value of gold produced exceeded that of silver in the proportion of seventy-seven and a half to twenty-two and a half; in 1884 the proportions were reversed, and the value of the silver produced was to that of the gold as fifty-seven to forty-three.

The question now arises whether the relative rarity of gold has been adequate to exercise a sensible influence on prices and on the commerce of the world as a whole. Many writers insist that the two phenomena are connected, because they are simultaneous. It is also worthy of remark that the production of gold fell off at the very time when a considerable number of nations turned to that metal as the basis of their monetary circulation; when the United States and Germany resumed specie payments in gold and Italy began to hoard it. The reasonings of these persons contain some facts mingled with conjectural inductions. Times of commercial crisis are always characterized by depression of values. In making our comparisons we should be careful to set off ordinary years against ordinary years, and not let peculiarly exceptional years, such as sometimes occur, slip into one side of the comparison to exaggerate the apparent difference. The depreciation of values, moreover, which is spoken of now, is not universal; but many articles have escaped it, or have been only feebly affected by it. A considerable number have held their own, or have risen in price, during the past twenty-five years. Tin has fallen but slightly; the same is the case with soap and bottles. In alimentary products the great depreciation which is talked of is hardly visible, except in wheat, coffee, and sugar. Salt, beer, butter, and pepper have risen. Meat falls but slowly, if at all, and hides are dearer than they were between 1861 and 1870. Through the list as a whole, the tendency to depreciation, it is true, is dominant, but the exceptions are numerous and important. When we turn to human services, of whatever kind, whether professional or those of common laborers, we find that salaries and wages have risen all around. Now, if the cause of the present crisis were the increase in the value of gold, the prices of everything, without exception, would have fallen. They have not done so, and we must look for other causes. If we look without prejudice, they will not be hard to find. Two conditions may be discovered existing in combination in the cases of all articles the price of which has fallen—that the production has become remarkably more abundant and the expenses of it have notably diminished. We find both these conditions existing in wheat, cotton, coffee, iron, cast-iron, copper, and everything else that is cheaper.

The amount of territory in cultivation in wheat has increased enormously: in Europe, thirty-four per cent in less than thirty-five years; in the United States, by nearly tripling in thirty-four years and doubling in fourteen years; in the British colonies outside of India, nearly as much. Contrary to the predictions of Malthus and Ricardo, the last quarter of a century has seen food-substances, through the whole