Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 31.djvu/601

Rh example of changes of this character is to be found in the case of sugar. Thus, in 1883 the United States imported 2,023,000,000 pounds of sugar, for which it paid $91,959,000. In 1885, 2,548,000,000 pounds were imported, at a cost of $68,531,000; or a larger quantity by 525,000,000 pounds was imported in 1885, as compared with 1883, for $23,428,000 less money.

The statistics of the recent foreign trade of Great Britain, as reported to the British Board of Trade, by Mr. Giffen, also exhibit corresponding results. For example, the declared aggregate value of British exports and imports for 1883 were £667,000,000 as compared with £682,000,000 in 1873, an apparent decline of no little magnitude. But if the aggregate of the foreign trade of Great Britain for 1883 had been valued at the prices of 1873, the total in place of £667,000,000, would have been £861,000,000, or an increase for the decade of about thirty per cent.

An explanation of this economic phenomenon of recent years, namely, a continuing increase in the volume of trade, with a continuing low rate or decline in profits, may be found in the following circumstances: One constant result of a decline in prices is an increase (but not necessarily proportional or even universal) in consumption. Evidence on this point, derived from recent experiences, will be referred to hereafter; but the following example illustrates how this economic principle manifests itself even under unexpected conditions:

The price of sulphate of quinine of American manufacture in July, 1879, was $3.35 per ounce in bulk. In June, 1886, the quotation for the same article in bulk was 68 cents per ounce. Quinine is used mainly as a medicine, and is so indispensable in certain ailments that it may be presumed that its cost in 1879 was no great restriction on its consumption, and that no great increase in its use from a reduction in price was to be expected, any more than an increase in the use of coffins for a similar reason—both commodities being used to the extent that they are needed, even if a denial of the use of other things is necessary, in order to permit of their procurement. And yet, that increase in the cheapness of quinine has been followed by a notable increase in its consumption, is shown by the fact that the importation of cinchona-bark from which quinine is manufactured into Europe and the United States during recent years has notably increased; about 4,000,000 pounds having been imported into the United States in 1886, as compared with an import of 2,580,000 in 1883. The following statement also illustrates even more forcibly the ordinary effect of a reduction of price on the consumption of the more staple commodities: Thus, a reduction (saving) of 6d. (twelve cents) per week, in the cost of the bread of every family in Great Britain (a saving which, on the basis of the decline in the wholesale prices of wheat within the last decade, would seem to have been practicable), has been estimated as equivalent to giving a quarter of a million