Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 31.djvu/792

772 whether a pound sterling or a dollar would have bought more or less of a given number of bushels, yards, or pounds at one time than another. In all other respects they are little other than curiosities; inasmuch as if some articles in a given period have risen and others have fallen in price, and if the fall of some and the rise of others can be undoubtedly traced to the action of entirely different causes, the grouping of these facts into the form of tables, and the endeavor to reduce the sum of the respective changes to a common average, can prove nothing whatever as to the cause or causes which have been operative in producing the changes. And between such discordant results effected by entirely diverse influences, there would, furthermore, seem to be no possibility of establishing an average; for the price of some articles, whose use has been superseded or impaired by change of fashion or new inventions, may fall nearly or quite to zero, while the price of others, by reason of increased demand or interrupted supply, may rise almost to infinity by comparison; and between such extremes there may be any number of gradations.

All, therefore, that can be confidently affirmed in respect to the extent of the recent depression of prices is, that comparing the data for 1885-86 with those of 1866-'76, the decline has been extraordinary and has affected most articles and most countries; and that the estimate of Mr. Sauerbeck (before referred to), of 30 per cent as the average measure or extent of the decline, is not excessive.

It seems almost unnecessary to remark, that a fall of prices, although commonly so considered, can not, in any comprehensive discussion, be regarded as in any sense a primary cause of economic disturbances; but that here again something antecedent in the nature of a cause or causes, more or less general, must be sought for in explanation. And of such causes, two only that are worthy of attention have been suggested: First, a great multiplication and cheapening of commodities through new conditions of production and distribution, which in turn have been mainly due to the progress of invention and discovery; and, second, that the precious metal used for standard money, viz., gold, has, through relative scarcity, owing to diminished production and increased demand, greatly appreciated in value; in consequence of which a given amount of gold buys more than formerly; or, what is the same thing, the price or purchasing power of commodities, in comparison with gold, has fallen.

As to which of these two causes has been most influential in occasioning the recent great decline in prices, the best authorities who have investigated the subject, as is well known, widely differ. It is also well recognized that the determination of this question is almost fundamental in the so-called bimetallic controversy; the plea for an increased use of silver as money being wholly predicated on an alleged insufficiency in the supply of gold for effecting the world's exchanges, while ample evidence of the scarcity of gold is claimed to be found in