Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 06.djvu/133

* DELYANNIS. 103 DEMAND AND SUPPLY. held the onice a third time from 1895 to 1897, when, under prcs^^ure of pulilic opinion, he in- volved CJrcwe in the disasUous war with Turkey, and was obliged to resign with his entire Cabinet. DEMADES, dem-a'dez (<ik. Av,"<i'''/C) ■ An Athenian uralor and uiiserupuUms politieian of the fourth century B.C. lie was a leading member of the -Macedonian party, and for the twelve years preceding Alexander's death a leader in Athens with Phocion. When Aiitipater was advancing on Athens in B.C. 322, Demades and Phocion were sent as ambassadors to him. Their acceptance of the terms offered was made the basis of a charge that they had been bribed: some years later Antii)ater discovered that Ueniades had been false to him. and put him to ileath. None of his speeches are extant; in antiquity there were current under his name fourteen orations, but they were all recognized to be spurious. Ex- tracts from one of these {Hspl AuikKderiai;, Pen Dodekaelias) are edited by Haupt in Hermes, vol. xiii., pp. 498 et seq. Ve have also a collec- tion of sayings attributed to him — Demadea. Consult Blass, Atiische Beredsamkeit, iii. (Leip- zig. lSS7-0:5). DEMAND. A technical term of the common law. signifying a legal claim or obligation. It is defined by Lord Coke as "a term of law, of an e.xtent greater in its signification than any other word except claim"' (Co. Lit. 291). In addition to the claims enforceable by actions, such as con- tracts, debts, obligations, etc., it includes, as well, all rights enforceable by entry, by seizure of goods, or by any other act. A release of all demands, therefore, is the most comprehensive release that can be given. The usual form of 'general release.' as it is called, is to release "all claims and demands whatsoever." See Rele.^se. The term demand is also employed in law in a narrower sense, derived from its general sig- nification of a request, or summons, addressed to another in legal form, calling upon him to perform a legal duty which he owes to the de- mandant. Such a demand is frequently neces- sary to fi.x an inchoate legal obligation and to entitle the claimant to bring an action for its enforcement. Thus, under ordinary circum- stances, no right of action arises for a breach of promise to marry unless a previous demand can be shown, and the same is true of all con- tract obligations in which the time of perform- ance is not definitely fixed, as well as of others in which the time is not a material element. So, in other classes of rights, a demand and its re- fusal are frequently necessary to give to a wrong- ful act the sharpness and definiteness requisite to make n legal remedy available. For example, where goods are wrongfully detained by a finder, or by any other person whose original possession thereof was lawfully acquired, he nuist refuse a demand for them before he becomes liable in trover for a conversion ; and so, before abating a nuisance, either personally or by action, a de- mand must usually be made upon the person maintaining it. There are other cases in which, though a definite default has been made, entitling the in- jured party to sue without further notice, a demand for performance may yet be necessary to enable him to avail himself of .some more drastic reinedv: as in the case of a failure to pay rent at the stipulated time, though an action will lie for the breach of contract, the landlord cannot enter for breach of comlition and put an end to the lease without previous demand. It should be added that, in all cases in which a demand is requisite to fix a legal liabilitj-, the requirement is dispensed with if the party in de- fault has put it out of his power to comply with it, and in some jurisdictions the courts have gone so far as to hold a demand unnecessary in all cases in which it would probably have been un- availing. See Breach : Coxvebsion : Liability; (^lAsi Contract; and consult the authorities refcriid tfi under these titles. DEMAND AND SUPPLY. It is a familiar axiom of political economy that price depends upon demand and supply. Simple as the propo- sition appears, it has been the subject of inter- minable dispute because of the inevitable ten- dency to make of the rule a sweeping generaliza- tion applicable to all times and all places. None the less it remains a convenient form of stating the phenomena which determine market price. If in a given market the supplj- of goods is increased, prices cannot be maintained. If, on the other hand, the demand increases with a stationary supply, prices will rise. If, in the foregoing statement, there is little ambiguity about the word supply, which means a certai;i physical quantity of goods, it cannot be said that the notion of demand, a psychological factor, is so simple. While demand is not merely desire, but is always associated for the purpose of eco- nomic reasoning with the ability to satisfy the desire, it is clear that the volume of demand depends itself upon the price. There are certain areas of demand which generally grow larger as the price diminishes. In the first instance, when supply is increased, larger areas of demand must be reached in order to effect the sale of the goods, and to do so the price must be reduced. In the second case, it is assumed that demand increases in its several grades. It will now be possible to sell the goods by serving only the higher areas of demand, and in so doing the price can be raised. Within narrow limits, therefore, the adjustment of demand and supply can .so proceed that irregularities in either will reveal themselves in price changes. But it is clear that changes might be quite abnormal, that stipply, for instance, might be so vastly in- creased that the goods would not be salable, while demand might so diminish that a like re- sult would be reached. The law of supply and demand is most simply stated for a given commodity in a given market as we have done, but no account of it would be complete without a reference to the reaction of demand upon supply. Whether by an increase of the supply of a ])articular class of goods the price would be permanently lowered would de- pend upon whether this increased supply became a permanent factor. If by the price reduction a lowering of i)rofits is the result, we nuist ex- pect a curtailment in the product. On the other hand, a permanent increase of demand which in the first instance led to an enhancement of ])rice must in time lead to a prospect of profits which invites capital into that line of business, and hence an enhancement of the supply. In the case of freely reproducible goods we find this tendency at work to prevent abnormal changes in customary and usual price relations. If, on