the United States Bureau of Labor[1] (1886) have assigned a prominent place; and which the "Trades-Union Congress of England has by resolution accepted as being, in the opinion of the workmen of England," the most prominent cause, namely, "over-production." In a certain sense there can be no over-production of desirable products so long as human wants for such products remain unsatisfied. But it is in accordance with the most common of the world's experiences, that there is at times and places a production of most useful and desirable things in excess of any demand at remunerative prices to the producer. This happens, in some instances, through lack of progress or enterprise, and in others through what may be termed an excess of progress or enterprise. An example of the first is to be found in the circumstance that in the days of Turgot, the French Minister of Finance under Louis XVI, there were at times in certain departments of France such abundant harvests that wheat was almost unmarketable, while in other and not far-distant sections of the country there was such a lack of food that the inhabitants perished of hunger; and yet through the absence of facilities for transportation and communication of intelligence, the influence of bad laws, and the moral inertia of the people, there was no equalization of conditions.[2] An example of the second, intensified to a degree never before experienced, is to be found in the results of the improvements in production and distribution which have been made especially effective within the last quarter of a century. A given amount of labor, operating through machinery, produces or distributes at least a third more product on the average, in given time, than ever before. Note the natural tendency
- ↑ "Machinery—and the word is used in its largest and most comprehensive sense—has been most potent in bringing the mechanically-producing nations of the world to their present industrial position, which position constitutes an epoch in their industrial development. The rapid development and adaptation of machinery in all the activities belonging to production and transportation have brought what is commonly called over-production; so that machinery and over-production are two causes so closely allied that it is difficult to discuss the one without taking the other into consideration.... The direct results, so far as the present period is concerned, of this wonderful and rapid extension of power-machinery are, for the countries involved, over-production, or, to be more correct, bad or injudicious production; that is, that condition of production of things the value of which depends upon immediate consumption, or consumption by that portion of the population of the world already requiring the goods produced."—Report of the United States Commissioner of Labor, 1886, pp. 88, 89.
- ↑ This experience of France in the last quarter of the eighteenth century is repeating itself at the present day in China. General Wilson, in his recent "Study of China" (1887), states that "over ten million people died from starvation about ten years ago in the provinces of Shansi and Shensi alone, while abundance and plenty were prevailing in other parts of the country. Every effort was made to send food into the stricken regions; but owing to the entire absence of river and canal navigation, as well as of railroads, but few of the suffering multitudes could be reached."
amount of income or earnings available for their purchase in the home market. The depression under which we have so long been suffering is undoubtedly of this nature."—British Commission, minority report.
