profit on even the most promising kinds of capital during recent years has been everywhere exceptionally low.
Another notable tendency among investigators is to assign to clearly secondary causes or results, positions of primary importance. Thus (general) over-production,[1] or an amount of production of commodities in excess of demand at remunerative prices, finds greater favor as an agency of current economic disturbance than any other. But surely all nations and people could not, with one accord and almost concurrently, have entered upon a course of unprofitable production without being impelled by an agency so universal and so irresistible as to almost become invested with the character of a natural law; and hence over-production obviously, in any broad inquiry, must be accepted as a result rather than a cause. And so, also, in respect to "metallism" and the enactment of laws restrictive of commerce; for no one can seriously suppose that silver has been demonetized or tariffs enacted inadvertently, or at the whim and caprice of individuals, with a view of occasioning either domestic or international economic disturbances; but, on the contrary, the only reasonable supposition is, that antecedent conditions or agencies have prompted to action in both cases, by inducing a belief that measures of the kind specified were in the nature of safeguards against threatened economic evils, or as helps to, at least, local prosperity. And as crop failures, the ravages of insects, the diseases of animals, the disappearance of fish, and maladministration of government, are local and not necessarily permanent, they must all clearly, in any investigation, be regarded as secondary and not primary agencies. In short, the general recognition, by all investigators, that the striking characteristic of the economic disturbance that has prevailed since 1873 is its universality, of necessity compels a recognition of the fact that the agency which was mainly instrumental in producing it could not have been local, and must have been universal in its influence and action. And the question of interest which next presents itself is, can any such agency, thus operative and thus potential, be recognized? Let us inquire.
- ↑ No term has been used more loosely in the discussion of this subject of trade depression than that of "over-production." The idea that there can be such a thing as a general production of useful or desirable commodities in excess of what is wanted is an absurdity; but there may be, as above stated, an amount of production in excess of demand at remunerative prices, or, what is substantially the same thing, an excess of capacity for production; or the term may be properly used to indicate a check on the distribution of products consequent on the existence of such conditions.
