the remarkable fall of prices which has been recently experienced. It is, however, a universally accepted canon, alike in logic and common sense, that extraordinary and complex agencies should never be invoked for the explanation of phenomena, so long as ordinary and simple ones are equally available and satisfactory for the same purpose. And with this premise, it is a matter of the highest interest and importance to observe how, with very few exceptions, the phenomenal decline in recent years of the prices of the world's great staple commodities admits not only of a ready and complete explanation in accordance with the first cause, but is, in fact, in the nature of an inevitable sequence from it; and, in support of this proposition, attention is asked to the nature of the agencies which have been so identical, absolute, and exclusive in determining the recent decline of prices in the case of such a number of what must be regarded as typically staple commodities, that their conjoined experiences would seem so fully to establish a rule, as almost to compel all antagonizing results, especially in the case of products of minor importance, to be regarded in the light of unimportant exceptions.
What these agencies have been, how they have acted, and what disturbing influences they have exerted on the world's prices, on the world's industries, commerce, and consumption, and on pre-existing relations of labor and capital, will, when fully told, constitute one of the most important and interesting chapters of political economy and commercial history. Such a complete statement it is not at present proposed to attempt; but the following exhibit of results, derived from a study of what may be termed the recent production and price experiences of a considerable number of important commodities, will, it is thought, better contribute to an understanding of the situation, and to a solution of the difficult economic problems involved in it, than any other method hitherto adopted.[1]
The commodity of prime importance in the commerce and consumption of the world, which appears to have experienced the greatest recent decline in price, is sugar, which has fallen to a lower rate than has ever been known in the history of modern commerce; the wholesale price of fair refining sugars having been more than 114 per cent higher in 1880 than in the first half of the year 1887.[2]
Now, while improved methods of manufacture and greater and
- ↑ "A general movement in prices is the resultant of a number of particular movements, and in these particular movements, again, we find the proximate causes of the distribution of the industrial forces of the world and of the wealth which these forces create."—Professor Nicholson, University of Edinburgh, etc.
- ↑ How continuous and regular has been the decline in the price of sugars in recent years is shown by the following table, which exhibits the average price of fair refining sugars in bond (or free of duty) in New York from 1880 to July, 1887, inclusive:
1880, 5·08 cents.1885, 3·06 cents.
1882, 4·53 cents.1886, 2·92 cents.
1884, 3·31 cents.1887 (lowest to July), 2·3712.
