Name. Description. PRICE PER YARD OF LEEDS (ENGLAND) WOOLLEN AND MIXED GOODS, DUTIES, .648 .889 40 .678 40 .547 1.800 2.478 1. 891 40 .634 1.440 2.074 24 2.88 .35 40 .525 •West of England broadcloth. Fine worsted trousering... West of England beaver.. Fine worsted coating. woolen back, cotton warp) Matelassé (worsted face, woolen back, cotton warp)-[ Mantle cloth (worsted face, woolen back, cotton warp). 50 Diagonal Cheviot. Common blue Cheviot coating Cotton warp Moscow. Cotton-warp cloth Cotton-warp twilled Melton. Cotton-warp cloth Fancy overcoating (cotton warp). Cotton-warp reversible. Fancy overcoating (cotton warp). Cotton-warp coating. Imitation sealskin (calf hair mixed with wool, cotton warp). Cotton-warp coating. Cotton-warp Melton Cotton-warp serge Melton.. Reversible diagonal (cotton warp) Reversible nap (cotton warp) Cotton-warp reversible. 50 50 24 54 50 15 54 23 54 25 54 54 25 52 25 52 35 52 25 50 161 52 50 34 50 31 50 32 50 17 13 .32 .35 35 74 .35 ཡཱ 35 35 35 35 .270 .238 .547 .329 .328 .189 35 .503 .273 .245 .726 103.7 1. 426 This table is well worthy of careful study. In examining the figures given in the column headed "Price at factory," and the column headed "Per cent. of price at factory," which the total duty amounts to, the startling inequalities in the rate of duty to be paid in this country becomes apparent. The highest-priced goods named in the table is West of England broadcloth, worth $3.60 per yard in Leeds, the specific duty being 35 cents per pound and the ad valorem duty 40 per cent., making a total duty of 50.3 per cent. on the value at the fac tory. This is on a high grade of goods. In looking at the bottom of the table, the last entry is for cotton-warp reversible cloth, made in imitation of a better kind. It is worth but 45 cents per yard at the factory. The specific duty is the same as on the West of England broadcloth, 35 cents per pound; the ad valorem duty is 35 per cent. but the specific duty and the ad valorem duty together make the rate on the price at the factory 180.7 per cent. That is to say, the cheaper the goods at the factory the greater is the proportional increment of duty. The column headed "Per cent. of price at factory," which shows the percentage that the duty is of the factory price, brings this out clearly. By looking at this column it will be seen that this per cent.. steadily increases from 50.3 on high-priced goods to 180.7 on low-priced goods. It is such glaring inequalities that cause apprehension in the minds of producers, and they constitute a valid cause of, or rather they are a legitimate influence in, causing a disturbance in values, and therefore corresponding depressions. The adjustment of rates of duty on manufactured goods should be in accordance with the labor cost of production, if duties are to be continued. It is fallacious to attempt to regulate rates of duty by rates of wages alone. The labor cost in production and all the other elements of production must be considered before an equitable schedule can be arranged. Until some such basis is adopted, the inequalities shown in the foregoing table will exist, although they may be shifted so far as products are concerned. Miscellaneous.-Among the many causes named in the list as given at the beginning of this chapter and which many consider influential causes, but for which causes the agents of the Bureau found no supporting facts or illustrations, may be considered the national banking system. The banking system as it exists may have something to do with the stringency or plethora of the money market, but no facts have come to hand showing that it has in any way been instrumental in bringing about the present industrial depression. The same may be remarked relative to the silver question. What the silver question in the future may cause, whether prosperity or adversity, it cannot be alleged that in this depression it has had sufficient influence to produce the existing condition of things. It may have had some influence in the fluctuation of prices, but not as yet to a sufficient extent to cite the silver question as containing the important cause of or remedy for industrial depressions. Foreign capital may be a disturbing and contributory cause, but not a primary one. When capital in foreign countries cannot find profitable investment, and it seeks such profitable investment here at a time when manufacturing is overdone, then such capital aggravates the disease. Convict labor is a disturbing element, affecting the moral apprehension of large bodies of people, and thereby aids in irritating the public mind relative to depressions, but the labor of all the prisons in the country bears so small a proportion to the whole product of the country's industries that such labor cannot be considered as a prime or influential cause of depressions. The inadequate means of distributing the proceeds of labor has far more influence in producing depressions. Extravagant living and excessive parsimony have their contributory influence in producing and continuing periods of industrial depression. Occasionally men are found who consider the enactment or the existence of labor laws as a moving influence in creating and sustaining depressions, but it is difficult to see how such can be the case. A careful examination of all such laws enacted in the different States of the Union destroys the force of such a statement.a In the minds of consumers, trading in futures, corners, etc., is an influence productive of depressions; but while these things aggravate they cannot be said to cause such depressions. The same is true of strikes. Strikes usually come after a depression begins and just before the dawn of prosperity. They are accompaniments and not causes of depressions. The liquor traffic, as one of those causes which might be classed in the moral list and also among economic causes, is a thoroughly aggravating feature of all industrial conditions other than of prosperity, but intemperance cannot be said to cause industrial depressions. The reduction of wages follow so closely upon the opening of a depressed period that it is often considered a cause instead of an effect. Many workingmen consider the wage system as an obstacle to permanent prosperity, and that it is now, whatever it has been in the past, a failure. In so far as the wage system does not allow earnings to keep pace with the wants of the people, it is a contributing influence in the induction of depressions. As a system it will be treated more fully under remedies. The other causes alleged in the long list are those springing almost entirely from apprehension, and they have such slight effect, if any, that it would be impossible to illustrate their influence by any collection of data. a See Appendix C for a digest of such laws. CHAPTER III. THE MANUFACTURING NATIONS CONSIDERED AS A GROUP IN RELATION TO THE PRESENT DEPRESSION. It is apparent from the statistical illustrations given in the preceding chapters that the family of manufacturing states, Great Britain, France, Belgium, Germany, and the United States, if not also Austria, Russia, and Italy, are suffering from an industrial depression novel in its kind, and yet having characteristic features of similarity throughout the whole range of states. It seems to be quite true that in those states considered the volume of business and of production has not been affected disastrously by the depression, but that prices have been greatly reduced, wages frequently reduced, and margins of profits carried to the minimum range. Over-production seems to prevail in all alike without regard to the system of commerce which exists in either. What has brought all these states to the position in which they are found at the present time constitutes a most interesting and important question in economics, and one vitally affecting the wage-workers of the world. The wide study given to this matter has resulted in some conclusions entirely warranted by the facts, which may not be lacking in value, and not only the facts, but the results of the facts, are properly stated at this point. If each of these great communities has reached an industrial condition involving phases common to all, there must be somewhere a line of reasons for such universal condition, and one should be able to develop the logical course of events which has brought such a wide range of states to an industrial epoch. England, with generations of skill in mechanical employment, was the first to establish the factory system and institute a new industrial order of things, in which the division of labor became more and more an important factor.a She controlled also the exchange of the world. In her insular position she was able to make the world pay tribute to her by compelling the produce of the world to pass through her hands, either in kind or in settlement of balances. With these immense advantages, and having the control, too, of raw materials in abundance, it was natural that England should seek to supply the world with manufactured products. This she was able to do with the aid of her skill, a The moral and industrial causes which led to the establishment of the factory system are fully outlined in a report on the "Factory System," by the writer, for the Tenth Census. of her science, of rapid transportation, which she did much to develop, and of the vast capital which she possessed, enabling her to carry on great enterprises. So her ambition was natural and legitimate, and her great prosperity came to her without regard to any commercial system which she might have established, and in spite of commercial systems. Free trade became to her a necessity, because she sold to the world her manufactured products, and the world had few manufactured products to sell to her. With the constant increase of equipment to carry out her industrial policy, England at last found herself, on account of the course of other nations, with a plant altogether too large for the demands made upon her, and with a capacity sufficient to supply not only all her own home and colonial markets but a great share of the other markets of the world. The United States, after the war of the Revolution, found that political freedom only had been secured as the result of the war. Industrially this country was under the control of Great Britain. It became essential to establish a commercial system, which it was thought would enable our industries to become gradually free from the industrial control of England. This policy has, with few interruptions, been pursued to the present time. Foreign producers of manufactured goods have gradually lost the American market, and the American producers have gradually found themselves in position to supply the home demand. Stimulated in this direction, the United States has gone on perfecting machinery, duplicating plant, crowding the market with products, until to-day this country is in the exact position of England, with productive capacity far in excess of the demand upon it, and her industries, as those of Great Britain, stagnated, the wages of labor reduced, prices lowered, and the manufacturers and merchants trying to secure an outlet for surplus goods. This condition has been reached under a system the reverse of that which has prevailed in England, and while stimulation has been enhanced by the system prevailing here, the condition has been reached in spite of it. France, at first drawing her skilled workmen from England and tardy in the establishment of the factory system, at last concluded she ought to supply her own markets at least, and so began war on British industry. With a natural ambition to supply her own markets, she has carried the stimulation so far that she has not only secured the capacity to supply herself but has a vastly enhanced capacity, and is seeking to supply others. To-day France finds herself, through her policy, in precisely the same industrial situation that attends Great Britain and America. Germany has followed the example of France and the United States, and with precisely the same results. Her commercial policy or system has been, of late years, the same as that of the United States, while Belgium has followed that of Great Britain, and yet all these nations now find themselves in sympathy in their distress, all seeking outlets for their sur |