tures is due to the search for a market which occurs in every time of depression, and which furnishes no sure indication whatever of any real change in the currents of trade. All we know for certain is that on the other side the complaints abroad of the competition of English manufactures are loudest at such a time, and that facts as to foreign competition, similar to those now alleged, have been brought forward in every time of depression for the last half-century, without any serious permanent result on English trade being traceable. That trade, on the contrary, as, for example, after the year 1869, when a great noise was made about similar facts, always makes a more rapid advance than ever after each depression. No one can dispute, indeed, that English workmen are often foolish for their own interest, or that some English trades have diminished, and others may yet diminish or may become stationary, while foreign trades of the same kind increase. Still the question here is of the general prosperity, and it is easy to recognize the strength of the influences which are likely, and, we believe, are certain to limit the evils feared, as, in fact, they always have limited them. Our workmen do, in fact, succeed in getting higher wages, as a rule, than foreign workmen; they do not migrate, and pauperism does not, on an average of years, increase, all signs that manufacturing, as a whole, whatever may happen to particular trades, increases in England. It is because there is so much more profitable manufacturing here than elsewhere that our workmen can enforce the higher wages. As we certainly cannot expect that foreign countries should manufacture nothing at all, but must rather desire their manufacturing to increase, there is really nothing in all that is said of foreign competition to concern us in an inquiry as to the permanence of the present depression.

The fallacy in the use of these alleged facts as to foreign competition consists, indeed, very largely in the forgetfulness of other facts which are equally material: that our foreign trade itself is not everything to us, but is, after all, only a fraction of our whole business; that long before competition can diminish that trade materially it must produce

a fall of wages, while wages abroad will rise if foreign trade increases; and that although foreign countries increase their manufactures, we are not necessarily ruined, -— probably we are greatly gainers. To take what seems as formidable a case of possible competition with us as any that is threatened, namely, the increase of the American iron and coal industries under natural conditions. It seems probable enough that in course of time these industries will be very largely developed in the United States. The people have natural aptitude and skill, and other advantages, and they may produce iron manufactures cheaper than they can buy them abroad. In time they may export them to other countries. But how is England necessarily the poorer for that, and how much? We may come to export a smaller quantity of our iron manufactures to the United States than in the years before 1872; but at most we shall only lose the profit on so much trade, not the whole value of what we sold to the United States, which was, in comparison with our whole trade, by no means a large sum. Nor shall we even lose the whole profit. We can only lose the difference of profit between what was derived from that trade and the return on the less profitable trade, into which a portion of our capital and labor are diverted. Possibly, also, the growth of the world may be such that the expansion of American industry will not be exclusive of, but will be coincident with a similar expansion of our own, there may be room for both of us. In that case, there would be no reduction of the profits on our own trade at all, although America had become an exporter of iron manufactures. Ex hypothesi the increase of the American iron trade would also mean that America becomes richer, and consequently a better customer to the world generally for other things, -thus causing an increase of the general prosperity in which, with our extended and various trade, we could not but participate. Worse things may thus happen to us than a natural extension of the American iron trade; and if it is extended by protection only, it can of course do us still less harm. There is something essentially unsound, therefore, in the continual references to

the increase of manufacturing abroad. Our concern should rather be to have that manufacturing increase. To anticipate that the world outside England is to be merely agricultural or mining, is to anticipate the maintenance throughout the world of the least productive forms of applying human industry, and of low purchasing power among other countries. What mankind require for the greater efficiency of their labor is that the proportion of people employed in agriculture and mining should diminish, and more and more attention should be given to other forms of industry. England should grow poorer as this transformation is being effected, it is difficult to imagine. It appears to be as clear as any proposition, that the general increase of production, leading to still greater varieties and subdivisions of manufacturing than those which now obtain, must benefit most of all the countries like England, which have got the start of others, and possess all the best manufacturing appliances.

How

We should fully expect, then, when the liquidations which have been in progress are over, to see once more a great revival of prosperity. Still more, according to all former experience, the prosperity to come must be even greater than anything yet seen. Ever since 1844 there has been an ascending scale in the rate of our industrial advance. The years after 1848-49 were more prosperous than any before, but the prosperity of 1863-65 exceeded that of 1850–53, just as the prosperity of 1870-73 exceeded that of 1863-65. In like manner the next period of prosperity will probably exhibit a fuller development than 1870-73, and for a similar reason, namely, that the productive capacity of civilized nations, in proportion to their numbers, is annually increasing, being capable of almost indefinite increase. More railways and more machinery, the improved knowledge of chemical and other arts, imply that, one year with another, in proportion to their population, civilized communities can produce more real wealth than they did before. Depression comes at times because mistakes have been made, and the wrong things are produced; but when the mistakes are corrected, or some new favorable influence operates, such as a

good harvest, the tide flows again, industrial communities work up to their full power, and they are all richer than before. Possibly the workmen at a given place may take out their share of the increased production in the privilege of working fewer hours; but the prosperity is there, however it may be enjoyed. The great extension of railways throughout the world in anticipation of real wants, which was the mistake of the period of inflation, should, now that the mistake has been paid for, contribute to a more rapid advance of general prosperity than would take place if the world had fewer railways. . . . [1877.1]

1 It is obvious that if I were now writing I should have to speak of the liquidations, not of those years only [1873–76], but of 1873–79, and have to explain more points than I could possibly take up when writing in 1877. But I see no reason to doubt the general soundness of the view I have expressed on the course of the present depression and its origin; although, subsequent to the date of my writing, bad harvests and other accidents have aggravated that depression [1879].-R. G.

XV.

THE UNITED STATES IN 1880.

THE INCREASE OF POPULATION FROM 1790 TO 1880.

FROM WALKER AND GANNETT'S REPORT ON THE PROGRESS OF THE NATION. TENTH CENSUS, VOL. I., PP. XII-XX.

1790.

HE first Census of the United States, taken as of the

THE

first Monday in August, 1790, under the provisions of the second section of the first article of the Constitution showed the population of the thirteen States then existing and of the unorganized territory to be, in the aggregate, 3,929,214.

The

This population was distributed almost entirely on the Atlantic seaboard extending from the eastern boundary of Maine nearly to Florida, and in the region known as the Atlantic plain. Only a very small proportion of the inhabitants of the United States, not, indeed, more than five per cent, was then to be found west of the system of the Appalachian mountains. The average depth of settlement, in a direction at right angles to the coast, was 255 miles. densest settlement was found in eastern Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut, and about New York City, whence population had extended northward up the Hudson, and was already quite dense as far as Albany. The settlements in Pennsylvania, which had started from Philadelphia, on the Delaware, had extended northeastward and formed a solid body of occupation from New York through Philadelphia down to the upper part of Delaware.

The Atlantic coast, as far back as the limits of tidewater, was well settled at that time from Casco Bay south