Vermont watchman and State journal. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1836-1883, 1879-04-30
Causes OF Hard Times.

The press Of London and Paris are giving
serious attention to the causes of the hard
times which are becoming alarmingly threat
ening in this aspect both in Europe aud
Asia. But amid all this speculation upon
the subject, they do not fail to congratulate
the United States upon being fortunate in
feeling the depression but lightly when COM
pared with many other countries. For here
food has been abundant and cheap, an out
let for surplus laborers is found in the West,
and in almost every way our condition is
greatly superior to that of peoples in old
countries more or less worn out.
In an exhaustive review of the matter The
Pail Mall Gazette finds in the first place four
physical causes, operating on the largest
scale, and for prolonged periods, which have
had very depressing effect. Within the
last ten years England has had six bad har-
vests and but four good ones in France and
other wine-growing countries the disease of
the vine has entailed immense loss; in India
famine and pestilence have followed each
other in rapid succession, and lastly severe
type of cattle disease has extended over
nearly all Europe, which has impoverished
agriculture. The Gazette also enumerates
four political and military causes. First,
the Franco-Prussian war, which for two
years diverted from production a vast num-
Der of people and disordered all the economy
of demand and supply; secondly, the mil
,,f al 30
thirdly, the apprehensions of great Euro
pean conflict within the last few years. and
lastly, the drain of actual wars. Among
other causes mentioned are the reckless
building of railroads in our own country,
the loss TO Great Britain within recent years
of more than two hundred million pounds
sterling in the shape of bad loans to foreign
countries, and complete revolution in the
coal and iron industries of England, the
substitution of Bessemer steel for iron work.
ing great changes, as it will probably de-
stroy the iron trade of North and South
Wales, of Scotland and of Staffordshire.
To all these enormous drawbacks must be
added the severe labor strikes which have
still further depressed and demoralized al
most every industry.
Turning now to another class of writers
on the question, perhaps M. Maurice Block,
French economist of repute, takes as COM
prehensive and philosophical view of the
subject as anyone. M. Block regards the ex
traordinary growth of cities within the last
decade or two as one of the first causes of
the widespread depression. The city popu
lations have become too large for the rural
sections back of them, and hence there has
been an unhealthy stimulus in manufacture
ing articles of use and luxury which have
been crowded upon the tillers of the soil in
exchange for the necessaries of life. Of
course this condition of things has been
much more noticeable in Europe than in our
own country, though it has not been entirely
absent from here. This state of affairs, M.
Block remarks, has produced prodigious
complication of the economical system by
which the jewellers in great cities are sup
ported. This complication extends every |
where, as is illustrated by the fact that the |
products of the mill may find a market in
the city or the country, in civilized or un-
civilized lands, and that the breadstuffs |
which feed the manufacturer, if he be an |
Englishman, may be raised in Illinois, Rus
STA, India or Australia Times and the |
method of doing business have changed, and |
M. Block makes prominent the fact " that |
local calamites, local mistakes in policy, |