Memphis daily appeal. [volume] (Memphis, Tenn.) 1847-1886, 1883-06-27

Overproduction is The cry OF the day.
Prices 90 down and stocks lie on hand, and
the fault is all laid to ..overproducIion. Ii
there are people who will shiver next winter
for want OF stoves. it does not look as if there
was too much iron, nor if many 60 with bare
feet does it look as il there was an overpro-
duction Of shoes, yet everywhere goes up the
cry "overproduction." To look among the
laboripg population it certainly seems that q
great many rags could be abandoned if sui
6ciency of decent coats and vests and pants
could be obtained, yet We find the wool peo-
pie, like the rest, lanenling the vast over
production. "Overproduction has undoubt.
eddy occurred" says the Boston Advertiser;
"ihat is 10 say, the wooden mills have turned
out many goods which the market refuses to
absorb. The wool manufacturers are now
suffering from overproduction, Unremunera-
live rates and hardsbips." We find q Gin.
cinnati manufacturer, interested in five cot
ton mills, stating that these mills are running
at an actual loss. "One word" says .
commentor upon this statement, explains
Inc IOuUlc-ONcI 1hdL hd6 NC
pressed business in three leading industries
the cotton, wooden and iron. The multiple
cation of machinery and labor-saving inven-
tious has enabled these industries TO make
more than the country can consume. The
effect is low prices, reduction of wages and
labor strikes and trouble all round" Yet
there are people that cannot get sheets and
shirtr, snd hats and stockings sufficient for
comfort. 1t is strargs thing to see a crowd
of N manufacturers on one side full Of grief and
trouble because they have so much clothing,
so many sheets, and shirts, and shoes, and
stoves, and saucepsns, and kettles on hand;
and on the other side crowd of laborers in
equal grief and trouble because they are
almost destitute of the very things the man
ufacturers are in affection because they have
too many. And all the art and wit Of man
cannot show how all this distress is to be re-
moved and the goods that cause trouble on
one side transferred pro6tably TO the suf-
ferers for want of those very things
on the other. But these people have not
money 10 buy what the others have to sell,
says locker on. That is to say, if they had
money they would buy, yet the msnufactur-
ers, because they have many goods on hand,
seek as one means of relief, to reduce the
wages of the people who are suffering for
want OF their surplus merchandise. If they
want customers, and if these people would
be customers if they had money, to reduce
the little they get by giving them lower
wages, is evidently to reduce the number OF
their customers. How can men who act so
in opposition to all common sense expect to
escape tight times and panics? They have
them because they make them. They de-
prize the mass OF fair income, and in 80
doing render them powerless as consumers
and purchasers. This, not overproductiou,
ia what ia the matter. We May read pages
and columns written about the hardship
overproduction is causing, and conjsctures as
to what remedy will meet the case, bat in
no line of them will the strange contradic-
ton we have pointed out be alluded to, yet
until the remedy goes there the evils COM
planned OF will remain.