Weekly Chillicothe crisis., 1884-11-27
Why Every Thing is Cheap.

WuJ IfSiJ lining 10 OhVop
Speaking of wool recalls the fact
that wool and woolen goods are
cheaper to-day than they have been at
any time in this century. Sheep breed
ers the world over are in dispair.
There's some profit in the meat, but it
no longer pays to grow wool, But we
live in an era of cheapness. Cotton
goods go begging in Europe and
America. Wheat Is so low in price
that farmers are impoverished. In
deed, everything, from iron to indigo
meat alone excepted--is selling at
unremuneratiye prices. The distress
in trade is universal and poignant.
We complain of bad times in this
country; but the people in Europe, es-
pecially in England, are still worse off.
Everything is cheap, but the money is
not forthcoming with which to buy.
In England they talk seriously of re-
turning to protective duties in order
to revivify trade. The business jour
nails of the world are discussing the
question of this unnatural Cheapness
of everything produced by human
labor. Nature has been generous with
her gifts. The harvests of the world
were never larger. The organized in
dustrieS of mankind are now so per-
feet that fabrics of all kinds can be
manufactured to any extent, yet the
result is distress in trade and the
throwing out of employment through
out the world literally of millions of
laborers. Financial authorities seem
to have agreed that the difficulty is
over-production; but if the working
class is to be deprived of their means
of living, their distress will increase
Notwithstanding the abundance Of
food, raw material, and manufactured
articles. The real trouble, according
to our own view, is the falling of in
the production of gold and silver MIN
ing and the attempt of the commercial
world to get rid OF silver money. The
world was never so prosperous as
during the reigns of the early Roman
Emperors, when gold and silver
money abounded. During the middle
ages the Christian world was impover-
iShed because of the monkish preju.
dice against the neglect of the gold
and silver mining. There was an
amazing revival Of industry after the
Spanish conquest of South America
when the great silver mines began tc
pour their streams of the white
precious metal in all the channels oI
trade. The splendor of the reigns o.
Queen Elizabeth and Charles the Fiftl
was due to this great outpouring o
silver from the American mines. The
, next great revival of industry wa,
y caused by the gold discoveries in Cali
iornia, Australia and elsewhere, som,
forty years ago But for the las
twenty years gold mining has produced
r small returns, nor has silver minin!
/. held its own. This falling oil has oc
. Cured in a time when there was
4 prodigious addition to the commercial
and industrial activity of the age, an,
O when more, instead of less, money wa
o needed TO keep the business of man
n kind in motion The action of Gel
l. many and other nations in demoneti7
ing silver has still further reduced tn
II precious silver reserve, and as consC
1t quencc the business of the world is i
II distress, and is likely to remain SO fC
IS years to come. But the possessors {
ready money were never so well Of
E, The capitalist increases in wealth, bt
o. cause the fall of prices is but anothe
ID way of saying that money has create
T. purchasing power. r.-DcmOrcSt S Month
for December.