Nevada County picayune., 1886-10-27
Causes of the Industrial Depres-
 sion.

me 1lfSt annual TepoII ol tEc United States commissioner of la bor, just published, deals first with the subject that has been for three years uppermost in the public mind the industrial depression-and discusses it with minute thor oughness and fairness that add not little to the value and inter- est of the report.
 In the search for the causes of the industrial phenomina alluded to, the first curious fact encounter ed was that no fewer than 13S al legged causes were found, and grouped under such heads as ad- ministration, banking, capital, com- petition. credit, currency, railroad ing, education, interest, labor, liv- ing, machinery, speculation, pro- duction, tariff, taxation and wages. "It is interesting to note," remarks the commissioner, ''how fully trade, profession or calling influences opinion. Bankers and merchants are likely to give as the absolute cause some financial or commercial reasons; clergymen and morallsts largely incline to assert that social and moral influences, anlted with providential causes, produce the industrial difficulties which atfiict nations; manufacturers give indus trial conditions, labor legislation, labor agitation, the demands of work ingmen, over-production and varl- ous features of the industrial sys- tenn as causes, while the working men attribut industrial diseases to combinations of capital, long hours of labor, low wages, machinery and kindred causes" The commis sioner's opinion is, that the real causes are falling prices, machin- cry aud over-production, variation in the cost of production, variation in the rates of wages, speculative railroad business, under-consump- tion and tariff irregularities. The report estimates that in the year 1885, of the r 1892, ,OOO persons en' gagged in all occupations in the country, there were 100000 out of employment, crippling all de- pendent upon them, and involving loss of $1 ,0OO, 900 day, or S3OO,- 100000 a year-a sum sufficient to cause a reaction in business, and d general curtailment of expenses, with apprehension and timidity among all classes. And yet, it is curious to observe that while the depression causes crippling to the extent of several hundred mil lions a year of the consuming pow CT of the people, the volume of business is not proportionately i'm paired. The liabilities m the fail ures of 1885 were only Sl24,OOO,. 900, while in 1881, they were S226,- OOO, ,OOO, and in 1883 S172,OOO,OOO. There were more tons Bessemer steel ingots produced in 1885 than in any one year ever before. There were more miles of railroad built in 1884 than in any one year ever before; the production of pig-iron in 1885 barely fell below that of 1884, and was greater than the production of any other previous year. The production of bitumi- nous coal m 1885 was S17,OOO,OOO tons greater than in 1882; the pro. duction of boots and shoes in 1885 was greater than in any previous year; and the number of deposi- tions aud amount of deposits III savings banks was greater in 1885 than ever before. But while the volume of business in the country has thus been maintained through the industrial depression, prices have steadily declined, involving a dilnunition of profits till many kinds of business have been con ducted with no margin for the cap ital invested. Indeed, this cutting down of profits, caused by sharp competition, is one of the chief causes of complaint among manu- lecturers, merchants and contrac- tors; they do as much business as evpr-in mahy eases more--but they have little to show for 1t, be- cause they are constantly working on descending market.
 WRITE FOR PRICES on anything in the Jewelry line, to $ w White, Hope, Ark.