St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1894-04-02
THE FALL PRICES.

THE FALL IN PRICES.
Recently the cause of silver has re-
ceived some notable recruits in notable
quarter. Senator Carey. in speech Oh
the seigniorage bill, read a letter from
Charles Francis Adams. In which that
gentleman admitted that he had
changed his views with further study,
aud that he favored bimetalIism, aud.
while he did not believe that i: was
feasible if undertaken by this country
alone. that the evident drift of senti-
ment abroad was in favor Of it.
Francis A. Walker, superintendent of
the tenth census. author Of political
Economy" used as a text book in Our
schools, has also issued a pamphlet ad-
vocatlng the international restoration of
free coinage. This outbreak of heret-
ical notions in steady-going New Eng
land has stirred up the dispntants. and
the papers TEEN with their arguments.
That assertion with which We of the
" est have become SO familiar in recent
years, that the general fail in the prices
OF the staple commodities has not only
been synchronous with the deprecia-
its effect, is taken up by the new re-
cruits and urged with sober earnest,
ness. v1
Prominent among the disputantS is
that patient investigator. Edward Atkiu-
son. who in recent paper. addresses
himself TO an examination of this claim
and refutatiOn Of it. Mr. Atkinson Is
one of those men who never jump to a
conclusion. He never permits coin
cidence to crowd itself OIL him as cause
and effect unchalienged. He refuses to
pass Judgment on one or two sets of
facts if there are other concurrent
facts which may have a bearing as
factors. No detail is too laboriOus for
him. He is always interesting and in
structive. even when one is disposed to
dissent from his conclusions.
Starting from the established eco
nomic proposition that the cost OF pro-
ductiOn is in the long run the arbiter of
value he includes in the cost of produce
ton everything that. lis involved from
the extraction of the material from the
earth until the finished product is
placed in the hands of the consumer.
This includes necessarily the transpOrta-
ton of the article in all its various
stages. Manifestiy then the great rail-
road development of the past thirty
years has been a powerful force Ill re-
ducing the cost of this factor of produc-
ton. As an example he cites the cost
OF carrying a bushelof wheat from Chi
cago to New York In 1865. 1875 cents. as
wit "a, re N
1865 to 1869 the cos. per ton per mile on
the New York Central, the lowest seIv-
ice then given. was 254 cents. Had the
same price obtained in 1891 the freight
| earnings of the roads would have been
| s34S7 per capita, whereas they were but
| $11.S0. a reduction of about two-thirds
II the cost of carriage of products.
But it is when he computes the aggre-
| gate of this reduction during several
years that its magnitude is shown. Had
the average from 1865 to 1869 of 2.Sl
| cents per ton per mile been maintained
from 1888 to 1892 inclusive, the excess of
| the carriage of all the fuel, fabrics, tex
| tiles and food over the actual charge
made for the service during that decade
would have been 1000. 100000, a sum
| in excess of the entire market value of
4, all the stocks and bonds of the whole
railway system of the nation at the end
| of that decade. 1t could not be other
| wise under the hammer of the cOmpeti-
| ton in the production of the great sta
| pies, than that such reduction in their
| transport from producer to consumer
| must have appeared in the lower price
of products.
But Mr. Atkinson is not content with
| showing this factor Of depreciation.
About 70 per cent of the cost of susie
| nance for a man for year. he esti-
| mates, is made up OF the following
articles, which he terms his multiple
| Standard" Two hundred pounds of
-four, 800 pounds of meat, so pounds of
butter, 10 bushels of potatoes, 20 pounds
of rice, 10 pounds of coffee. pounds of
tea, 50 pounds of sugar, 300 pounds of
iron. 10 pounds of wool and Is pound S
of cotton. The cost of this combination
of necesSaries in 1850 was SIS IS; in
1860, $S7. 80; i'll 1870. S1G3. 81, and In 1890,
1 SSH.
While the price of silver from 1850 to
1870 was comparatively stable the val
ues rose, thought the contention of the
silverites has any truth, they should
have remained about stationary. On
the other hand, the fall from 1870 to
1892 was not proportional to the fall in
that metal. Mr.. Atkinson estimates
that this fall is very largely due to tn c
decreased cost of distribution, and what
ever difference there remains may be
credited to improvements in the proc
esses of production, the reduction, un'
der the operation Of competition, inurine
to the consumer. These facts warrant
him IN concluding that there is abso
lutely nothing left of the hypothesis o.
"a fatal fall in prices since 1876" as {
result of the decentralization of silver
THE Ortonville Headlight is away GU
on the political skirmish line in nom
mating Tom johnson for president il
'96, and still johnson is clearly the rep
resentatIve of the spirit of Democracy
which declared itself at the Chicago
convention and put the present ad min
istration in power.
THE reduction in the river and harbo
bill submitted amounts to SO, 270,611
1t does not appear. however, that the in
terests of commerce will suffer seriousl
because of this extraordinary cut. AL
the harbors Of Importance to commerce
are provided for literally. the amounts
set aside for their improvement beini
! all that can be expended judiciously ant