The true northerner. [volume] (Paw Paw, Mich.) 1855-1920, 1894-05-04
PAW PAW, MICH, MAY A, 1894
Cause Of the Depression.


there is, some increase in business in
certain lines of industry, but as whole
there is little that seems to be immedi-
ately encouraging. The improN ement
wherein it occurs arises from the partial
exhaustion of certain lines of goods, or
machinery, and necessity that the
stock be replenished. This demand
creates the movement that is slightly
felt occasionally in special channels.
But wherever manufactures are started,
or have continued in operation during
the depression, great care is taken to
restrict production to what can be inn
mediately sold, for no manufacturers
will take the chances of the future.
How can they, on falling market?
They would be unwise to take any risk
beyond the present. The scale is un-
erringly towards a lower plane of value.
If prices are adjusted to-day, apparently
they will have to be again adjusted to
IA new set of conditions month hence,
and the new scale will be a lower one.
Prices were down to "hard pan" we
thought, some time ago; but there has
been almost a steady shrinkage since.
The causes of the depression have
been repeatedly stated, and as given
they are legion in number To one
it Is the imitation of the currency; to
another it is the contraction of the
ind . 10 m IL
ton of the currency; it is the demonet
ization of silver; it is deficiency in the
volume of currency, and so on dd flattunl.
But whatever silver, pro or con, has
had TO do with the industrial depression
of the United States, its influence has
not been suddenly felt. 1t is no more
adverse now than it has been for years
past. No new danger threatened, none
was apprehended; but the trouble has
come all the same, and has come
rapidly and with a vengeance.
1t seems apparent enough that the
main causes of our industrial depression
are to be traced To the workings of
the old law of supply and demand, and
the expectation Of our being forced into
competition with the pauper labor of
Europe. This applies in this way: The
Mckinley tariff bill was a long time
before congress, and after its passage a
considerable time elapsed before the
law went into effect. Advantage was
taken of this interim by merchants and
manufacturers to import into the coun-
try vast quantity of goods and of ma
terials to be subsequently used in manu-
facture here in anticipation of profits
from increased value when the law
should go into effect. 1t was anticipat-
ed that the Mckinley schedule of duties,
with but slight notifications, would re-
main in force in this country for long
period; but scarcely had the country
adjusted itself TO the conditions of the
new tariff measure than the great DEM
ocratic success assured its extinction.
The country became aware of the GER
tainty of the adoption of tariff policy
wholly at variance with anything that
the present generation of people in this
country had experienced. Everyone
was alarmed. There was much store
OF foreign goods in the country that had
been imported to escape the increase of
duties, and under the Mckinley law
much stimulus was given to home man.
utacturG; SO that there was really great
accumulation OF goods in the country in
nearly all lines. Manufacturers, afraid
togo on, ceased to operate, and laborers
employment. They ceased to earn,
consequently they ceased to purchase.
The farmer cannot buy manufactured
goods unless he has money, and he can
not have money unless he has customers
has a market for his products; and he
cannot have these unless the men who
should consume his products have en-
ployment wherein to earn the money to
pay him.
Laboring men, and women, are idle
and have been idle for months in this
NOuhbiJ W a Adi CAlCuO Jlluu has
ever occurred before. They are con-
sumers still, but to an infinitely less ex-
tent than they were formerly in pros.
porous times
Under the Mckinley law we knew
the conditions; we were assured of our
markets; we were assured of the work
ing of our mines and factories to the ex-
tent of at least supplying the wants OF
this country. With It's abrogation, and
the substitution of the monstrosity that
threatens us, we are assured of nothing
but calamity, because we put down our
barriers and give away our advantages.
1t is just as much To the advantage
of Nation as it is to family or an in.
dividual to profit by all the circum.
stances which favor it. We have proved
by our experience in the last thirty
years that the laboring people in this