Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1895-01-17
The overproduction Nonsense.

Are there too many things? More yards
of cloth than people want to wear, more
pairs of shoes than they need for use, more
loves of bread and rounds of meat than
they want to eat? Really, to ask the ques-
tion is to answer it, The economist or
editor who utters such an assertion should
be compelled to live in some of the tene-
ment-house districts, and to live as the
people there do live. There are millions
who have not enough bread and meat for
their needs, nor enough shoes or clothing,
or cotton or wooden goods. What do these
theorists mean?
More things than people can afford
buy? That is question OF price. The
poor woman in Rivington street, who gets
only one loaf for cents, would be very
glad to get for the same money two loaves
for herself and her children, and could il
bakers were more nearly honest. The
workingman who pays 20 cents u pound
for meat, which cost his butcher less than
10 cents, would gladly buy two pounds at
the same price. The butcher and the
baker must live? Yes, but not necessarily
so many of them, and half as many, doing
twice the business, at only quarter as
much profit per pound, would live just as
we'll. If their profits We're only'a quarter
as much, the people who buy most kinds
of things could buy twice as much with
the same wages.
Then the trouble is in retail profits and
prices? Partly, but long story lies be-
hind. The people do not require as much
in one year as in another. The man who
buys three suits of clothes this year may
need only one next year, and if he gets
carpets for his whole house, he may not
need more carpets for two or three years.
If the millions took turns Systematically,
so that just the right proportion did their
buying one year, and others the next, the
account might balance. But they do just
the other way. When all are hopeful, all
spend freely at the same time. Thus part
of the force required to supply needs in
good years will inevitably be idle in years
of lean buying, and the fact that they are
idle, and have less to spend, also makes
less buying
What causes these spells of good and
bad? Crops in part, all over the world.
Far more largely the speculative spirit,
which often rises when crops fall. But
these natural variations are at times made
of no account by others which are not
natural but depend upon regulation of
finances or trade between different coun-
tries. If Germany and other European
countries fix their laws so that they buy
less meat or grain from us, that will leave
our farmers less to spend. The European
restriction may itself be the cause:of a stu
Did blundar in our laws, mainly because
rulers were ignorant of treaty obligations
but also because they had brainless par
tisan prejudice against the reciprocity
plan of former ADMINISTRATION. thus
we SOW partisan prejudice and ignorance
nrd in due time the crop is smaller buying
Of American goods by American farmers
Or we sow senseless theories of free trade
and they sprout in a tariff which closes
hundreds of American mills in order that
yeople may have chance to get cheaper
foreign goods, and the fruitage is a de-
crease of buying all around, and the peo-
pie have not as much as before to spend.
The worst times this country has seen
for fifty years came with the decision of
the people for a change of national r1ccy
i'm 1892. They came just when business,
reviving wonderfully in 1891 and 1892, had
reached the highest point ever attained
vet seemed certain to go much higher.
Because things looked so bright, every
body had made ready to do a big business
and the shrinkage involved prostraton
for many. What the country voted for il
is getting. But it is the stupidest kind of
foolishness to pretend that the world has
somehow arrived at producing more
wheat and more cotton and more cloth
than it can use. Double the production,
with prosperity, and the world would
readily consume it all,-[New York
Tribune.