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The relative gains of the producing classes during the period of rising prices down to 1873 were not more marked than their relative losses during the period of falling prices since that date. The stagnation of business, which checked the production of wealth, fell with especial severity upon the wageearning classes. The employers always discharged their hands before they discharged themselves, and the loss of employees through slack work and no work have often exceeded their losses through reduction of wages. The only class that has gained from falling prices has been the creditors and others with fixed incomes. Their share of the product has been increased. The share of the producing classes has been proportionately diminished.

These conclusions are strikingly supported by the wage statistics of the past half-century. Among European countries these statistics are most complete for England, and the course of wages there has been summarized by Leroy-Beaulieu in his volume on "The Distribution of Wealth."* In 1875, says the distinguished French monometallist, wages were nearly 60 per cent. higher than in 1859 and nearly 90 per cent. higher than in 1839. In 1887, however, they were" from 10 to 20 or 25 per cent." lower than in 1875.

In our own country the course of wages has been the same. This is even shown by the Aldrich report, so monotonously cited by the defenders of the gold standard. This report was prepared four years ago under the direction of Senator Aldrich of Rhode Island for the purpose of showing the advance in wages under the protective system. Its partisan bias, however, was less manifest in the selection of establishments from which wage returns were secured than in the treatment of those returns at the hands of the experts employed to summarize them. The returns made by employers show, just as European statistics do, that wages advanced rapidly whenever prices advanced and fell whenever prices fell. The only exception to this rule was during the civil war, when prices were raised by additional taxes and the rate of interest was doubled by the war loans. As wages are always lessened when taxes and interest are increased, labor's losses during the civil war were plainly the result of the burdens of the war, and not of the expansion of the currency.

Except during the war, the Aldrich report shows that laboring classes gained when prices were rising and lost when prices were falling. The committee's summary does not, indeed, bring out the loss of the laborers when prices were falling, but the returns made by the employers do bring it out. The summary only conceals it by making the gains of a few foremen counterbalance the losses of scores of hands, and by making a rise in wages among less than thirty clerks counterbalance a fall in wages among several thousand cotton operatives and iron workers. The employers' returns ran as follows:

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In short, wages in gold in these selected city establishments rose 53 per cent. during the period of rising prices from 1860 to 1873, and fell 7 per cent. during the period of falling prices between 1873 and 1891.

These, however, are the returns most favorable to the monometallists. The Aldrich report also contained returns for wages in mines, prepared by Hon. Joseph D. Weeks, whose volume in the census of 1880 is probably the ablest and fairest report on wages ever made in this country. In the typical mines reported by Mr. Weeks the average wages in gold varied as follows:

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For agriculture we have comprehensive national statistics for the last half century. These show that a rapid advance in farm wages began with the gold discoveries and ended with the demonetization of silver. Unfortunately we have no national returns for the years just preceding the demonetization of silver, when wages and prices were at their highest. However, we have for this period the Massachusetts labor report for 1872. According to this report, and the national reports for 1860 and 1890, farm wages in Massachusetts have changed as follows, when measured in gold:

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The returns for all industries in this country, as in England, show that wages advanced fully 50 per cent. during the period from 1860 to 1873, in which prices advanced about 15 per cent., and wages fell full 15 per cent. during the period from 1873 to 1890, in which prices fell 25 per cent. The relative gains of the laborers were far greater during the period of expanding currency and rising prices under bimetallism than during the period of scarcer currency and falling prices under the gold standard.

These statistics, moreover, give the wages of laborers when actually employed, and the heaviest losses of laborers under the gold standard have come from the lack of employment. This was especially true of the years of panic and depression from 1873 to 1879. With the rise of prices that followed the resumption of specie payments and passage of the Bland act there was a marked recovery in the rate of wages and a still more marked recovery in the extent of employment. A similar period of relief came with the rise of prices under the Sherman act of 1890. But only during the years of comparative ly steady or rising prices was labor fully employed and prosperous. Whenever prices fell the panic or depression in the commercial world created in the

labor world an army of unemployed. These panics and depressions never came when prices were rising. Those who to-day are simultaneously predicting that the free coinage of silver will cause the doubling of prices and a commercial panic have as little history as logic to support them. A panic has always meant the inability of business men to meet their obligations without selling at a loss. A panic never did occur and never can occur when prices are rising.

How heavily wage earners have suffered from reduced employment when prices have fallen is brought out clearly by the wage statistics of the past three years. Since the gold standard was made international in 1893 prices have suffered a further fall averaging 6 per cent. a year. The earnings of farmers have been reduced as much as the price of farm products has been reduced, but farmers have not been thrown out of employment. The wages of city employees, on the other hand, have not been reduced as much as prices; yet city employees have suffered as much as farmers. Even among railroad employees the sufferings have been acute, though these employees are well organized, and this industry is a rapidly growing one which has suffered less than any other from the fall in prices. According to the returns prepared by the companies for the Interstate Commerce Commission's report, just issued, the average daily wages of railway employees were reduced but 21⁄2 per cent. between 1893 and 1895. But according to the same report the number of employees, instead of increasing 10 per cent. in two years, as it did when prices were steady, had decreased 10 per cent. thousand new employees, one hundred thousand old employes were out of work.

Instead of one hundred

The losses reported for railway employees are exceptionally light. In most industries there has been during the last three years another heavy fall in the nominal rate of wages. In almost all indus

THE

tries the number of men employed full time has been enormously reduced. The Connecticut labor report for the year following the closing of the Indian mints (June, 1893) showed a reduction of 5 per cent. in the daily wages paid by the manufacturing estab lishments of the state and a reduction of 25 per cent. in the yearly wages paid. The sufferings of farmers were light in comparison with the sufferings of these Connecticut operatives. This, however, was an extreme instance. The Massachusetts returns are more nearly typical. In that state, where the statistics of manufactures are singularly complete, the average daily wages paid and the aggregate yearly wages paid during 1892, 1893 and 1894 varied as follows:

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Daily wages declined 7 per cent. during the two years; yearly wages declined 16 per cent. In other words, while the nominal wages of the employees declined less than prices, their actual wages declined more than prices.

Such statistics as these are simply general illustrations of an economic principle which thoughtful workingmen recognize without statistics. When prices rise business activity increases, and every class except the lenders of capital gains from the increased production of wealth; when prices fall business depression increases, and every class except the lenders of capital loses from the reduced production of wealth. The wage earners pre-eminently belong to the producing and not the money lending classes. When, therefore, prices rise they receive an increasing share of the increasing product of industry, and when prices are forced down they receive a decreasing share of the decreasing product. No class except the debtor has suffered so much from the gold standard, and no class except the debtor will gain so much from the remonetization of silver.

II. THE NEGATIVE VIEW.

BY PROFESSOR RICHMOND MAYO-SMITH OF COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY.

HE economist who reasons rapidly and with a light heart, says Marshall, is apt to make bad connections at every turn of his work. Our silver friends, who so glibly explain everything by one theory, trace all economic evils to one cause, and make one measure a panacea, are suffering the usual fate of simple philosophers. So long as bimetallism was a theory, it might be accepted as a plausible explanation of low prices and dull times. But when free coinage of silver, at the ratio of 16 to 1 by the United States alone, came sweeping down upon us as a practical proposition, and men began to question how it would affect them particularly, not to speak of questions of national honor and commercial credit, it became difficult to make satisfactory connections all around. The most excruciating dilem

ma was in connection with the effect of free coinage in raising prices. The farmer, the manufacturer, and the debtor had all been promised higher prices as a relief from their distresses. Unexpected difficulties have since been encountered in persuading even these classes of the honesty of the proposal, or the efficacy of the remedy, and they still remain skeptical. But still more, it has been and is an impossible task to convince the salaried man and the wage-earne that higher prices mean prosperity to him. And why?

That the American workingman should deliberately, by his own vote, led either by the flattering assurances of demagogues that the common people understand the money question better than the financiers and economists, or excited by class feeling

that what is opposed by his employers must be good for him, and vice versa—that the American working man, I say, should deliberately put up prices on the chance of wages following, is the greatest example of offering one's self as the corpus vile for social experimentation that the world has ever seen.

If, however, the workingman is seriously contemplating such action, what are the chances of his coming out unhurt, or what are the chances of his "experiencing something to his advantage? The elements of the problem are as follows :

(1) Does experience (history) show that with rising prices wages advance more rapidly, with equal rapidity, or lag behind? (2) Does common sense show that it is easier to put up prices or put up wages? (3) Will the "boom" in business compensate the laborer for increased prices by giving him steadier employment? I think only the exigencies of a political campaign would lead any one to deny that history shows, and common sense proves, that in a period of rising prices wages rise more slowly than prices; while the same exigencies have caused men to exaggerate the certainty and beneficial effects of the "boom" consequent upon inflation and a high range of prices.

I.

To turn to the first question. Economic historians unanimously agree that when prices go up wages lag behind. This comes from unimpeachable testimony, taken long before the bimetallic controversy was thought of. It is only necessry to quote what Rogers, the greatest authority on the history of prices, says about the effect of the debasement of the currency in the time of the Tudors. From the reign of Henry VIII. to Elizabeth prices of food and wages rose in the following way :

"Meat was three times the old rates, corn two and a half, and dairy produce two and a half. But the rise in wages was only a little more than one and a half times. In other words, where the wages of a laborer rose from 6d. to 9d. a day, he had to pay 3s. for meat, 2s. 5d. for butter or cheese where he paid 1s. before. The same fact discloses itself in regard to those articles where labor gives them their chief value. The price of fish, of prepared fuel and of building material rose but little above that of labor. The producer of animal food, grain and other agricultural necessaries commanded a better market than the dealer of any other article of value did, while labor, and those products the value of which is principally derived from the outlay of labor, partook in the least degree in the rise of prices.”

Even if base money had not been issued, the general rise of prices would, according to Rogers, have injured the laborer.

"Between the middle of Elizabeth's reign and the breaking out of the Parliamentary war, a period of sixty years, general prices more than doubled, while

a very miserable increase is effected in the wages of labor, certainly not more than 20 per cent."

This is perfectly impartial testimony and of a kind that fits into our present situation. The free coinage of silver, if it raises prices, will be a debasement of our currency precisely similar to the issuing of base money by the Tudors, except that in our case the direct profit will be reaped by the silver mine owners, while in England it was reaped by the sovereign, who, in a sense, represented the community. The result will be the same ;-prices will go up, wages will increase at a slower rate. This has been, and is, the universal testimony of history.

Two other points are noteworthy in Rogers' statement. One is that the prices of articles whose chief value is due to labor increased more slowly than the prices of other commodities. This is a very subtle point, but it has a direct bearing upon the question in hand. It is precisely because wages do not go up that the prices of those articles whose chief value is due to labor increase less than the prices of other commodities. Here is a lesson for the American laborer. Does he care to put up the price of wheat and meat, while the price of manufactured articles, out of which his increase in wages must come, goes up more slowly? He seems not only to be playing with dice, but the dice seem to be loaded against him.

The other noteworthy point is in the second quotation-viz., that even during the period of natural and gradual inflation caused by the influx of silver from America, the condition of the laborer grew worse. The seventeenth century, which has been so much vaunted as the age of commercial expansion, did increase national wealth, build up the merchant class and increase the power of the aristocracy against the kingship; but it increased pauperism, reduced the standard of living, and destroyed the independence of the guilds, the labor organizations of those days. Again we may ask the American laborer whether, if the consequences of a natural and gradual inflation of the currency are so dubious, he will take the risk of an artificial and violent inflation by the free coinage of silver. For the more violent the change, the greater the dislocation between prices and wages.

The

It is not necessary to cite further historical cases. All economists have recognized this tendency until it has become one of the truisms of the science. experience of our civil war, with the inflation due to paper money, has been so often cited that it is not necessary to repeat the facts here. They prove be yond a doubt that prices increased much faster than wages, notwithstanding the demand for labor due to the governmental demand for commodities, and in spite of the presence of great armies in the field withdrawn from active competition in the factory and on the farm. The validity of particular figures of the Aldrich report may be questioned, but the testimony is of such an overwhelming nature that

the validity of the general conclusion cannot be doubted. Inflation is at the expense of the workingman so far as wages and the cost of living is concerned.

II.

Common sense or reason sometimes anticipates human experience, sometimes simply confirms and ratifies it. Is there any real difficulty in understanding and accepting the teaching of history in this particular case? Does it not stand to reason that it is easier to put up prices than it is to put up wages? Prices need only to be marked up, and with a currency decreasing in value it is absolutely necessary that the producers make a strenuous effort to put up prices in order to save themselves from loss. In doing this they meet, of course, with the resistance of the consumer; but this resistance is unorganized, spasmodic and hampered by the customary mode of living which leads people to continue their ordinary consumption even when prices have gone up. They must, at any rate, continue their consumption of the necessaries of life, although luxuries may be curtailed, furniture and houses be made to wear longer and various forms of personal service be dispensed with.

Unor

When we come to putting up wages the reverse condition is met. The efforts of the laborers are opposed by the employers, who object to increasing their labor bill. Organized labor may succeed by striking or by threatening to strike, but generally only after considerable loss and hardship. ganized labor succeeds only after a long time. In the first place, it requires some time for it to realize the change that has taken place to its disadvantage. In the second place, the only thing that can raise the wages of ordinary labor is the competition among employers when the increased prices are giving them abnormal profits and they are anxious to increase production as much as possible. This will happen only if they are sure that prices will continue high, and on condition that there is no other supply of labor, and also on condition that the employer cannot have recourse to labor saving machinery.

III.

Will free coinage of silver increase employment and the demand for labor? This seems to be the remaining chance for the workingman. If prices go up, business, it is said, will be encouraged, the demand for labor will be increased, employment be more constant, unemployed labor be absorbed, and the laborer's annual income be increased even if his daily wages are not. With steady employment the laborer will be able (it is said) to stand a stiffening in prices even if the rate of wages should for some time lag behind.

In this theory present lack of employment is ascribed solely to monometallism, and the laborer's gain is made to depend upon the predicted "boom"

from free coinage. But it is not clear that present lack of employment is due to the gold standard. The suffering after 1873 may reasonably be attributed to the overspeculation and overproduction which the previous period of inflation had brought about. The panic of 1893 may reasonably be attributed to the loss of confidence due to an overweighted paper and silver currency; while the present stagna. tion is undoubtedly due to uncertainty about the future standard of value. The statistics of Great Britain and the United States do not show an extraordinary amount of unemployment, except at these critical periods, and to ascribe such unemployment to contractions of the currency is begging the whole question. Extraordinary increase in the productive power of the world leading to overproduction, the speculative spirit encouraging wild enterprises, and the vagaries of political financiering, at one time expanding the currency by purchasing silver and at another attacking the basis of national credit-these things are a more natural explanation of the uncertainty of business and the fluctuations in the demand for labor than is the "crime of 73." It is a solace to our business pride and an easy solution of economic perplexities to ascribe all our woes to one act, but the solution is too easy.

If the uncertainty of employment is not due to a single cause, much less will the single remedy proposed be sufficient.

In the first place, the apprehension of the free coinage of silver will unsettle all credit relations. Creditors will be anxious to get back their money and refuse to lend further until they know what the future will bring. Depositors will withdraw their deposits and banks will be obliged to call in their loans. All business will be crippled and curtailed. The immediate effect of the free coinage of silver will be an immense increase of unemployment. Labor will receive a blow from which it will take years to recover, and compared with which the panic of 1893 will seem like child's play.

The workingman's well-being depends upon three factors-money wages, low cost of living and constancy of employment. His true policy is to seek that combination of these three factors which will yield him the maximum result in the way of happiness. The "reality" in the present situation is the cost of living. It is beyond reasonable doubt, also, that in an era of falling prices wages have not fallen. Free silver will assuredly increase the cost of living faster than it will send up wages. It is at least doubtful whether it will increase the constancy of employment. The conclusion seems unavoidable that the workingman in voting for free silver is sacrificing two great elements of prosperity and well-being for a poor chance of gaining the third. It is inconceivable how the gospel of high prices, so attractive to the debtor and the speculator, can deceive the man whose well-being consists in what wages will buy.

IF

BY ERNEST KNAUFFT, EDITOR OF THE "ART STUDENT."

TAIL-PIECE IN "THE STORY OF A FEATHER," BY

DOUGLAS JERROLD.

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F the titles current in literature some years ago were now in vogue, such as "The Poet turns Farmer," ," "The Tradesman turns Poet," we should certainly call this sketch, "George Du Maurier; or, the Illustrator turns Novelist." For it is because the veteran picture maker of Punch suddenly sprang into popularity as the author of " Trilby," that we can give his biography that consideration which, had he died five years ago, would have been denied the artist-satirist. Then a few admirers would have mourned the demise of so clever a caricaturist, but it was the heart of the whole American people that was touched when the cable announced that the author of " Trilby was no more. Suppose that five years ago we had clipped from the pages of an 66 novel, as we do now, the tail piece of the man spider, given on the left of this page, and writing of it, said: "Here is a little drawing that was one of many illustrations to Douglas Jerrold's' Story of a Feather,'-it had many companion pieces, full-page illustrations, and little vignette initial letters that ran through the book in a fashion all remember in connection with Thackeray's novels, wherein the author himself supplied funny little figures that served as overtures and obligatos to carry the key. notes and motives from one chapter to another;-suppose we had asked the reader to consider the author of this little drawing as an illustrator alone:-he never would have been interested as he is to-day when contrasted with this same tail piece we give another spider with a human head, which he remembers as having appeared as 'An Incubus' on page 137 of Trilby,' and which he recognizes as the sinister Svengali."

I.

George Louis Palmella Busson Du Maurier was born in Paris in 1834. His father was a Frenchman, though born in London, while his mother was Eng

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"AN INCUBUS."

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next, Robinson Crusoe.'"' We can easily imagine that the lines in "Peter Ibbetson" that describe his reading to Mimsey "Le Robinson Suisse, 'Sandford and Merton,' 'Evenings at

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