as fashion's giddiest devotee. Even while he complained, he knew that his complaint was groundless. "I have heard Jeffrey say," he continues, "If folly were the happiest, I would be a fool.' Yet his daily life belies this doctrine, and says, "Though goodness were the most wretched, I would be good."" It is an exact type of the two men. Carlyle himself, when laying down principles for other men's guidance, admits it by crying out against "the everlasting clatter about virtue! virtue! In the devil's name, be virtuous, and no more about it!" But, practically, his virtue was all clatter. While he was vociferating his own superiority to the clownish herd, Jeffrey was silently practicing, and thereby proving, his own superiority to Carlyle. Carlyle clanged to the astonished heavens the dominant claims of the nearest duty, while his home resounded with the tramp of his iron heel upon all duty whatever. Jeffrey professed only a somewhat passive acceptance of things as he found them, but lavished his talents and his time, his patience and his genius upon the effort to make them better. Carlyle left his wife to fight alone the Amalekites, and the Hittites, and the Jebusites, while he stood on Pisgah and shrieked so shrilly about the promised land that one would choose to go back to Egypt rather than advance under such ululation. Jeffrey took the forlorn and deserted pilgrim by the hand and led her tenderly toward the green pastures and the still waters which he discerned as clearly as Carlyle, and to which he far better knew the way. If life is more than meat, and the body than raiment; if to be is better than to talk; if it is higher work to sculpture a symmetrical soul than to write a sensational book,-then Jeffrey is the greater man; and the woman whom such men so loved was a great woman.

GAIL HAMILTON.

OVERPRODUCTION.

ALTHOUGH this is hardly a time of abnormal business depres sion, a great part of the industrial energies of the country are unemployed because of what is commonly called overproduction. We hear so much, and from so many quarters, of this over production that it is no wonder that there are many who hold, more or less definitely, that the great improvements in machin ery and industrial processes have brought "dull times"; that the difficulty so many find in making a living is due to the increased capacity given to labor by discovery and invention, which have so reduced work that there is not now enough of it to go around, and that, to secure a more equitable division of the precious thing, we should limit the amount of work any one is permitted to do.

Ideas which thus reverse the principles we instinctively recognize in the every-day affairs of life are by no means confined to what are considered the less intelligent classes. They permeate the press, crop out in all discussions, and are carried into effect in legislation. No more than the housewife wants grease spilled over her kitchen floor, that she may have the work of cleaning it up, does any one want work for the sake of work. What they want is the things that work produces. Yet we maintain a tariff having for its express purpose the preventing of other nations from robbing us of work, and trunks are searched and mail matter opened lest any one should escape the penalty of bringing into the country the product of work done abroad. And so while workingmen protest against production by convict labor, manufacturers see no better remedy for dullness of trade than curtailing production.

If there really be such a thing as general overproduction, if we are really suffering from a plethora of wealth, then the remedy lies in the destruction of wealth. This is a reductio ad absur

dum. But the fact cannot be disputed that the period of the Civil War, when the greatest destruction of wealth this country ever saw was going on, was a time of great business prosperity and industrial activity. Nor can this be explained upon any theory that we were then borrowing of the future. To borrow of the future is a physical impossibility. By no process of financial juggling can any one eat to-day the egg that is to be laid tomorrow. The ships that were sunk, the houses that were burned, the shot and powder fired away, and the immense amounts of other wealth unproductively consumed or wantonly destroyed were not future ships, houses, powder, and shot, but existing products of labor. Nor did we even borrow from abroad. As a people, we owed less to foreign nations at the end than at the beginning of the war.

Mani

Is there, then, such a thing as overproduction? festly, there cannot be, in any general sense, until more wealth is produced than is wanted. In any unqualified sense, overproduction is preposterous, when everywhere the struggle to get wealth is so intense; when so many must worry and strain to get a living, and there is actual want among large classes. The manner in which the strain of the war was borne shows how great are the forces of production which, in normal times, go to waste; proves that what we suffer from now is not overproduction, but underproduction.

Relative overproduction there, of course, may be. The desires for different forms of wealth vary in intensity and in sequence, and are related one with another. I may want both a pair of shoes and a dozen pocket-handkerchiefs, but my desire for the shoes is first and strongest; and upon the terms on which I can get the shoes may in large measure depend my ability to get the handkerchiefs. So, in the aggregate demand for the different forms of wealth, there is a similar relation. And as, under the division of labor characteristic of the modern industrial system, nearly all production is carried on with the view, not of consumption by the immediate producers, but of exchange for other productions, certain commodities may be produced so far in excess of their proper proportion to the production of other commodities, that the whole quantity produced cannot be exchanged for enough of those other commodities to give the usual returns to the capital and labor engaged in bringing them to market. This disproportionate production of some VOL. CXXXVII.-NO. 325.

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things, which is overproduction in relation to the production of other things, is the only kind of overproduction that can take place on any considerable scale, and the overproduction of which we hear so much is evidently of this character.

But what is the cause of this relative overproduction? That is the important question. Does it spring, as some of the socialists seem to think, from the lack of intelligent direction in production, which requires for its remedy governmental supervision of industry? Is it due to any removable cause, or must we, as the penalty for having called steam and machinery to the aid of human muscles, accept conditions in which men suffer from want while warehouses are glutted?

To answer these questions let us examine the phenomena more closely. What is relative overproduction when viewed from one side is evidently relative underproduction when viewed from the other. And what we call overproduction as to any particular commodity or commodities may proceed from increased production of things of one kind or from decreased production of things of other kinds. Thus the original impulse which produces relative overproduction may be one stimulative of production or one restrictive of production. But, while the phenomena of relative overproduction may thus arise from causes opposite in essential character, it is only within a limited field and to a limited extent that causes so different in their nature can produce similar results. This we may see if we note the different general effects which follow increase or diminution of production in any special branch of industry. Let us suppose, for instance, that there is, from some discovery or improvement, an increase in the production of coal, out of proportion to the increase of other productions. More coal thus being brought to market than can be sold at previous rates, the price falls. The result is, that all the consumers of coal who so desire can increase their consumption of coal, and those who do not wish more coal can increase their consumption of other things, while, in all branches of industry where coal is used, the cheapening of coal reduces cost and stimulates production. Thus the general effects of the increase in the production of coal, as they become diffused over the whole field of industry, are to increase all other production, and to reëstablish an equilibrium between the production of coal and the production of other things on a basis of increased production.

But suppose some cause, natural or artificial, to check the production of coal so that it falls below the previous proportion to other production. Its price rises, and the consumers of coal must use less coal or less of something else. Miners, transporters, etc., of coal find themselves out of employment, and their power of purchasing commodities cut off or diminished. At the same time, the enhanced price of coal makes production more costly in all branches of industry which make use of coal, and thus the general effects of the diminution in the production of coal are to reduce all other production, and the restoration of equilibrium, when it again takes place, will be on a basis of diminished production. Thus we see that the general effect of increase of production in any particular branch of industry is to increase production in all branches, while the general effect of decrease of production in any particular branch of industry is to generally decrease production.

Or to put it in another way: Trade being the exchange of commodities for commodities, in which money is but the common measure of values and instrument of transfer, supply of commodities of one kind is demand for commodities of other kinds. Whatever, therefore, causes the bringing to market of an increased amount of commodities, at once increases the supply of those commodities and the demand for other commodities, thus increasing the volume of trade and generally increasing production. Whatever, on the other hand, diminishes the amount of commodities brought to market, at once decreases supply and diminishes demand, lessening the volume of trade and decreasing general production.

This we see very plainly in relation to those branches of production in which the varying character of the seasons causes marked alterations. Good crops mean increased demand of all kinds, active trade, and general prosperity, although it may be that to many farmers, or perhaps to farmers in general, the immediate benefit of unusually large crops is neutralized by the lower prices consequent on relative overproduction. And reversely, although to many farmers, and perhaps to farmers in general, the immediate effect of a poor crop may be compensated for in higher prices, yet poor crops mean to the community at large decreased demand of all kinds, dull trade, and hard times.

It is thus apparent that, while relative overproduction of any commodity or group of commodities may arise either from