Democratic Sentinel, Volume 1, Number 21, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 6 July 1877 — HARD TIMES. [ARTICLE]

HARD TIMES.

Present Relation lie tween Production ami Con su in ption. [From the Popular Science Monthly for July.] Production and consumption do not have that intimate relation to each other they once had. In old times the weaver, for instance, was in contact with his customers ; he wove cloth as he discovered the need ; he cautiously set up a second loom when it became fully evident that it could be kept employed ; and thus supply and demand went, ns it were, hand m hand. But now gigantic mills filled with many spindles have little accurate relation to consumption. The power of production by means of improved machinery is something immense, and it is exercised with no very watchful or cautious regard to the immediate needs of the community. Goods are piled up in vast quantities in waiting for a future market, or for an anticipated change in price, or they are pressed upon the market at such low rates or on such long credits that buyers are seduced into over-purchases. In favorable times these establishments are run at high pressure. The old-fashioned nice relation between producer and consumer disappears. Speculation takes the helm. Much more is produced than there is com, leather, or other goods, to exchange for it. The resources of the mills are great; they can borrow from the banks while they pile up their fabrics in their warerooms ; they can by means of their concentrated capital keep their machinery running, even at a loss, if by so doing they can crush out a rival or manipulate the market. flat in the height of this prosperous run -there is a check—no matter for what cause—and suddenly the work stops. There is little sale for goods produced ; the fires must be put out, the doors closed, and thousands of operatives are deprived of employment. This would not be so unfortunate if this over-production had been diffused among the work-people. But it had not. Notwithstanding the high pressure and the excessive manufacture, wages have been kept down ; while producing in six months as much as could be exchanged in a year, the workmen have not been paid in this way—their wages have been upon the basis of the whole year’s work—as a result, they are turned empty-handed upon the street. And, what is particularly unfortunate, they are reduced as consumers to the minimum point. Here the evil works both ways. The excessive production which has shut up the mill lias weakened the power of the community to absorb this production—the goose that laid the egg has been slain. Inevitably the recovery from hard times brought about in this way must be slow. The spindles cannot be set in motion until the stock of goods on hand is reduced and a fresh demand revives ; this demand cannot revive because the great body of consumers are in a state of impoverishment. This condition of things is entirely sufficient to explain the genesis and the prolongation of business prostration. Capital is not impaired ; it is locked up in machinery that is silent, in goods that cannot be exchanged, in money that has no borrowers. It is the paralysis of consumption that is the cause.