THE FALL OF PRICES SINCE 1873._Money: Speech of Hon. John P. Jones, of Nevada, on the Free Coinage of Silver; in the United States Senate, May 12 and 13, 1890

It is a fact not disputed anywhere but universally admitted, that for

many years past the prices of all articles entering into general

consumption among the people have been steadily falling. It is obvious

that the industrial conditions prevailing since 1873 are but a

repetition of those above described as following 1809--with falling

prices, constant unrest, and universal discontent.

The following table, compiled from figures published by the Bureau of

Statistics of the Treasury Department, shows the average range of export

prices of the articles named for each year since 1873:

_Annual average export prices of commodities of domestic production

for each year from 1873 to 1889, inclusive._

------+----------+----------+----------+--------+--------+--------

ending| per | per | flour |(upland)| per | nating

| | | | | | per

------+----------+----------+----------+--------+--------+--------

1873 | .618 | 1.312 | 7.565 | 18.8 | 25.3 | 23.5

1874 | .719 | 1.428 | 7.144 | 15.4 | 25.2 | 17.3

1875 | .848 | 1.124 | 5.968 | 15.0 | 26.0 | 14.1

1876 | .672 | 1.242 | 6.216 | 12.9 | 26.2 | 14.0

1877 | .587 | 1.169 | 6.488 | 11.8 | 23.9 | 21.1

1878 | .562 | 1.338 | 6.358 | 11.1 | 21.8 | 14.4

1879 | .471 | 1.068 | 5.252 | 9.9 | 20.4 | 10.8

1880 | .543 | 1.245 | 5.878 | 11.5 | 23.3 | 8.6

1881 | .552 | 1.114 | 5.668 | 11.4 | 22.6 | 10.3

1882 | .668 | 1.185 | 6.149 | 11.4 | 20.9 | 9.1

1883 | .684 | 1.127 | 5.955 | 10.8 | 21.1 | 8.8

1884 | .611 | 1.066 | 5.588 | 10.5 | 20.6 | 9.2

1885 | .540 | .862 | 4.897 | 10.6 | 19.8 | 8.7

1886 | .498 | .870 | 4.699 | 9.9 | 19.9 | 8.7

1887 | .479 | .890 | 4.510 | 9.5 | 18.7 | 7.8

1888 | .550 | .853 | 4.579 | 9.8 | 17.3 | 7.9

1889 | .474 | .897 | 4.832 | 9.9 | 16.6 | 7.8

============================================================

June,| per | pound. | per | per | pound.

------+----------+----------+----------+----------+---------

1873 | 8.8 | 9.2 | 7.8 | 7.7 | 21.1

1874 | 9.6 | 9.4 | 8.2 | 8.2 | 25.0

1875 | 11.4 | 13.8 | 10.1 | 8.7 | 23.7

1876 | 12.1 | 13.3 | 10.6 | 8.7 | 23.9

1877 | 10.8 | 10.9 | 9.0 | 7.5 | 20.6

1878 | 8.7 | 8.8 | 6.8 | 7.7 | 18.0

1879 | 6.9 | 7.0 | 5.7 | 6.3 | 14.2

1880 | 6.7 | 7.4 | 6.1 | 6.4 | 17.1

1881 | 8.2 | 9.3 | 7.7 | 6.5 | 19.8

1882 | 9.9 | 11.6 | 9.0 | 8.5 | 19.3

1883 | 11.2 | 11.9 | 9.9 | 8.9 | 18.6

1884 | 10.2 | 9.5 | 7.9 | 7.6 | 18.2

1885 | 9.2 | 7.9 | 7.2 | 7.5 | 16.8

1886 | 7.5 | 6.9 | 5.9 | 6.0 | 15.6

1887 | 7.9 | 7.1 | 6.6 | 5.4 | 15.8

1888 | 8.6 | 7.7 | 7.4 | 5.3 | 18.3

1889 | 8.6 | 8.6 | 7.4 | 5.5 | 16.5

============================================================

ending| per | per | per | refined, | leaf,

------+----------+----------+----------+----------+---------

1873 | 13.1 | 26.6 | 5.3 | 11.6 | 10.7

1874 | 13.1 | 22.1 | 5.7 | 10.5 | 9.6

1875 | 13.5 | 25.6 | 6.0 | 10.8 | 11.3

1876 | 12.6 | 28.0 | 5.4 | 10.7 | 10.4

1877 | 11.8 | 25.9 | 5.2 | 11.6 | 10.2

1878 | 11.4 | 15.8 | 4.7 | 10.2 | 8.7

1879 | 8.9 | 15.5 | 4.2 | 8.5 | 7.8

1880 | 9.5 | 16.5 | 4.3 | 9.0 | 7.7

1881 | 11.1 | 17.2 | 4.7 | 9.2 | 8.3

1882 | 11.0 | 19.2 | 4.8 | 9.7 | 8.5

1883 | 11.2 | 20.9 | 4.6 | 9.2 | 8.6

1884 | 10.3 | 21.2 | 4.5 | 7.1 | 9.1

1885 | 9.3 | 21.5 | 4.0 | 6.4 | 9.9

1886 | 8.2 | 18.3 | 4.1 | 6.7 | 7.8

1887 | 9.3 | 16.3 | 3.8 | 6.0 | 8.7

1888 | 9.9 | 15.9 | 3.5 | 6.3 | 8.3

1889 | 9.3 | 13.9 | 3.8 | 7.6 | 8.8

------+----------+----------+----------+----------+---------

To show from another source the same general fact of the decline of

prices, I quote from an article published in the New York Tribune early

in 1886.

The New York Tribune is pretty good authority. These figures are

undoubtedly from the calculations and from the pen of Mr. Grosvenor, of

the editorial staff of that able journal, formerly editor and proprietor

of the "Public," whose estimates of prices have, in my judgment, been

more correctly made than those of any other statistician in the world.

The article is as follows:

Quotations of about two hundred articles are compared since 1860,

and the amount of money is ascertained which would purchase,

at different dates, of these various articles, quantities

corresponding as closely as possible to their ascertained

consumption in 1880, the date of the last census. Among the

articles compared are wheat, corn, oats, rye, barley, beans and

pease, mess pork, bacon, ham, live hogs, lard, fresh beef, tallow,

live sheep, poultry, butter, cheese, eggs, milk, hay, potatoes,

turnips, cabbage, onions, apples, raisins, sugar, brown and

crushed; molasses, coffee, tea, tobacco, whisky, malt and hops,

mackerel, codfish, salt, rice, nutmegs, cloves, pepper, cotton,

print-cloths and standard sheeting, wool of different qualities,

blankets, carpets, flannels, leather, boots, shoes, hides, silk,

India rubber, iron (pig and bar), nails, steel rails, coal, oil

(crude and refined), tin and tin plates, copper, lead, hemp,

lumber, spruce and pine, oak, ash, walnut, and white wood, lath,

brick, lime, turpentine, linseed oil, soap, glass, paper, white

lead, and twelve other kinds of paints, fertilizers, and over

fifty kinds of drugs and chemicals.

_Cost of products at different dates._

---------------------+-----------+----------+---------

Dates. | Cost in | Price of | Cost in

| currency. | gold. | gold.

---------------------+-----------+----------+---------

1860, May 1 | $100.00 | $100.00 | $100.00

1865, November 1 | 174.77 | 145.87 | 119.81

1866, May 1 | 157.60 | 125.12 | 126.04

1866, November 1 | 170.31 | 146.25 | 117.82

1871, November 1 | 122.03 | 112.00 | 108.95

1872, May 1 | 137.13 | 112.50 | 121.81

1873, November 1 | 115.14 | 108.50 | 106.01

1874, May 1 | 122.77 | 112.87 | 108.77

1875, January 1 | 113.01 | 112.37 | 100.37

1876, October 1 | 97.30 | 110.00 | 88.45

1877, May 1 | 99.29 | 106.75 | 93.01

1878, May 1 | 82.09 | 100.37 | 81.81

1878, October 18 | 77.94 | 100.37 | 77.65

1879, November 1 | 93.48 | -- | --

1880, January 1 | 103.42 | -- | --

1881, January 1 | 95.98 | -- | --

1882, May 16 | 106.59 | -- | --

1883, March 13 | 97.82 | -- | --

1883, November 1 | 88.71 | -- | --

1884, January 1 | 88.37 | -- | --

1884, November 21 | 78.47 | -- | --

1885, January 1 | 79.66 | -- | --

1885, May 9 | 80.22 | -- | --

1885, August 22 | 74.56 | -- | --

1885, November 1 | 75.35 | -- | --

1885, Close | 78.53 | -- | --

---------------------+-----------+----------+---------

It is not only clear from this comparison that the prices of 1885

have been the lowest in our history for twenty-five years, but

that there has been a general tendency toward lower prices. From

1866 to 1871, and again from 1872 until 1885, prices fell quite

steadily. Indeed, had not the short crop of 1881 caused a

temporary advance in the spring of 1882, the range of January,

1880, would have been the highest of the later period, and it

might have been said that the present era of declining prices had

continued with little intermission for six years. None will fail

to observe how swift and sharp the advances have been--about 12

per cent. from November, 1871, to May, 1872, and 25-1/2 per cent.

from October, 1878, to January, 1880. But these spasmodic

advances, by which the general tendency downward is interrupted,

only serve to make it more clear that prices have been tending

irresistibly toward a lower level than that of 1860, not only

during the period of paper depreciation, but since gold has been

the measure of value.

In order to show that the United States are not alone in their complaint

of falling prices, but that the complaint is universal, and in order

that we may have before us a broad view of the field of general prices,

I submit a table showing the relation to each other of the range of

prices from 1809 to 1849, by decades, based on the prices of fifty

leading articles of commerce, prepared by the distinguished Professor

Jevons and published in the London Economist for May 8, 1869.

Taking the range of prices of 1849 as a datum line (the range for that

year being the lowest of the century) Mr. Jevons works backward to 1809,

when the revolt of the South American colonies against the authority of

Spain shut off at a blow the supplies of the precious metals, and set on

foot a money famine from which the world knew no relief till the

discovery of the mines of California and Australia.

Professor Jevons's figures are as follows, the prices of 1849 being

represented by 100:

_Relation of prices, 1809 to 1849, by decades, those for 1849 being

rated at 100._

1809 245

1819 175

1829 124

1839 144

1849 100

From these figures it will be observed that the fall from 1809 to 1849,

a period of forty years, was as 245 to 100, or 59 per cent.

By the next table which I submit, that of Dr. Soetbeer, it will be seen

that the general range of prices rose gradually from 1849 to 1873, in

the last of which years the figures bore to those of 1849 the relation

of 138 to 100. It has never been denied that this rise was due to the

increase in the world's money supply by the yield of the precious metals

from the mines of California and Australia, the effects of which,

however, as will be seen by the table, were not felt on prices till

1853--five years after John Marshall's discovery of the yellow metal in

the tail-race at Sutter's mills. Yet, because it interferes with the

pecuniary interests of a large and influential class, it is vehemently

denied that the fall of prices since 1873 is due to a decrease in the

volume of the money caused by the demonetization of silver in that year

throughout the western world.

From and after that year, as will be perceived by an examination of the

figures; in other words, from the year when one-half the world's money

supply was deprived of the money function, we find an almost

uninterrupted decline of prices. The figures of 1873 and 1885 will be

seen to bear to one another the relation of 138 to 108, or a fall of 22

per cent. in twelve years. Should the fall continue at that rate without

interruption--and there is no reason apparent why it should not, we

shall in forty years have witnessed a decline of 72 per cent. in the

general range of prices--a decline considerably greater than that from

1809 to 1849. And these are not the figures of bimetallists or silver

"theorists," but of pronounced advocates of the single standard of gold.

Where, I would inquire, is the fall of prices to stop?

Dr. Soetbeer's table represents the general average price of one-hundred

leading articles of commerce each year for a period of nearly forty

years. He takes as a basis the general range of gold prices prevailing

between 1847 and 1850, and calling that range 100, shows the relative

standing toward it of the general range of prices for subsequent years,

up to 1885.

_Relation of prices by years from 1849 to 1885, the general range of

prices of 1849 being rated at 100._

1849 100.00

1851 100.21

1852 101.69

1853 113.69

1854 121.25

1855 124.23

1856 123.27

1857 130.11

1858 113.52

1859 116.34

1860 120.98

1861 118.10

1862 122.65

1863 125.49

1864 129.28

1865 122.63

1866 125.85

1867 124.44

1868 121.99

1869 123.38

1870 122.87

1871 127.03

1872 135.62

1873 138.28

1874 136.20

1875 129.85

1876 128.33

1877 127.70

1878 120.60

1879 117.10

1880 121.89

1881 121.07

1882 122.14

1883 122.24

1884 114.25

1885 108.27

Mr. Sauerbeck, also an advocate of the gold standard, and whose work has

the approval of the Statistical Society, takes as a datum line the

prices ruling from 1867 to 1870. Rating those at 100 he finds that by

1873 prices had risen to 111, by 1886 they had fallen to 69, and by

September, 1887, to 68.7. He declares the average prices for the first

nine months of 1887 to have been the lowest reached for a hundred years.

Money: Speech of Hon. John P. Jones, of Nevada, on the Free Coinage of Silver; in the United States Senate, May 12 and 13, 1890 · 第 31 / 165 题