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INTRODUCTION 
that led to the decline of the price of wheat in England from an 
average of 45s. 1d. in 1882 to an average of 22s. 10d. in 1894. The 
ofiech of the last of the causes of disturbance referred to at the end 
of the last paragraph is seen in the history of the iron trade after 1870. 
The average price of pig-iron warrants at Glasgow in the years 1869 
to 1871 varied between about 53s. and 59s. per ton ; in 1872 the average 
rose to about 102s., in 1873 to 117s., after which it fell steadily to 
about 54s. in 1877. The sudden rise was due to the fact that, vast as 
our own commerce and industry had already become in 1872, it was not 
yet equal to the demands that were then made on it for the further 
expansion of commerce by the laying of numerous railways, and the 
establishment of numerous factories in America and Germany! But 
in the subsequent course of iron prices the general equalising tendency 
of commerce can still be detected. The vast demand of 1871 to 1873 
led almost immediately to such an increase in the means of producing 
iron, that when the next great expansion of the demand came about it 
was met with greater ease and with less oscillation of prices. From 
1877 to 1887 the extreme variations in average annual price of pig-iron 
warrants at Glasgow were only about 40s. and 54s. 6d. 
16. Inevitable as the hardships attendant on such disturbances are, 
still the improvements that bring about such incidental results are of 
value to the world in the long run, in so far as they afford the means 
of permanently lightening human labour in the production and disbri- 
hution of the means of satisfying human wants. That they do so for 
an ever-increasing proportion of the inhabitants of the world would 
appear to follow from the fact to which attention has already been 
drawn, the increasing proportion of the necessaries of life and the 
articles of most general consumption entering into the aggregate com- 
merce of the world. The large and quick-sailing ships, the numberless 
railway trains, in short all the vast apparatus that now stands ab the 
service of commerce, can be kept working only by transporting com- 
modities consumed in the largest quantity, such therefore as satisfy the 
wants of the multitude. 
17. But if there is any permanent benefit to mankind at large from 
she development of which we are now speaking, it is worthy of note 
bhat the full advantage of this nature is not reaped until every kind of 
production is carried on in the place that has the greatest natural advan=- 
tages for the supply of a particular market. By natural advantages 
are meant such as these—a favourable soil and climate, the existence of 
facilities for communication external and internal so far as these lie in 
the nature of the surface and physical features, the existence of valuable 
minerals in favourable situations, and especially of the materials for 
1 The annual increase of railway mileage in America rose steadily from 1,177 
miles in 1865 to 7,379 miles in 1871. The annual exports of iron and steel from 
the United Kingdom to the United States increased steadily from 186,000 tons in 
1865 to 1,064,000 tons in 1871; those to Germany, Holland, and Belgium 
increased year by year from 255.000 tons in 1866 to 1,015,000 tons in 1872.