more than this: by accepting the position as he did, he became not so much a diplomatist as an intriguer; the secret, even when it had a political object, demanded a line of conduct scarcely worthy of a man of honour, and after the retirement of the Prince de Conti was altogether inexcusable; the Count de Broglie, by continuing its chief agent, lowered himself almost to the level of other agents of the king's dirty work; and it is not to be wondered at that he was treated by the king himself, and by his successor, without that consideration to which his abilities, and his services, and his social rank entitled him. As to the king, Louis XV., this further insight into his character cannot affect our estimate of it. That was already as low as possible; but the study of his secret correspondence and his secret diplomacy degrades his political capacity to the level of his personal vices.

ART. VII.-1. Statistical Abstracts for the United Kingdom and Principal Foreign Countries, 1853 to 1875-6. Parl. Papers. 2. Report of the Select Committee of the House of Commons on the Depreciation of Silver, 1876.

THE

HE world has come to the close of a very memorable epoch. The present generation has seen come and go the most remarkable outburst of material prosperity which has ever visited the nations of mankind. The epoch has been shortlived as a northern summer,-brief and brilliant as the sunshine which suddenly clothes with almost tropical luxuriance the plains of the Red River Settlement, where rich crops ripen and fruits and flowers of the South blossom and mature, all in the course of a few weeks, betwixt periods of frost and snow. The world has fallen into winter again; but a large portion of the fruits of the golden summer enduringly remain,—a rich heritage for subsequent generations. New regions have been peopled, and the trading world widened and enriched. Countless new and large factories of human industry, even whole townships of labour, have been established widely throughout our own and other countries. Enlarged harbours and new docks and quays line the shores of our bays and estuaries, and a mightily increased forest of shipping has sprung up for the maritime conveyance of the augmented produce of the world; while by land, thousands of miles of the iron road have been constructed to give play to the increased locomotion both of

men and merchandise, these railways showing like a network on the map of each country, and internationally girdling the continents from sea to sea-spanning America at its widest longitude, and traversing all Europe, from the British Channel eastward to the Caspian and the Euxine, and southward to almost every point on the shores of the Mediterranean Sea.

The change has been so great that even the aspect of the earth's surface visibly bears witness to it. Compared with the third and fourth decades of the century, how manifest is the changed aspect of our own islands! The country is now all in motion, swarming like a hive of ants. Motion and locomotion are everywhere. Instead of the quiet highways along which the mail-coach with its dozen passengers passed but once a day, and only the occasional blare of the guard's horn broke the rural silence, an aëronaut would now hear beneath him a perpetual roar of sound, and see hundreds of smoking railway trains moving in swift succession along the far-stretching lines of the iron road, receiving and disgorging crowds of passengers at each terminus and halting-station. By sea the change has been hardly less striking. Along the great highways of the ocean, instead of a thin and straggling line of ships, baffled by wind and tide, there is a steady procession of swift-going leviathans of the deep, marking the great sea-routes by an almost continuous trail of smoke, signalising the steam-engine at work in its latest and most far-journeying form.

This epoch of rich commercial progress, pervading all the leading countries of the world, culminated, and also came to a close, with the pre-eminently prosperous years of 1872 and 1873,-ending suddenly when at its height, rocket-like, with an outburst of fresh splendour. Since 1873 the course of events has resembled the dissolving views' of the diorama, where a glowing summer landscape is seen to pass swiftly, yet by distinctly marked gradations, into the bleakness and snowy garb of winter. As by the wave of a magician's wand-certainly from causes which in their entirety cannot be readily explained the golden tide in the affairs of men' has rapidly ebbed away until there is low-water again all over the world, leaving stately industrial enterprises like stranded ships strewing every shore. The numerous factories erected during the golden epoch now stand idle, or with doors half-closed; crowds of splendid shipping lie idle in the harbours of the world from Liverpool to Calcutta, from San Francisco to New York; and the railways, although still making their hourly journeys, would be glad to carry behind each rapid locomotive a heavier burden of goods or passengers. But they all remain-fac

6

tories, shipping, railways-a heritage from the golden past, and ready for work again as soon as the present winter of our 'discontent' is over.

Besides these very visible and tangible signs of the past prosperity, and of existing potential power and usefulness, the third quarter of the century has left an enormous legacy of moneyed wealth. Statists have sought to become eloquent over the vast accumulations of wealth in the United Kingdom. Even if their computations were less correct than they appear to be even were it requisite to make no small abatement from some of their conclusions, the broad and unquestionable facts of the case show an increase of wealth altogether unprecedented. No writer has resumed the work of Mr. Porter, the pioneer in this branch of digested statistics, whose Progress of the Nation' required for its compilation an amount of labour unneeded nowadays, when Government returns and other sources of information readily supply a continuous record of the national fortunes. But the part of Mr. Porter's subject which in one respect sums up all the others-namely, the Wealth of the Nation-has of late years been ably and carefully dealt with by the late Mr. Dudley Baxter, Mr. Newmarch, and Mr. Giffen, each continuing the work of his predecessors. What is the tale thus told, in dry figures, of our national progress during the epoch of which we write? It is not until 1855 that, by the extension of the income-tax to Ireland, the official records comprise the incomes of the whole kingdom. In that year the assessed incomes of the nation (exclusive of the far larger amount of unassessed income, belonging chiefly to the wage-receiving classes) amounted to 308 millions sterling; in 1865 the yearly income had risen to 396 millions; and in 1875 to 571 millions. Thus, this portion of the national income had increased so rapidly that in 1875 it was no less than 263 millions larger than it was in 1855. And if the increase had affected all persons equally, the income of each individual belonging to the class who pay assessed taxes would have increased 80 per cent. during these twenty years. In like manner the property, or realised wealth, of the nation has increased from about 4,700 millions sterling in 1855 to 6,100 millions in 1865, and in 1875 to 8,500 millions. The increase of wealth was especially great in the last decade of the period -namely, from 1865 to 1875, the amount of property per head of the population being computed at 2007. in 1865 and at 260/. in 1875.

There has been at least a very apparent connexion between this great wave of commercial progress and the large supply

of gold from the mines of California and Australia. In their outset these events were synchronous. It was in the autumn of 1848 that gold was found in California, and it was in 1851 that the richer portion of the Australian mines was discovered. Both of these regions were solitudes, and so distant from the old seats of civilisation and of dense population that in each case several months elapsed before the working of the new mines was fully commenced; and an almost equal interval elapsed before the new supplies of gold arrived in the leading countries of the world. Thereupon money became plentiful. Gold accumulated in the banks; and in our own country the price of Consols, for almost the only time, rose to par, and indeed for the moment considerably exceeded it. From that time, as is universally recognised, the new epoch of industrial progress and general prosperity began. So perfect a synchronism of the events naturally suggests that the relation between them was not wholly fortuitous. Moreover, it is manifest that any large addition to the world's stock of money must produce some effect upon all those conditions of life in which money plays a part; and it is hard to say what branch of human life and enterprise is not affected by money and the changes in its supply.

The true character of the connexion between the new supplies of gold and the recent period of widespread or universal prosperity we shall endeavour to show by-and-by. But first we may remark that the history or course of the new goldsupplies of itself exhibits a conclusive proof (if such were needed) that since 1850 the world must have passed through a period of exceptional prosperity,-that there has and must have been a great augmentation of those transactions which normally yield profits and promote an accumulation of wealth. Despite the enormous amount of new gold poured into the world, there is no rise of prices; in other words, gold maintains its old value. Accordingly, since 1850 there must have occurred a vast increase in the world's requirements for gold; which, primarily and chiefly, means a vast increase of trade and profitable industry. There must have been a greatly increased employment of money, in the grand work of production down to ordinary buying and selling and the mere retail work of shopping,'-which latter operations only increase when, together with more produce, there is more money to buy with. That money has not fallen in value is a wholly unexpected result; it was deemed impossible that so large an amount of new gold should circulate at the old value. But the cause of this unexpected result is now no mystery. As is now acknow

VOL. CXLIX. NO. CCCVI.

FF

ledged, it has been the rapid expansion of commerce and industrial enterprise, especially in an international form, which followed the discovery of the new gold-fields, and created a new requirement for their produce.

Putting into a compendious form the commercial statistics of Great Britain, France, India, and the United States, we subjoin a synopsis of the course of international trade since the discovery of the gold-mines. To show the full power of the recent commercial expansion, and also to allow of a fair comparison being made between the progress of these different countries, we shall first take the periods when the trade of each country proceeded undisturbed by extraneous disasters. Therefore we stop our statistics for the United States at 1860, the year before the Civil War began, and for France before the calamitous war of 1870. In like manner, although with less cause, we stop the statistics for our own country at 1865, in consequence of the severe monetary crisis of 1866, with the subsequent years of commercial prostration,-and of India at the same point, when the great increase of the Council drafts, representing the national indebtedness of that country, took place.

The subjoined figures represent the 'special' trade of each country, i.e. exclusive of the transit-trade, in millions sterling:

Increase (10 yrs.)=156 per cent. Increase (10 yrs.)=136 per cent.