A like computation with regard to wheat will show a loss in debt-paying and tax-paying power of not less than $100,000,000 a year to the farmers of the North and West, by reason of the demonetization of silver—a total of $1,700,000,000 in the article of wheat alone in seventeen years.
Thus a loss, wholly unnecessary, of more than $3,000,000,000 in debt-paying and tax-paying power is shown to have been inflicted on the farmers and cotton planters of this country.
In comparison with this enormous loss to farmers and planters, how paltry is the loss of $8,000,000 a year suffered by the silver miners.
But, however large the direct loss to the debtors and to the country by reason of falling prices, the losses that are indirect are of infinitely greater magnitude, and stand out like a great mountain of wrong superimposed upon the most deserving class in the community, whose interests it should be the paramount duty of Government to protect, a wrong more calamitous in its consequences than any of the multitudinous wrongs which a shrinking volume of money inflicts upon society.
THE ENORMOUS LOSS OF POTENTIAL WEALTH THROUGH INVOLUNTARY IDLENESS.
The political economist, Mr. President, deals with property in esse, and producers employed. I propose for a moment to deal with property in posse and producers unemployed. The wealth which the political economist discusses is realized wealth; that to which I now briefly invite your serious consideration is the wealth that might be, and would be, brought into existence were the energies of all the people utilized. For, while it has attracted but little attention from writers on economic science, it will be found upon examination that the non-employment of its members is incomparably the greatest loss which an increase in the value of money and the consequent disorganization of industry inflicts on society.
The great writers and thinkers on economic subjects discuss with care the elements that enter into the production and distribution of wealth. They follow in detail the manufactured article through all its stages, from the crude material to the finished product; and, when completed, they conduct it through the intricate channels by which it reaches the hands of the consumer. The greatest consideration is bestowed upon the labor employed and the wealth resulting therefrom, but scarcely any thought is given to the immeasurable mass of potential wealth not produced, but lying latent in the brains and hands of the millions who are condemned to involuntary idleness.
While no mere sum in arithmetic can represent the enormous loss suffered by a nation through this cause, let us see whether we can arrive by figures at an approximate conception, at least, of the loss of wages which it entails upon the working masses, and the corresponding loss of wealth to the country.
The most thorough and painstaking investigation into the conditions of labor in this country has been that which for many years has been conducted by the Massachusetts Bureau of Labor. Its work has been universally admitted to be free from bias, and devoid of all attempt to establish any special hobby, or to force, by figures, the proof of any preconceived theory.
SOME STATISTICS OF THE UNEMPLOYED.