ABSTRACT
T HE time had now arrived when great crises, although they may begin with a sudden panic; have Rl$0 harmful and enduring effects upon industry which extend over many years, and, in the course of the long series of liquidations which they bring about, spread to every countt-y, touching even those nations that apparently have least direct mercantile connection with the point at which they might chance to originate. With the increasing complexity of international trade and financial relations, alike under Protection and F ree Trade, it is clear that stagnation in any one region, or in any par ticular industry, must make itself felt sooner or later in al l others more or less; sMing that, in order to realise profits, exchange, first of commodities for gold and then of gold for other commodities, must go steadily and uninterruptedly forward. Such a country as the United States, with its enormous territory still sparsely peopled and in part wholly unoccupied, with its great variety of climate and unprecedented wealth, alike ~"l'icultural a.ud mineral, may endeavour to render itself independent of its neighbours by the imposition of high tariffs. But even in t his ca.'!e the necessity for ~xporting food und raw materinl in vast quantities involves its inhabitants more and more in the ups and downs of Europe. Hence
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