ABSTRACT
Here we have the international crisis in its most complete form, and lasting in a more or less injurious shape for upwards of six years, and even then the recovery was shortlived in more than one country. Yet, during the sixteen years from 1857 to 1873, the development of production and trade had again surpassed all anticipations even of the most sanguine. And this experience wa.s not confined to any one or two countries. Exports and import:; had more than doubled in the United Kingdom, in the United States, in France, in Austria, and in Belgium. Railways, steamships, telegraphic cables were facilitating transport and rapidity of communication in a progressive ratio; the impr·ovement in the production of iron and steel was so great as to more than meet the mcreased demands of modern society; while the almost unnoticed application of machinery to agricultural purposes in the United States wa.s working a revolution in the production of food-stuffs, to be compared only with that which ha.~ already been brought about in the working up of cotton, wool, etc., at the beginning of the century.
