ABSTRACT
In all the European countries and in America the same re;;ults were observable. He public, constitutional
monarchy, or despotism, all suf:lered alike. Forms of government, banking systems, silver or gold standard were equally of no avail a,.,aainst the industrial crisis. Lack of currency could not be urged as a reason for dull times, when millions of gold a month were coming forward to be minted. Insufficient facilities of credit could not be claimed as the cause of the mischief, when banks and discount houses were wildly competing for mercantile bills. Deficient transport and means of communication could no longer be pointed to as the manifest occasion of a. local glut. The civilised world could produce; more wealth with less labour than ever before, and still society in 1857, as in the three previous decades, had been overmastered by its own productive forces and compelled to go into liquidation for a time.
