to fall, owing to the lowered cost of production consequent on improvements—and if they are not, as a rule, lower than in 1850—it shows that they are still supported by the high tide of the great gold production of this century. And [pg 479] even the access to more fertile land in the world has acted to prevent an increase in the prices of agricultural products such as would offset the fall of manufactured goods. That is, the fact that prices have not fallen as much as might be expected, indicates that the gold has prevented the lower costs due to the progress of industry from being fully seen.
Improvements in production are not the only circumstance accompanying the progress of industry, which tends to diminish the cost of producing, or at least of obtaining, commodities. (2.) Another circumstance is the increase of intercourse between different parts of the world. As commerce extends, and the ignorant attempts to restrain it by tariffs become obsolete, commodities tend more and more to be produced in the places in which their production can be carried on at the least expense of labor and capital to mankind. (3.) Much will also depend on the increasing migration of labor and capital to unoccupied parts of the earth, of which the soil, climate, and situation are found, by the ample means of exploration now possessed, to promise not only a large return to industry, but great facilities of producing commodities suited to the markets of old countries. Much as the collective industry of the earth is likely to be increased in efficiency by the extension of science and of the industrial arts, a still more active source of increased cheapness of production will be found, probably, for some time to come, in the gradually unfolding consequences of Free Trade, and in the increasing scale