with varying degrees of intensity." His
conclusion is "that the improvements of machinery used in production
have increased the supply of commodities beyond the immediate demands
of the world."[146] In support of this position he adduces the
authority of continental writers such as Dr. A. von Studnitz, Piermez,
Jules Duckerts, Laveleye, Trasenster, Annecke, and Engel. In the
United States, Carroll Wright, David Wells, and Atkinson are foremost
in upholding this to be the explanation of depression of trade. Mr.
Carroll D. Wright, Commissioner of Labour at Washington, is emphatic
in his assertion of the fact. "So far as the factories and the
operatives of the countries concerned are to be taken into
consideration (England, the United States, France, Belgium, Germany),
there does exist a positive and emphatic over-production, and this
over-production could not exist without the introduction of
power-machinery at a rate greater than the consuming power of the
nations involved, and of those dependent upon them, demand; in other
words, the over-production of power-machinery logically results in
the over-production of goods made with the aid of such machinery, and
this represents the condition of those countries depending largely
upon mechanical industries for their prosperity."[147] The Reports of
the English "Commission on the Depression of Trade and Industry" make
similar admissions of an excess of producing power as distinct from a
mere miscalculation in the application of capital and labour. The
Majority Report, defining "over-production" as "the production of
commodities, or even the existence of a capacity for production at a
time when the demand is not sufficiently brisk to maintain a
remunerative price to the producer," affirms "that such an
over-production has been one of the prominent features of the course
of trade during recent years, and that the depression under which we
are now suffering may be partially explained by this fact...."[148]
The Minority Report lays still stronger stress upon "systematic
over-production," alleging "that the demand for commodities does not
increase at the same rate as formerly, and that our capacity for
production is consequently in excess of our home and export demand,
and could, moreover, be considerably increased at short notice by the
fuller employment of labour and appliances now partially idle."[149]

The most abundant information regarding the excess of the machinery of
prod