cause of insufficient capital, the difficulty being rather that capital is living idle.
4. I am accused of attributing the business depression to over-production, whereas I distinctly said speculative over-production—over-production brought about by centralization of wealth and vast appliances of machinery, which under artificial stimulus produces an excess at one period, and then at another, stopping all production, turns hosts of workmen into the streets idle and empty-handed, followed consequently by a great reduction of consumption.
5. I laid no stress upon cooperation to regulate production, merely mentioning it as the only remedy I could suggest. Such cooperation is doubtless impracticable except to a limited extent. The fear is, there is no remedy, and that we shall have—as, indeed, has been frequently predicted—continually our intermittent periods of overtrading and speculation, offset by those of prostration and suffering. The elimination of speculation and other "crazes"—that is, the maintenance of production in legitimate and healthful relation to consumption is, as I think, indisputably the only remedy; but how this is to be brought about is more than I can say. Economists, surveying the broad field over long distances of time, are contented to say that these periods are but perturbations; that production in the end does adjust itself to consumption. While this is true, our concern is how to reduce the intensity and duration of these perturbations.
There are other points that call for answer in Mr. Leland's letter; he gives me some elementary instruction as to the meaning of capital and of money; and he decries the fact of "released labor;" but it seems unnecessary for me to take your space merely to vindicate my opinions or to establish my knowledge of elementary principles—your readers can have no concern in these matters. The thing is, to get at the truth of the causes of our business distress, and those interested are referred to the article of Mr. David A. Wells than whom there is no better authority—in the last North American Review, wherein we are told that the community is suffering today, "strange as the proposition may at first thought seem, not because we have not, but because we have; not from scarcity, but from abundance;" that is, not from impaired capital, according to Prof. Price; and that "the only remedy is the creation of more wants or demands for our products, and, as a consequence, more and enlarged employments for our labor." That is to say, it is not by the community economically reducing consumption to its minimum that a revival of trade is to come, as we hear asserted on every side, but by the creation of new wants, by the stimulus of consumption. This is the essential basis of my argument.
| With respect, yours, etc., |
| O. B. Bunce. |
"THE TIDES."
To the Editor of the Popular Science Monthly.
The article on "The Tides," in the July number of your Monthly, would be amusing had it not appeared in a scientific periodical of high standing; but, when such erroneous and ill-digested views are set forth in a reputable journal for public instruction, they call for a public notice which they do not at all deserve.
The author of the article referred to has unfortunately adopted the errors of statement and conception generally found in our text-books of natural philosophy, prepared by authors of no authority, for our public and preparatory schools. I have had occasion recently to examine several such books on the subject of "Centrifugal Force," so called, and have found very few that are not in error. If the author of "The Tides" had expended a portion of the time devoted to the elaboration of his subject in an examination of the basis of his explanation—centrifugal force—he could not have reached conclusions at variance with the simplest fundamental principles of physics.
Newton's first law teaches that a body, once set in motion, will continue to move on with uniform velocity in a straight line forever if left to itself. To produce circular motion a constant force directed toward a fixed point must be applied in addition to the original force. The fixed point then becomes the centre of revolution. The original impulsive force (or continued force acting during a finite time), and the constant force directed toward the centre, are the only forces concerned in uniform circular motion. "Centrifugal force" expresses merely the resistance of a body to deflection from a straight line in which it tends to move, according to Newton's first law of motion. It is its inertia with reference to motion in a specified direction toward the centre. If only that which produces or tends to produce motion or change of motion is force, then there is no such force as "centrifugal force;" for the only motions that a body moving in a circle has are tangential, due to the original impulsive force, and the radial toward the centre, due to the constant centripetal force. If the centripetal force ceases to act, the body moves on tangentially, in obedience to the tangential force; if its motion of rotation ceases, it falls toward the centre. It can take no other direction of motion unless some force, additional to those required for uniform cir-
