CBISIS. 586 CRISPI. of conditions, but before the crisis of 1837 similar activity was shown iu canal construction. Before the panic of 1825, in Knfrland. tlicre were large investments in manufacturing establishments, while the panic of 1S03 was preceded by reckless investments in foreign countries. A period of dciiression cuts down the existing stock of goods, and the retrenchment of produc- tion, coupled with the constant increase of popu- lati(m. creates a void in the market. To fill this tlicrc is a renewed activity ; as prices begin to rise, existing plants find it difficult to meet the demand. Plants are remodeled and extended. Preparati(m for future production on a large scale talces place. Large investments of fixed capital are made in buildings, machinery and the like, and those branches of industry which chiefly serve the purposes of construction, such as the iron indnstry, make extraordinary advances. Mills and railroads are built to supply an anticipated demand. Tliis is usually overdone, and the facili- ties of production increase more rapidly than the efi'ective demand for products. Credit is unduly expanded, and it is natural that the money markets feel the first shock when the inevitable readjustment takes place. Wliile the phenomena of a crisis and its at- tendant consequences are generally recognized, the widest variety of opinion exists as to the causes of such economic disturbances. "riters are prone to lay stress upon local or temporary conditions, and to generalize from them. In truth, the phenomena of a crisis are so complex, and the conditions which may aggravate it so numerous, that it is not surprising to see the latter considered as primary causes. Thus, specu- lation, the ciirrency, the tariff, bad harvests, have all been made responsible for crises. These are frequently concomitant forces impelling a crisis, but crises are so numerous that there must be some deeper underlying cause. It has already been noted that panics are most severe in the most advanced and most rapidly developing coun- tries. They are apparently an incident of a changing economic organization. Stationary nations do not feel them. A change in the eco- nomic organization of a nation is not the result of plan, but the resultant of individual initiation in trade and industry. The adoption of new machinery, of new motive power, and new means of communication displaces the old, and renders some portions of capital useless. This waste of capital, and its absorption in enterprises not im- mediately remunerative, disturbs the normal rela- tions of capita] to emplojmient and causes crises. We come, in short, to the conclusion that crises are caused by a lack of coincidence in the laws of growth, of production, and consumption. Changes in the former are rapid, those of the latter slow and gradual. Production is always prone to ad- vance more rapidly than consmnption. This proposition seems at variance with accepted theories of political economy, but in reality it harmonizes with them. The struggle for e.xistence which lies at the root of economic life is a con- test between Nature's limitations and potential consumption, which is unlimited. But concrete consumption and potential consumption are two different things. Indeed, we seem to be drawing near the familiar proposition that crises are caused by overproduction. This proposition has been vigorously opposed by those who have taken it in an absolute sense, and have revolted at the idea that juoduction could ever outstrip man's needs, us implying man's incapacity for furtlicr development. But if we understand overproduc- tion as a false distribution of products over a series of years in comjiarison with man's actual consumption, and a false choice of objects of pro- duction in comparison with man's potential con- sum])tion, we need not revolt at the statement that overproduction — along certain lines — is the cause of crises. Such a statement of the causes of crises seems to lack the precision which cliarac- terizes the attribution of crises to definite phe- nomena, but it must be remembered that the more complex the phenomena to be accounted for, the more general must, of necessity, be the cause to which they are ascribed. BiBLioGRAi'HY. Consult the First Annual Re- port of the United States Commissioner of Labor, on "Indvistrial Depressions" (188G) : Jones. Eco- nomic Crises (New York, 1900) ; Burton, Finan- cial Crises and Periods of Industrial and Com- mercial Depression (New York, 1902). The two works last named contain bibliographies of the subject. CRISP, CiiAELEs Frederic (1845-96). An American jurist and politician. He was born in Sheffield, England, but came to the United States when a child. He served in the Confed- erate Army from 1861 to 1864, when he was made a prisoner. He was admitted to the bar in 1866, and served as Solicitor-General of Mississippi from 1872 to 1877, and as judge of the Superior Court from 1877 to 1882. From this time until his death he was a Democratic member of Con- gress, and from 1891 until 1895 was Speaker of the House. CRISPI, kre'spe, Francesco (1819-1901). An Italian statesman, born at Ribera, in Sicily, Octo- ber 4, 1819. He studied law at Palermo and was admitted to the bar there, and in 1846 at Naples. He took an active part in the Sicilian uprising of 1848, and after its disastrous issue engaged in journalism in Piedmont. In 1860 he aided Gari- baldi in his expedition for the deliverance of the Two Sicilies. He became the first representative of Palermo in the Italian Parliament, began immediately to play a prominent njle, and after having been the leader of the radical Left, be- came an exponent of monarchical constitutional- ism. In 1876 he was elected president of the Clianiber of Deputies. To promote the interests of his countiy. he visited the European courts in the following year, and soon after was made Min- ister of the Interior. Denounced by his opponents on a charge of bigamy, he was obliged to resign in 1878, and, although acquitted, did not take office again luitil 1887, in the Cabinet of Depretis, after whose death, in the same, year, he became head of the Cabinet and Minister of Foreign Affairs. He was an earnest advocate of the Triple Alliance (q.v.) between Germany, Italy, and Austria, and in his endeavor to strengthen it visited Bismarck at Friedrichsruhe in 1S87, and accompanied King Humbert to Berlin in 1889, conferring also with Caprivl at !Milan in the following year. His policy was approved by an overwhelming majority of the electors in 1890, but his ^Ministry was over- thrown on a matter of financial policy in Febru- ary, 1891. He now resumed his law practice in Rome, and, in the Chamber of Deputies, led the Opposition against his successor in office, the Marouis di Rudini. In 1893 he resumed the
