This scarcity is a graver and more complex phenomenon than those who most complain of it suppose, and is not the fault of government or traders. It is a veritable _recommencement de l’histoire_, and the study of the Roman Empire can be of the greatest service in helping us to understand it. It is the first serious, universally felt symptom of that excessive urbanisation which was the ruin of ancient Rome. This modern society arises from the over-development of the cities, from the too rapid increase in the needs and luxuries of the multitudes who live in the cities. Men and money concentrate in the cities, and swell the urban industries and luxury, public and private, intent on putting into operation all the marvels which the fertile modern genius, inspired by competition in the race for progress, is continually inventing. The countryside, on the other hand, has in the last half-century been left too much to itself, and agriculture has been too much neglected, exactly as began to be the case in the Roman Empire at the beginning of the second century of the Christian era. It is easy to guess what must be the natural consequence of this lop-sided arrangement. The cities grow bigger; industries increase in number and in size; the luxury and the needs of the masses, crowded together in the cities, augment. On the other hand, there is no proportionate increase in the productiveness of the land. And so the increase in wealth is accompanied by an increasing scarcity of the fruits of the earth; and the things which serve to clothe and feed us—cotton, linen, hemp, wool, cereals, meat, vegetables—nearly all rise in price much more than do manufactured goods. This explains the scarcity that vexes the cities in proportion to their growth in size. In no country is this phenomenon more apparent and interesting than in the United States. Which of the nations of the world could more easily revel in the most marvellous abundance of everything which it is possible to conceive? The United States has no lack of territories to cultivate; or of capital, which accumulates every year in immeasurable quantity; or of strong arms, Europe providing her with immigrants in the prime of life; or of the spirit of enterprise and of untiring energy. And yet, in no country of Europe are complaints of the expense of living more generally and loudly raised than in the United States. Why? Because in America the disproportion between the progress of the country and that of the cities, between industrial progress and agricultural progress, is even greater than in Europe, the home of populations which for centuries have been accustomed to a country life. Consequently the scarcity is greater and more vexatious in the United States, because the wealth of that country is greater than that of Europe.