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 production in the several branches of industry has been given by Mr. D.A. Wells, who regards machinery as the direct cause of depressed trade, operating in three ways--(1) increased capacity of production, (2) improved methods of distribution, (3) the opening up of new abundant supplies of raw material. Thus production grows faster than consumption. "In this way only is it possible to account for the circumstances that the supply of the great articles and instrumentalities of the world's use and commerce have increased during the last twelve or fifteen years in a far greater ratio than the contemporaneous increase of the world's population or of its immediate consuming capacity."[150]