DEMAND AND SUPPLY. The nature and influence of the law or agency so desig nated by political economists have been the subject of considerable dispute. It has sometimes been maintained as a ruling principle, that the demand for anything creates the supply. This has been denied, however; and it has been held that, on the contrary, the supply precedes the demand, since the article must be in existence before a pur chaser goes to ask for it. Steam-engines, for instance, and India rubber galoshes, must have been invented and made before any one thought of purchasing them. The most convenient way, perhaps, of viewing the term demand and supply, is to consider it as applicable to articles in the market; and here we shall find that the demand and the sup ply are continually vibrating with a tendency to balance. Sometimes there is more of an article than will sell at a remunerating price, sometimes less; but there is always a strong tendency to a balance. Thus, on any day in London, the supply of beef or of tish may be less than the demand—that is to say, the trade may be so brisk that had there been a few more bullocks at Smithfield, or a few more salmon and turbot at Bill ingsgate, they might have been sold at remunerating prices. At the same time, there may happento be an excess of both commodities at Windsor. It never will happen, however, that a supply suited for the London market will find its way to Windsor, or that no more will reach London than might feed Windsor—it would be as rational to expect the river Thames to reverse its course. This is the great law, then, by which
the world is supplied with the necessaries of life. Every day the proper supply for the enormous consumption of London is on its way from the uttermost ends of the earth, as systematically as the sap is ascending to penetrate through all the branches of the tree. How impossible it would be to effect the same thing by artificial organization may be illustrated from the Russian campaign of Napoleon, where, despite of the most skill ful and costly arrangements, one portion of the army were starving to death, while another were slaughtering their bullocks and leaving them to rot! It is necessary to keep in view the proper function of this law, which is in some measure defined under Competition (q.v.). The demand will not produce everything: no money will bring forth when wanted a Milton's Paradise Lost, or a Raphael's " Transfiguration." On the other hand, there are services beneficial to the world, or to a community, for which there is no demand in the commercial sense. There is a demand for almanacs, but none for the astronomical investigations on which they are founded. There is a demand for teachers of Latin and Greek, and for Latin and Greek school-books, but none for the profound scholarship necessary for keeping the knowledge of these languages alive; hence come scientific and scholastic endowments and establish ments.