On this page
-
Text (4)
-
Untitled Article
-
Untitled Article
-
Untitled Article
-
Untitled Article
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
-
-
Transcript
-
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
Additionally, when viewing full transcripts, extracted text may not be in the same order as the original document.
Untitled Article
Secondly , when corn is multiplied , it loses its exchangeable value , but not its real value : it remains good eating still , though we might prefer dainties . Gold multiplied , loses its exchangeable value—the principal value which it has . If you cannot exchange it , you cannot eat it yourself .
Untitled Article
A BANKRUPTCY RETRIEVED . It is reported from the Bankruptcy Court , that " Mr Keating , the chemist , of St . Paul ' s churchyard , appeared for a renewal of his protection ; the certificate meeting having been adjourned , from time to time , so that Mr . Keating' may by the superintendence of the business pay the creditors 20 s . in the pound . Hitherto the trade has been prosperous , and the assignees and creditors are perfectly satisfied . This is one of the very few cases where integrity and industry is duly appreciated ; for in too
many instances persons are driven to bankruptcy , notwithstanding that by judicious management a surplus would be left . " By relying solely on trading motives , trade punishes itself . In Egypt , and we believe other paits of the East , the usage is not to reduce a trader to bankruptcy . On the contrary , the creditors will lend him money to recover his position . The course is dictated by humanity ; but society gains , and so does trade , by preventing an absolute loss . Mr . Keating ' s case indicates a humane and wise advance in the practice of our commercial law : we hope it will not be the last instance .
Untitled Article
TRANSCENDANT BRAVERY OP THt STAMP-OFFICE . Courage and scholarship flourish together' Twin cherries on one stalk "in the intricacies of the Stamp-office . "Valorous gentle , men those at the head of the Board of Inland Revenue ! They never hit one of their own size . They never attack a sturdy opponent . They have not even the pluck of Quixote , as he had not the gift of meanness ; for though he pitched into the windmills by mistake , doubtless he would have had a dash at them had they been giants in earnest . Bent on earning their own destruction , magnanimous persons ! they have lately forwarded an intimation to the Maidstone Gazette , as striking in its substance as it is slovenly in its form . Here it is : — " It having been the practice of some of the publishers of newspapers of inserting a list of ' Arrivals at Hotels , ' I am directed to inform you that the advertisement duty attncJics to such announcements in respect to each hotel , nnd th ; it any such list , with the hotel named , will be charged if it appear after this notice . " The list must not appear , nor the hotel with it ! Hotel must retire into private life . But are there not fashionable journals nearer to Somerset-house ? Every day our good friend the Post—and , in f . ict , all the morning journals—chronicle the arrivals an < l departures of " distinguished" persons , native and foreign . Why , then , single out the Mtiidstone Gazette for punishment ? Why attack the isolated provincial newspaper , when the j ^ iant is at hand ?
Untitled Article
SOCIAL REFO It M . ASSOCIATION FOR THE MIDDLE Cl ASH . To Thornton Hunt , Esq . Sept . " 3 . 1851 . Dear Sir , —The Leader for the Cth instant contains a letter from Mr . C . F . Nicholls on a subject so important in its bearings upon the present social movement , that I hope you will allow me to recall the attention of your readers for a short time to it , notwithstanding the judicious and able remarks contained in the letter to which I refer , as well as in previous passages upon the same subject in former numbers of your paper . This subject is the position of Ike tradesman ; his present position in the struggle of competitive effort , nnd the position he would take in the world of concerted and combined effort , which the ndvocates of Association are seeking to introduce . I say , this subject has a most important bearing on the present social movement , because there is no class of men by whom that movement might be
more effectually aided than by this trading class , if they would earnestly take it up ; because , therefore , there is no class of men whose opposition is more to be deprecated ; because , as a body , this class would , I conscientiously believe , benefit by the change , aH much , if not more , than any other class ; L'lHtly , because , from the tone adopted by some of the modern leaders in the literature of
As-, especially in France , where the great modern idea of Association is still distorted and tillering from the painful throes attendant on its violent Lirth , a notion has widely gone forth that the Associative movement is necessarily destructive
* o the tradesman , that it intends to eat up this class of traders in order to give the classes socially below it wherewithal to live ; and that , therefore , as a body , the trading class must , in self-defence , adopt Lord Hardwick ' s answer to the Dissenters of his day for its motto towards these inferior classes : " Sirs , we have got you down , and by G— we will keep you down . " It is said , and it is said with truth , that one object of Association is to suppress middle men . Now , the tradesman is essentially a middle man : his function is to distribute , to take what one set of
men have collected or produced and hand it over to another set who desire it in exchange for something which they have collected or produced , and the first set desire . But the "distributor does not , directly , produce anything . He does not add , as distributor , to the mass of enjoyable or useful things which exist upon the earth , though he may most materially conduce to their being used or enjoyed . Therefore , a system of concert , of which it must , from the reason of the case ^ be a principle always to effect every end with the greatest possible ceconomy of means , will necessarily seek to reduce the number of distributors to the smallest number
required in order to do the work well ; and thus would unquestionably , were it generally adopted at once , suppress many of the distributors who now exist as distributors in the particular district , or for the particular purpose in and for which they are at this moment carrying on the work of distribution . For among the many evil results of the present system of disorganized struggle , one of the most conspicuous . is the prodigious amount of labour and talent wasted in the contest of competitive distributors for custom . Undoubtedly on a system of concerted labour we should not have the baker in
the City sending loaves to Piccadilly , while the baker in Piccadilly sends loaves into the City , as now may easily be the case . Certainly a body of men who should endeavour to agree upon a convenient and oeconomieal system of supplying groceries , would not send off every morning halfa-dozen carts from different shops in the same district , to supply as many contiguous houses in another district , as is probably done every day in every part of London . Could we at once leap into a system of associated labour , no doubt , therefore ,
many of the present distributors might have to be otherwise employed , though ifc may be even then doubted whether the increased exchanges consequent on the increased production under that system might not lead to ample occupation being found for them all in their old business . 15 ut to suppose , that , because a . system of associated labour will seek to ( economize ns far as possible the labour employed in distribution , as it
will seek to economize as far as possible the labour employed in every species of production , therefore , it would or could suppress the function of distribution , and the class of distributors as such , is to argue in forgetfulness of the natural laws on which the existence of this class of men depends ; that is to say , of the infinite diversity in the objects of human labour , arising from the constitution of the globe on which we dwell .
r lhe great Herder calls attention to this fact , when he enlarges on the vast effects in the history of mankind due to the circumstance of his living on a sphere instead of a flat surface ; the varieties of pursuits , of habits , of physical character , resulting from the manifold diversities of climate existing between the equator and the poles . The more detailed study of the phyHiial structure of the earth carried on in more recent times , adds force to the observation . Travel across KnfJand from east to west in any point—travel through it from north to south in almost any
parallel of latitude , and you will rapidl y pass through a variety of soils , and even of climates * which give necessarily to the industry of each district a local character of its own . The chalky downs , the strong clays , the rich marls , the light sands , the coal-bearing strata , the iron districts , the mountain veins—how many differences do not these natural peculiarities constitute in the labour of the inhabitants of the different portions of our own little island ; differences from which , necessarily , interchanges of produce must urine , calling into activity the function of diHtrjbution and the class of distributors ?
Extend your view to a wider horizon—to the differences of land and sea—the differences already alluded to of climate and natural productions , dependent on the figure of the earth—and it will at once be seen how unfounded is the supposition that a class of persons occupied in facilitating the interchange of produce can ever cease to be wanted , that their services would not be called for ; and if they are called for , what is to prevent them from being fairly
valued and adequately remunerated according to their value . It may be , perhaps , thought that there will be a jealousy between the more numerous class of producers and the less numerous class of distributors which will lead to a danger of injustice being done to the latter . But the fear arises from an imperfect apprehension of the principle of Association , from forgetting that under it the distinctions which now set class in hostile
opposition to class will have disappeared , that there will be no class of employers ever against a class of employed , no class of distributors standing apart from the body of producers or consumers with separate interests , that the masters will be merged in the director or manager , and the work of distribution will become , like all other works , one of many public functions , discharged on account of the whole body by a certain set of persons , who will be entitled to a share of the produce accordingly ; why , then , should it be supposed that any one set of these functionaries will be looked upon with suspicion , or treated with unfairness by the body on whose behalf they act ?
I have gone into the question in its most general aspect to show how titterly ungrounded is the view which would represent the distributive or trading classes as mere parasites , flourishing on the destruction of the body by which they are upheld ; as persons having essentially an adverse interest to the rest of the community , and to whom , therefore , Association , by the very fact of its aiming at the benefit of the whole community , must prove a deadly enemy .
But this train of reasoning has led me on to anticipate a state of progress which we are very far indeed from having attained , and carried me far beyond the practical question which to us of the present day is mainly important , the position which any body of tradesmen take now in the associative movement , if they will throw themselves heartily into it ; if , giving up the more selfish desire of individual
aggrandizement , acting on the faith that the true good of every man is inseverably intertwined with the good of his neighbour , they seek in a union , where each determines to do justice to all the rest , and asks for himself no larger share of advantage than he is justly entitled to , that benefit which they now endeavour to obtain by looking only to their own interest and leaving other men to look to theirs .
1 here exists already , as a recent number of the header lias clearly explained , in the Central Cooperative Agency now in operation in Charlottestreet , Fit zroy-square , a point of union round which any number of tradesmen , impressed with such views , might readily combine . At present that establishment limits its operations to the sale of groceries and French wines and brandies ; but it is formed upon a plan admitting of indefinite expansion , and capable of embracing any other kind of retail trade , whether such as are merely distributive , or such as like the tailors , hatters , &c ,
unitemore or les . s , the manufacture of the articles distributed , with their sale . It is , therefore , capable of affording the point of union indispensable in any scheme of combined effort . The plan of union , tm I conceive it , would be something as follows : —The body of combined traders would begin by bringing their capital into one common stock . To each separate brunch of trade they would assign a general manager , whose special duty it would be to purchase for them in the first markets , on the most advantageous terms , the goods or materials they might require , and generally to superintend all the retail depots for those articles
belonging to the union . To each person employed in the operations of their hii . sincsN , they would allot mich a salary as might appear reasonably adequate to bis hci vices . All who were employed in it they would interest in it . s success , by associating them in a participation in the benefits accruing from it . It would be a fundamental rule of the union that all adulteration and fraud upon customers of every kind wan Htrictly proscribed , and Hternly punished . To insure the confidence of the public in their fair dealing , all their accounts should be audited from time to time by a public accountant . Lastly , to remove all opposition of
Untitled Article
Sept . 13 , 1851 . ] &t > * & ** & **? 873
-
-
Citation
-
Leader (1850-1860), Sept. 13, 1851, page 873, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1900/page/13/
-