The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1866-12-29 00:00:00

RID,
I. 1•11111MEMMEINMI

the parish church; wh-lle the road to rain le to be a
maze which only the very canning shall be able to
unraveL The sceptical laugh, and shrug their shoul-
ders, and turn on their heels—they have heard of so
many settlements of Luau's social difficulties in their
time. . . . Yet the Minister of Public Instruc-
tion, who is no dweller in Utonia, but rather keeps
his foot firmly fixed upon terra ttrnia, and has a habit
of being matter-of-fact in his speculations, has put his
seal upon the plan.
The greatest spendthrift will be the most notable
economist. We are, in truth, before the palace in
which the regeneration of the Prodigal Son is to be
accomplished. Nay, the prodigal shall be richer far
than the miser. A. spendthrift wife shall he the blessing
of her husband's declining years, and shall deserve the
lifelong gratitude of her children. Every pound
spent on a child from the hour when first it is
swaddled on its nurse's knees shall be so much money
laid 11P for it, Well may it crow over its rattle • for
the music proclaims only so many shillings stored up
for the comfort of its future.
It is in order to realise this happy dream completely
that these united shops have been built on this ex.
traordinegy scale, and at a cost of nearly half a million
of money. Every industry is to be represented under
these massive colonnades. Here every conceivable
human want can be satisfied, and the buyer shall be
the richer for his purchase. An by the united shop
system the child's cradle shall profit the man, so his
coffin and his shroud shall not be lost in the earth, but
shall return to his successors, after a time, in the
shape of so much solid gold. The funeral baked meats
may be eaten with the comforting reflection that they
will re-appear in the shape of bread to the descendants
of the departed.
I have under my eyes a pamphlet by Paul Dalloz
on the art of saving by spending. Economy could
surely not be presented to the mind in a more agree.
able form. M. ILelloz is no dreamer. His pamphlet
is merely a reprint from the ilnatear. He admits
that at the outset the idea of saving by spending is a
startling and a dazz inc one. He then proceeds to
tell his readers how he has studied the system of
" obligation warrants," and has reached the conclusion
that their appearance in trade marks a new and happy
epoch. We have not come upon the millennium yet,
but on the horizon the light of a better day shimmers.
To him a happy future is as clear as bon dom.. He has
analysed the foundation of the united shops again and
again; he ham striven with all his might to find a flaw
in the corner-stone of the building; but everywhere
are harmony and strength. The united shops are '
marked with this paradox, "Buy, and you will have
Your DUrehass sod your purchase money." The
passers-by laugh. A number of practiced men
have been found to club their money together that
they may say to the public, "While we make a fair
profit on our capital, you, who are buying your daily
necessaries of us now, shall be only thereby laying up
a fortune for them who come after you, or indeed for
your own age. Nought that you consume shall be lost
to you."
The calculations on which the obligation warrant
system has been established may be briefly described.
The advantage or gain to the purchaser is obtained by
the simplification and consequent cheapening of the
proems of distribution. The wholesale part of the
usual profit" which are made in commerce to the dis-
advantage of the consunier is suppressed. The
hundred and fifty shopkeepers who will be installed
in the new edifice, will be there at extraordinary low
relate. They will be saved the groat cost of separate
advertising. At the same time they will have a
steady custom. In short, one hundred and fifty
shopkeepers club their expenses, and find their rent,
to begin with, reduced from shout a thousand a year
to about • hundred and fifty. The great saving which
the shopkeepers will effect in their expenses, and the
advantage of direct trading with the producer, form
the basis on which the obligation warrants are estate-
',imbed. The shopkeepers will sell at the usual rate,
but the extra profit of their operations, the profit
derived from the society's plan, will be kept hack and
deposited in the society's coffers. Now, it is this pro-
fit which is presently returned to the purchaser who
has created it. It is expressed to him in this way :
Say that he buys a dress for his wife of the value of
100 francs; he pays his money, receives the robe, and
with it an obligation warrant for hal trams. This
obligation-warrant is • negotiable security. It en-
title* the holder to the sum of 100 francs at the ex-
piration of 59 years. But this is not aIL A certain
amount of them obligation-warrants are paid off
every year by lottery, like other public debentures or
loan Coupons in France. It should be observed that
these obligation-warrants are amply secured, the
capital which they represent being all placed out on
pithlic securities. Sooner or later then, at latest fifty-
nine years after the purchase is made, the purchaser
or his representa'ive comes again into possession of
the money he expended.
Say that the obligation-warrant system of trading
had been established twenty years ago; under this '
system a middle-class family has expended 400/.
a year. Paterfamilias would have in his creretairc
obligation-warrants secured on the public funds, to
the extent of 5.0001., if indeed he had not already
realised part of this sum in one of the twenty annual
drawings, at each of which he would have had a
chance. At any rate, he would have negotiable
securities!, and be wool!! had himself every year the
richer for his exjsenditure. These obligation-warrants
are within the reach of the humblest purses. I should
obit roe, that every obligation-warrant wid he of the
value of 100 francs. The maj uuty of purchasers in
the Magattine-Reunis or Palace of the Prodigal
Son, will not invest to this extent at one
visit. A poor mother buys a pair of boots for
her boy, paying six franca. She receives with the i
boots a little printed acknowledgement of her ex-
peninture. purchases in the
palace are shown by her receipts to have reacneo 100
francs, she repairs to the society's office in the
palace and receives the obligation-warrant to which
she is entitled. By this simple process this econo- '
n i•al shopping or trading, the poor mother can,
while she is spending money on her boy's neces-
saries, Positively accumulate for him a little fund,
that may at his majority be enough to purehme
his exoneration from military service. A dazzlirg
eeries of cases to which the system of obligation-
warrants may bring comfort and happiness has teen
drawn up. The of the daughter is insensibly pro-
vided by the expenses of her bringing up. An in-
genious writer ban described the new system in this
way; he says, that the purchaser's money is merely
an advance made to the shopkeeper for which the
goods delivered are the interest. It follows, then, as
a matter of simple lustier, that when the amount of
interest expressed by the cootie has been earned at the
rate of 5 per cent, by the capital, the capital itself
should return to the investor.
In the Palace id the Prodigal Son there are to be no
annonncements !if extraordinary bargains and ruinous
sacrifices. A fair regulated profit will be made on
every article. The prices of gmsds will be exactly
those of every fair-dealing shop in Parisi, while the
purchaser will have the society's guarantee that every
article is exactly what its vendor declares it to be. A
great home and foreign retail trade, on the obligation-
warrant system, is in process of °reanimation, so that
the prodigal Cons of all nations may cease to be the
ruin of their families. The builder:4 of the great
palace by the Chateau d'Eau liken their system to the
operations of some of the co-operative societies of
England, and with reason. These ohligation-warrants
cdisely resemble the tickets which members of co-
operative stores receive on makings purcha-e—tickets
which entitle them to a share in the trailing profits of
the society proportioned to the amount of their pur-
chases. Wherever there is • simplification of trade
there is naturally a gain to the consumer, since every
pelt made by the middlemen or wholesale and re-
tail traiiers. or distributors, comes out of his pocket.
Hence it is that the poorest purchaser pays the
highest price. Co-operative societies had their origin
among the working classes, for the good reason that
these classes were the greatest sufferers by the expen-
sive complications of trade. The obligation-warrant
system is only a new development of the principle of
association, and it will be an exceedingly curious ant
instructive one, worthy the serious attention of all
visitors to the Universal Exhibition of 1867.