The patron of husbandry. (Columbus, Miss.) 1875-1883, 1879-05-31

ity of traders would return to productive
work if rational system of commercial
organization were substituted for the in
extricable chaos of the present state OF
things.
d.. Itrobs society by the adulteration OF
products, pushed at the present day be-
yond all bounds. And in fact, if hun
dred grocers establish themselves in a
town where before thel. were only
20, it is plain that people will not begin
to consume five times as many groceries.
Hereupon the hundred virtuous grocers
have to dispute between them the profits
which before were honestly made by the
twenty; competition obliges them to make
it up at the expense of the consumer, either
by raising the prices as sometimes hap
pens, or by adulterating the goods as al
ways happens. In such state of things
there is an end to good faith. Inferior or
adulterated goods are sold for articles of
good quality whenever the credulous Gus
toner IS not too experienced to be de-
ceived. And when the customer has been
thoroughly imposed upon, the trading
conscience consoles itself by saying, 4
state my price; people can take or leave;
no one is obliged to buy The losses i'm
posed on the consumers by the bad quail
ity or the adulterLtion of goods are meal
culable.
s. 1t robs society by aecumulattons, ar
tifcial or not, in consequence of which
vast quantities of goods, collected in one
place are damaged and destroyed for want
of a sale. Fourier 9Th. des. Quat Mouv.,
p. 334, 1st ed. says: The fundamental
principle of the commercial system, that
of leaving full liberty to the merchants,
gives them absolute light of property
over the goods in which they deal; they
have the right to withdraw them alto
gether, to withhold or even to burn them,
as happened more than once with the ORR
entail Company of Amsterdam, which
publicly burnt stores of cinnamon in or
der to raise the price. What it did with
cinnamon it would have done with corn;
but for the fear of being stoned by the
populace, it would have burnt some corn
in order to sell the rest at four times its
value. Indeed, it actually is of daily &C.
currence in port, for provisions ofgrains to
be thrown into the sea because the mer-
chants have allowed them to rot while
waiting for rise. myself, when l was
a clerk have had to superintend these in
famous proceedings, and in one day caus-
ed to be thrown into the sea some forty
thousands bushels of rice, which might
have been sold at a fair profit had the
withholder been less greedy of gain. 1t
is society that bear the cost of this waste
which takes place daily under shelter Of
the philosophical maxim of faHH6erty.tor
merchants
E. Commerce robs society, moreover, by |
all the loss, damage, and waste that fol-
lows from the extreme scattering of pro-
ducts in millions of shops, and by the mul.
tiplication and complication of carriage.
I. 1t robs society by shameless and I'M
limited uS~ry-usury appalling. The ira
der carries on operations with fictitious
capital, much higher in amount than his
real capital A trader with a capital of
twelve hundred pounds will carry on op-
erations, by means of bills and credit on a
scale Of four, eight, or twelve thousand
pounds, Thus he draws from capital
1Vhich he docs nat possess, usurious interest,
out of all proportion with the capital he
actually owns.
s. 1t robs society by innumerable bank
for the daily accidents of our
system, political events, and
any KIND Of disturbance, must usher in a
day when the trsder, having incurred OBJ
legations beyond his meaps, is no longer
able to meet them; his failure, whether
to his creditors. The bankruptcy of some
entails that of others, SO that bankruptcies
follow oae upon another, causing wide
spread ruin. And 1t is always the pro-
Queer and the consumer who suffer; for
considered as a whole, does
not produce wealth, and invests very little
in proportion to the wealth which passes
through its hands. How many are the
manufactures crushed by these blows! how
many fertile sources of wealth dried up by
these divices, with all the disastrous con-
The producer furnishes the goods, the
the money. Trade furnishes
credit, founded on little or no actual CAPT
tai, and the different members of the COM
nercial body are in no way responsible
for one another. This. in 2 few words, is
The whole theory of the thing.
9. Commerce robs society by the inde.
and responsibility which permits
t to buy at the epochs when the produ-
GERS are forced to sell and compete with
one another, ia order to procure money !
for their rent and aeesssary expenses of
When the markets are oyer
stocked and goods cheap, trade purchases |
Then it creates a rise, and by this simple |
despoils both propucer and
consumer.
10 1t robs society by considerable
1rarUing off of capital, which will re-
turn to productive Industry when COM
meree plays its proper subordinate part,
and is only an agency on transactions be- |
tween the producer (more or less distant)
and the great centres of consump eion-the
societies. Thus the capital
engaged in the speculations of commerce
which. small as it is, compared to the i'm
mense wealth WHICH passes through its
hands consists nevertheless of SUMS enor-
nous in themselves would retura To stial-
ulate production if commerce was depriv
ed of intermediate property in goods, and
their distribution became matter of ad-
organization. Stock -jobbing
10 the ,SaaSt adioua form IF the vico of co,,,