Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1881-04-14
UNBUsINEssLIKE WAYS OF DOING BUsI-
NESS


the friction which costs most, and heed
lessness and ignorance produce more fric-
ton than all other causes put together.
There is no community which Is not
chargeable TO greater or less extent with
the vice of improvidence, and many OF
the drawbacks which from want of retiec-
ton are attributed to external influences.
are really the effects of the stupidity and
perverseness OF those who suffer from
them. Whoever undertakes the study OF
modern transportation, for instance, and
examines into the demand and supply of
various communities, will soon perceive
that there is an enormous waste of resources
going on continually, and that the public
pay five or six times what they ought to
pay for many things, simply because there
is no guiding intelligence to show them
where their interests lie.
Take for illustration one or two facts IN
relation to trade in this State. During
the past five years or so very important
line of shipments in the shape of bottled
beers has been established. These beers
come from Milwaukee and st. Louis prin-
cipally, and they are imported to the
extent of several millions of dollars an
nually. Now the malt and hops used IN
making these beers grow in California.
They are sent from here to the East.
There water is added to them, and the
process of fermentation is gone through.
The product is then put into bottles, and
reshipped to the Pacific coast in the form
of high. class freight, and the people who
drink the beer here have to pay the cost of
sending the malt and hops all the way to
st. Louis and Milwaukee, of making them
into beer there, and of bringing that beer
in bottles back again across the continent.
Under more intelligent system it is per-
fectly clear that the malt and hops grown
here would be made into beer in the State,
and that all this unnecessary expense of
transportation would be saved to the COL.
sumner. When the raw material is pro-
duced is the natural habitat of manufact-
ures, and when the raw material and the
manufactures are separated as in this case,
there mast be an immense amount of
waste capital.
Take another illustration, namely, that
of wool. This is wool-growing State.
1t exports ever increasing amounts of that
staple 1t does this in so careless, slovenly
and extravagant way that full forty per
cent. of the nominal weight of the staple
exported is sheer waste that is to say,
there is forty per cent. of dirt in every
hundred pounds of wool sent East. OF
course, freight has to be paid ON the dirt
as well as on the wool, and of course this
involves heavy loss. 1t would be per-
fectly easy to prevent this loss. 1t would
be to the advantage of our wool-growers to
clean the staple before baling it. But the
slovenly method has thus far prevailed
over al. remonstrance, notwithstanding the
obvious injury it has done to the reputa-
ton of the California wool The wool,
however, is sent East as raw material.
There it is manufactured, and then it is
sent back again as high-class freight, and
all this additional expense falls upon the
consumer. The latter does not get any
better goods than he would if the wool was
manufactured here but he has the salts.
faction of paying three or four prices for
everything he wears, and of knowing that
he has. so managed as to secure the least
possible advantage from his productive
facilities.
This kind of thing, however, has always
been the favorite California method. It
resembles the habits OF our farmers, when
they go to the neigbboring towns to buy
butter and eggs and bacon, and when they
depend upon Chinese peddlers for their
vegetables and garden stuff generally.
Nevertheless people who refuse to exercise
rational forethought in living, and who in
so many instances seem TO take perverse
satisfaction in doing everything the wrong
! " dN Slll bllc uAOoL NaStuI OuHIib
not to complain if they find that life is more
than usually difficult to them. 1t is i'm
| possible for any community to obtain the
benefits of production so long as what they
| produce has to be carried over q continent
| to be manufactured, and then brought
back again, and thus has to bear the cost
of freight both ways in addition to the
cost of manufacture. In early days the
pioneers sometimes sent a shipload Of
dirty clothing to China to be washed, and
thatrecourse is fair example ofthe methods
which have obtained among us ever since.
A country that cannot make up its raw
material cannot expect to get anything like
the full profit Of production. If it has to
depend on distant communities for its man.
ufactures it will fare as the miners did in
'49. 1t viii find that the cost of transporta-
ton and the wages of middlemen eat up
two-thirds OF its legitimate returns. a
country which has no cheap labor of its
own, and which refuses to employ such
cheap labor as it can obtain elsewhere,
cannot expect to indulge in this kind of
fastidiOusness for nothing What it costs
to occupy the high plane of dear-labor
philosophy may be partly measured by the
waste above exhibited, though the items
We have selected for illustration constitute
but a small proportion of the whole loss.
The truth is that we are carrying on our
business upon unbusinesslike principles.
and the result is that we have to live in a
very wasteful and extravagant manner.
Until we learn to do for ourselves MANY
of the things which we now pay other com.
munities so highly to do for us, we shall
never be thrifty people, and we shall al.
ways DE living upon our capital.
THE PAY OF THE STATURE.
The question whether the members of
tba 7 eo;eIatura ara apfitled m nav dur;ro