The Newberry herald and news. (Newberry, S.C.) 1884-1903, 1892-06-15
The Curxe Of Cheapness.
! National PrOviSiOner.


When will men and women learn that
the cheapest goods are almost always
the dearest and that the highest priced
goods, ccteris l1ariJus, are generally
The cheapest in the long run: AS to
the truth Of this assertion there can
be no question. Every householder,
every housewife, every wage Garner
knows that cheapness is the trade
mark Of shoddy, and that for anything
really worth having the full value OF
money must be paid. This is true Of
products, and, in spite Of bargain
hunters and greedy speculators, this
will hold true OF all products as long
as men continue 20 by and sell.
Cheapness is one OF the curses Of this
age. Cheap clothes, food, houses, and
cheap books-for such there seems to
be perennial demand, and the result
is that men and women, otherwise in
teligent, wear flimsy garments, eat.ad-
ulterated food, live in Buddensink
houses and crowd their book shelves
with paper covered novels and ephe-
mera:, hashy magazines. The object
Of course, is to save money, and equally
of course, this object is never attained.
It would bc if cheap articles were as
durable ard otherwise as satisfactory
as high priced articles, but they are
not, and never can be. Cheap clothes
look we'll for awhile, but they don't
wear and are far dearer in the end than
clothes which cost twice as much.
Similarly, cheap houses look we'll for
awhile, but they soon need repairs and
are really far dearer than more sub
stantial and less pretentious houses
which cost few hundred dollars more.
Unfortunately the cheap articles are
nowadays in vogue, and the result IS
that large amount Of money is wasted
and, owning to stress of competition,
wages are being gradually reduced to
the starvation point. Even the cheap
est goods cannot be manufactured or
brought into the market without the
aid of human hands, but they can be
manufactured and brought into market
at the lowest possible cost and to our
shame, be it said, manufacturers and
dealers vie with one another in finding
out what this lowest possible cost IS
and in reducing the wages of their
workingmen to that point. For this
barbarous state of things competition
is undoubtedly to blame. In every
branch of business the aim of maufac-
turers is to undersell competitors and
if possible drive them out Of the market,
and the easiest way to achieve this
aim is to pay starvation wages and
thus produce the cheapest possible
goods. We clamor for cheap shirts,
cheap cloaks, cheap cigars, cheap food,
and the result is that in all our great
cities thousands Of men and women
are working like slaves for miserable
pittance which barely sutlices to keep
the breath of life in theil i'll fed, ILL
clad bodies,
The only remedy for this crying evil
is healthy public sentiment-.n other
words, a crusade against cheap goods.
Philanthropists mean we'll, bat they |
are on the wrong track. Instead OF
distress by eleemosynary
gifts they ought to fight against the
commercial system, which is the cause
of starvation wages. 1.-THE lsborer IS
worthy of his hire" and no articles
are worth buying which have been
produced by i'll paid laborers. More
over, it is sheer waste OF money to
buy articles of inferior material and
quality. There may be for the seller
profit in such articles, but
there certainly is none for the pur-
chaser. On the contrary, they gener-
ally prove to be very expensive to the
purchaser. Hence We claim that it is
not only the duty, but that it is also
the interest: of every American citizen
to close his purse strings tightly when
to buy cheap goods. Cheap
goods mean low wages, and first class
goods mean high wages, and hence it
naturally follows that when high wa
yes are paid for first class goods, and
there is healthy demand for such
goods, prosperity for uil classes is bound
10 ensue.