All along the line, too, the big firm is favoured at the expense of the smaller. The position of the small tradesman is often a very hard one. The shopkeeper in a village or small town near the metropolis pays heavy rates for the upkeep of roads which are torn to pieces by the heavy motors of the great distributing firms delivering goods to those who would otherwise be his customers, perhaps with petrol specially exempted from taxation. The firm which by widespread advertisements can induce people to buy an article with some familiar name attached, reaps a gigantic fortune, while the man who makes the same article and cannot spend money on advertisement gains a mere pittance. The advertisements which disfigure the country are not taxed, as in other countries, and the issue of advertising circulars has been subsidised by the Post Office, which delivered them at a rate lower than that charged for delivery of the letters, or even the postcards, of the poorest, though the trouble involved is the same. The patent laws, again, have been exploited to protect the large manufacturer, who fences some form of production by taking out a string of patents often where there is no meritorious invention at all. The rubbishy specifications are flourished in the face of a poor competitor, and form a basis for threats which a man who is not wealthy dare not resist, knowing the heavy cost of fighting any patent action whether successful or not. "To him that hath shall be given" ought not to be a maxim to guide legislators or any department of Government. To return from this digression. One great advantage of the councils would be that those who represent the workmen upon them will probably be men who are actually engaged in manual work in the trades concerned, or have been so engaged, and who will look at each question practically. The agitator who lives on grievances and disputes, the politician "on the make," or the well-meaning and half-informed enthusiast from outside, is not likely to find a place on councils whose object it is to see how interests which investors, managers, and workmen have in common can best be promoted, and how the share of each in the work and its profits can be more fairly assigned and distributed instead of attention being concentrated on matters in which their interests seem to be in conflict.