Production, as now carried on, is primarily conducted in the expectation of _sale_, and of profitable sale. Trade does not go of itself, automatically. Rather, it is a highly difficult matter, calling for the highest order of ability, and the labor of innumerable men. In general, I think it safe to say that in ordinary times, the manufacturer loses vastly more sleep over the question of how he shall market his output, than he does over the question of how he shall produce it. A clerk in the Westinghouse Air Brake Company, engaged in the accounting department, spoke recently to the writer of the "productive end" of the business. On inquiry, it developed that he meant the selling department! He stated that the manufacturing department also, in the language of the employees, in that corporation, would also be termed "productive," but that the selling department was _the_ productive department. If one reflects a little as to the proportion of "costs" that go into selling, as compared with technical "production," I think my point will be clearer. Advertising has developed so enormously that it needs little discussion. It has been stated that the "Sapolio" people once tried, after their reputation seemed thoroughly established, to stop advertising, with such disastrous results that very extraordinary efforts were required to reestablish the brand. Number 2 wheat is not advertised, in the great magazines, but innumerable brands of flour get newspaper and magazine advertising,--some of them in such a periodical as the _Saturday Evening Post_, and even those which are locally consumed are commonly advertised in the local press. Nor is it only finished products, of the sort that must be sold to the fickle public, that involve these heavy selling costs. The writer has in mind a corporation producing a high-grade type of glazed retort, in the production of which it has virtually a monopoly, since the clay with which it is made does not coexist with the skill to make it in any other place. The particular product is an indispensable part of many important technical processes. Substitutes made of other clays, and by other companies, are known by the trade to be unsatisfactory. The buyers are all highly trained business men. Here, if anywhere, selling costs should be slight. But the chief selling agent of the corporation has found it necessary, in order to keep the business going, to incur huge expenses for entertaining his customers, finds it necessary to incur great travelling expenses, to use only the most expensive hotels, and, incidentally, to drink a great deal more than his personal inclinations would call for, in keeping the business for his house. I waive discussion of the extraordinary fees which a trust promotor makes, in effecting a consolidation of big business units,--a process of exchange. I am speaking now of the ordinary costs involved in ordinary trade. The army of travelling salesmen, the body of stenographers, who write