"There are, also, by this arrangement, many more establishments
for selling than are necessary in the villages, towns, and
cities; and a very large capital is thus wasted without benefit
to society. And from their number opposed to each other all over
the country to obtain customers, they endeavor to undersell each
other, and are therefore continually endeavoring to injure the
producer by the establishment of what are called cheap shops and
warehouses; and to support their character the master or his
servants must be continually on the watch to buy bargains, that
is, to procure wealth for less than the cost of its production.
"The distributers, small, medium, and large, have all to be
supported by the producers, and the greater the number of the
former compared with the latter, the greater will be the burden
which the producer has to sustain; for as the number of
distributers increases, the accumulation of wealth must
decrease, and more must be required from the producer.
"The distributers of wealth, under the present system, are a
dead weight upon the producers, and are most active demoralisers
of society. Their dependent condition, at the commencement of
their task, teaches or induces them to be servile to their
customers, and to continue to be so as long as they are
accumulating wealth by their cheap buying and dear selling. But
when they have secured sufficient to be what they imagine to be
an independence--to live without business--they are too often
filled with a most ignorant pride, and become insolent to their
dependents.
"The arrangement is altogether a most improvident one for
society, whose interest it is to produce the greatest amount of
wealth of the best qualities; while the existing system of
distribution is not only to withdraw great numbers from
producing to become distributers, but to add to the cost of the
consumer all the expense of a most wasteful and extravagant
distribution; the distribution costing to the consumer many
times the price of the original cost of the wealth purchased.
"Then, by the position in which the seller is placed by his
created desire for gain on the one hand, and the competition he
meets with from opponents selling similar productions on the
other, he is strongly tempted to deteriorate the articles which
he has for sale; and when these are provisions, either of home
production or of foreign importation, the effects upon the
health, and consequent comfort and happiness of the consumers,
are often most injurious, and productive of much premature
death, especially among the working classes, who, in this
respect, are perhaps made to be the greatest sufferers, by
purchasing the inferior or low-priced articles.
* * * * *