COMPETITION AND THE TRUSTS. 623 



effects good and evil. While it brings the latest products of met- 

 ropolitan taste and skill to the remotest and smallest settlements, 

 its services, when ignorantly and chancefully directed, as in 

 the case of the Adirondack village, result in waste and loss. An 

 agent of shrewdness and fidelity can exercise a very valuable 

 watchfulness over his principal's debtors, yet a system which 

 tends to make a " connection '' the property of an agent, trans- 

 ferable to a new employer, is not one to diminish the liabili- 

 ties and cares of business management. But the chief evil of the 

 oversolicitation which is so common is the undue cheapening of 

 credit. While it continues to be as difdcult as ever for a mer- 

 chant to borrow money, there is nothing easier than his getting 

 credit for money's worth in the form of goods. Whereas an old- 

 time shop-keeper, in his face-to-face transactions with a whole- 

 sale merchant or manufacturer, explained why he deserved credit 

 when he wanted it, nowadays persuading people to take credit, 

 even for what they do not want and may not pay for, has become 

 a fine art ; while the investigation of the creditability of firms is 

 the function of immense " commercial agencies." A step in the 

 direction of sound business organization has been taken by the 

 employment of commercial travelers to ascertain a demand be- 

 fore it is supplied. A manufacturer of hats or straw-goods designs 

 a variety of styles for an approaching season's trade, and turns 

 out the quantities ordered and no more. By similar methods many 

 importers avoid carrying large stocks of goods, and are becoming 

 more and more commission-merchants, or brokers, unburdened by 

 the rent of extensive premises and the losses incidental to buying 

 for chance sale. 



In Great Britain, every year, more than a himdred million 

 dollars' worth of goods are distributed at retail at a gross cost 

 little exceeding five per cent. In New England the experimental 

 imitations of British co-operation have transacted business at an 

 expense one half more, 77 per cent. Retail distribution in Amer- 

 ica probably costs twenty per cent of the prices consumers pay, 

 and, because of their utter absence of organization, the outlays for 

 solicitation constantly grow. Conspicuous premises are leased at 

 enormous rents to attract chance buyers. Windows are decked 

 by artists whose skill is a specialty, invoking the aid of scene- 

 painter and stage-mechanic. Newspapers are filled with adroit 

 and reiterated allurements. Circulars repeat them ; hoardings re- 

 echo them. At home the bell-ringing army of hawkers and can- 

 vassers consume time which is money, and patience, which is more. 

 Minor articles of use or beauty are gratuitously distributed, to re- 

 mind us at every turn of the merits of some pill, soap, or insurance 

 company. Who shall measure the cost of all this to the solicited, 

 in distraction and annoyance ? One of the most promising fields 



