INDUSTRIAL REDISTRIBUTION. 303 



added strength in the people, there would most cer- 

 tainly be an advance. 



These are some of the immediate and most direct 

 benefits which society would derive from the adoption 

 of this proposition, in bringing all into employment. 

 With the most earnest desire to discover what would 

 be the evils that would grow out of the adoption of 

 these measures I have not been able to find even one. 

 And in the matter of cost, or loss, which would at 

 once arise in the minds of many, in every case the 

 material compensation that would immediately follow 

 would immeasurably more than repay for all. 



In discussing this matter, as applied to employ- 

 ments, I have made special use of the facts in the 

 development of agriculture to illustrate the operation 

 of the measure proposed, for the reason that it is the 

 occupation that lies at the base of the world's pyra- 

 mid of industry. But the facts in any and every 

 other employment wherein machinery is used may 

 also be taken for illustration, though it may be that 

 the effects may not so easily be made apparent. 



And in trade, especially the retail trade, there is 

 the most pressing necessity for the application of the 

 proposed measure. It is notorious that a few great 

 establishments are surely swallowing up and destroy- 

 ing the small ones. Here, also, the small trader can 

 not compete with his gigantic neighbor. This is not 

 to the interest of society, whatever it may be to the 

 great merchant. 



Would it be to the interest of society that half a 

 dozen establishments, in one city, should do all the 

 retail business, in any line, in place of an hundred ? 



