94 AN AGRICULTURAL FAGGOT. 



employers, or, to use a more general term, of business men. 

 They " adventure " or " undertake " its risks, they bring the 

 capital and the labour required for the work ; they arrange or 

 " engineer " its general plan, and superintend its minor details. 

 Looking at business men from one point of view we may regard 

 them as a highly skilled industrial grade, from another as 

 middlemen intervening between the manual worker and the 

 consumer. 1 



The difficulty of definition which even the scientific 

 economist finds may easily perplex common folk. The 

 farmer has of late been clamouring — not without cause — 

 against the " middleman," yet he is, in fact, a middleman 

 himself. It is well, therefore, to recognise frankly that 

 the middleman in agriculture is, to some extent at least, 

 a necessity. But enough has been said to show that he 

 is apt when unchecked to presume upon his intermediate 

 position, and to use it without due regard to the interests 

 of either the consumer or the producer. This fact 

 naturally disposes both consumers and producers to 

 regard with favour any scheme for rendering them less 

 dependent upon the generosity and goodwill of the 

 intermediaries. It is also a matter for grave consideration 

 whether in the distribution of some articles of produce, 

 especially those of a perishable nature which must go into 

 consumption immediately, there are not too many 

 " dealers " and " handlers," and it is, further, not a matter 

 for consideration but one of certainty that where the 

 middleman debases his calling by adulterating or wrongly 

 describing the articles passing through his hands, 

 stringent measures should be adopted to compel his 

 honesty. 



1 Marshall, " Elements of Economics," Vol. I., p. 192. 



