40 PRESENT SYSTEM. 



petition in prices between dealers. The contracts should be based 

 upon the expectation of large and immediate deliveries, that the 

 fluctuations of the market need not be allowed for by an increase 

 of price, and that the expenses attending numerous small deliveries 

 may be avoided. Yet, these matters must be so managed that 

 the funds be not drawn upon so heavily in the early part of the 

 season, that the contingencies to which all manufactures are sub- 

 ject will be unprovided for. Labor requires none of these pre- 

 cautions. 



When received, material should be at once accounted for, and 

 should be so kept that all expenditures from it will be recorded, 

 and of necessity charged to some account. Yet, at the same 

 time, the material must be so accessible, that it may be had for 

 proper purposes as freely as in any private workshop in the 

 land. 



The necessity for anticipating the want of material and for 

 recording the results of its procurement and use, is thus seen to 

 be accountable for the relatively great portion of our records 

 that it occupies. 



I imagine that, whether heeded or not, the same relations exist 

 in all workshops, down to the smallest private foundry, in which 

 the processes are the fewest, the materials the crudest and the 

 least varied, and where the disposition of the material concerns 

 no one but the proprietor. 



What study I have given to the subject convinces me that a 

 proper treatment of material is the key to success in those 

 branches of administration with which this paper has to deal ; 

 with that well settled, everything else follows ; without it, no sys- 

 tem can work satisfactorily. 



