xxiii THE SOCIAL QUAGMIRE 405 



thirty bushels of wheat an acre, another only twenty, with 

 the same labour and outlay, and that the first farm is 

 only a mile from a railroad, while the other is ten miles 

 over a bad and hilly track. The owner of the first farm 

 will evidently have a double advantage over the owner of 

 the other, both in the amount of his crops and the 

 economy in getting them to market ; and prices which 

 will enable the first to live comfortably and lay by money, 

 will mean poverty or ruin to the second. It is just the 

 same as with shops or stores. The business done, other 

 things being equal, will depend upon situation. If one 

 store is situated in a main street, with five hundred 

 people passing the door every hour, and another store 

 just like it is in a bye-street where not more than fifty 

 people pass per hour, and both sell exactly the same 

 goods, of the same quality, and neither have any special 

 connection or reputation, but depend mainly on chance 

 customers, then it is quite certain that the one will make 

 a living where the other will starve. Now prices are 

 fixed by the competition of the whole of the stores of 

 these two classes, and the more favoured class will run 

 down prices just so low that the less favoured class can 

 hardly live ; and the inevitable result will be that many 

 of them will be starved out, and the whole of the business 

 be absorbed by the other class. But if all these shops 

 belong to landlords, whether private individuals or the 

 municipalities, then rents will be so much higher in the 

 one class than in the other as to approximately equalize 

 the opportunities of both. Both will then be able to earn 

 a living for a time, and the ultimate superior success of 

 either will be a matter of business capacity. The com- 

 petition between them will be fair and equal. 



The same thing happens with rival manufacturers. 

 Facilities for getting raw material, cheapness of water 

 power or fuel, and above all the possession of the best 

 and most improved machinery, enable one to undersell 

 another, and ultimately to drive him out of the market, 

 unless the latter can improve his conditions, or the former 

 is subject to an increased rent, to compensate for his advan- 

 tages of position. 



