THE FARMER AND THE COMMISSION MERCHANT. 153 



cute the l)usiness of his consignor to the best of his ability and 

 judgment, disposing of the property to the best advantage, 

 and making immediate remittances of the net proceeds. It 

 will be ordinarily understood that he will at the same time be 

 acting for many principals, who, as between themselves, will 

 be competitors of each other, and all that can be expected is 

 that he will act impartially as between them. At tlie same 

 time it is true that often, in a glutted *narket, the common 

 agent will have to decide, as between two or more of his con- 

 signors, whose produce shall be sold, and whose shall be left 

 unsold, perhaps to deteriorate. The consignors never hear of 

 these occasions, which, indeed, can not be avoided. They 

 have no recourse but to rely upon the fairness of their agent, 

 in striking a fair average one day with another. It would be 

 too much to expect, however, that agents, in making these 

 decisions, should not be more or less influenced by their opin- 

 ion of their own interests in securing or retaining trade. I 

 have never heard farmers complain of unfairness upon the 

 part of commission merchants in this respect. Many of them 

 have probably never thought of it. 



But while commission merchants may, in the main, be safely 

 trusted to deal fairly as between different consignors, it woidd 

 be contrary to all human experience to expect them to deal 

 fairly as between themselves and others. If a commission 

 merchant has my goods for sale, and some of the same kind 

 of his own, and the market is bad, he will sell his goods first, 

 and then do the best he can with mine. It often happens, 

 indeed, that he must, for he may have bought his goods with 

 tlie proceeds of some sale for a consignor who may call for his 

 money. In some linos of trade there is a great deal of this. 



It was once a fundamental principle of the commission 

 trade that the merchant should not, under any circumstances, 

 buy and sell for his own account. I am not acquainted with 

 the practices of the commission trade in foreign countries, 

 but am of the opinion that in some of them, at least, there is a 

 survival of this good old-fashioned principle. In America it 

 is dead. Commission merchants may and do speculate freely 

 in the products for whose sale they are agents, and often. 



