THE BEE-KEEPERS' Rb.VIEW. 



183 



self whether he is not engaged in a certain 

 kind of highway robbery — a phase of the 

 " Stand-and delivery " business, seeing that 

 these people who have so much to say about 

 "middle-men" have narrowed down tne 

 real act of production to so small a compass. 

 Everybody writes of the ills and rights of 

 the Bo-callert " real producers, " but it is 

 very seldom anyone champions the cause of 

 the dealer, who, if he should follow the lead 

 of a certain class of thinkers, could not look 

 upon himself as being anything other than 

 a public nuisance, of whom society would 

 gladly rid itself, if it only knew how to go 

 about it. Even so wise and good a man as 

 Horace Greenly talked of converting, " Id- 

 lers and useless exchangers and traffickers 

 into habitual and effective producers of 

 wealth. " As though an exchanger were 

 synonymous with an idler, and is not as 

 much a producer of wealth, if engaged in a 

 legitimate branch of exchange, as anyone I 

 A prominent political economist says the 

 trader, " Adds nothing to the real wealth of 

 society, he merely transfers things from the 

 place of production to the place of demand." 

 Granted the latter, but is this not as much 

 a part of real production as any other change 

 or transformation which is caused by the 

 exercise of human energy ? What is pro- 

 duction anyway ? and who are the produ- 

 cers of wealth ? 



Take honey for illustration. When does 

 production begin, and where does it end ? 

 Are the bees the producers, or is the man 

 who manipulates the bees the chief and only 

 factor in the production ( not " raising, " if 

 you please ) of honey ? When is production 

 completed, or when does the act of produc- 

 tion cease and that of consumption begin ? 

 Manifestly production ceases when the hon- 

 ey is in the hands of him who is to use it 

 for consumption, and not before. If this 

 be true and it seems to be so on its face, 

 then every man who aids in bringing to the 

 consumer the honey in a suitaible form for 

 consumption is a real producer. Not only 

 this, but the man who helped to create the 

 desire for the honey is a factor in its produc- 

 tion as much as the man who owns the bees. 

 Wealth is whatever satisfies human desires ; 

 and, if there were none desiring honey, 

 then it would have no value, and the placing 

 of it on the market would not be real pro- 

 duction, or to say the least, would be use 

 less production. Production^ then, in the 

 broadest sense of the word means gathering 



into a suitable form for use, and placing be- 

 fore those who have a desire for that spe- 

 cial article, the product in such a form as 

 will satisfy that desire. Bat this, if my 

 conclusion above is correct, is not all, for 

 there must be first created a desire for the 

 article before there can be any benefit de- 

 rived from placing it before the one who is 

 expected to consume it. 



It will be seen from the above that the 

 man who takes a block of wood and cuts a 

 section out of it is not the only real produ- 

 cer who has brought human energy to bear 

 upon it. The man who cut the tree helped 

 to produce that section. The man who 

 drew the log to the mill, the man who cut 

 out the block of wood, ^e man who took 

 the section and put it down where it was to 

 be used, and the man who received it and 

 held it there until the bee-keeper was ready 

 to exchange the fruits of his labor for it, all, 

 had a hand in its production. In fact, 

 everyone who put forth any energy in get- 

 ting the section to the place of consumption 

 was a producer of sections so far as that 

 section and individual consumer were con- 

 cerned ; for, to leave any of them out would 

 deprive the consumer of his section at the 

 proper time and place. If the consumer 

 lives in Missouri, and the section is made in 

 Michigan, it will be of no use to him until it 

 finds its way to Missouri. It can come 

 there through the regular channels of trade 

 for much less than in any other way. The 

 consumer, it is true, might stop work and 

 walk up to Michigan and bring it back in 

 his pocket, but I apprehend he would find 

 that method more expensive than to have it 

 carried by a "' soulless corporation, " at the 

 direction of a so-called " uceless middle- 

 man." The sooner people get this narrow 

 idea of production out of their heads, the 

 belter it will be for society as a whole. The 

 true idea is that whosoever facilitates the 

 movement of any article of merchandise 

 along the channels of trade, and the natural 

 channels all point toward the place of 

 greatest demand, is a producer. Such a one 

 adds as much real value to an article as the 

 man who first took his knife or ax and cut 

 it out of a block of wood. Whoever checks 

 this natural movement of trade, or forms 

 a combination with his fellow men to re- 

 strain and control it, is a traitor to society. 

 All legitimate trade is production ; a com- 

 bination or trust to produce a monopoly is 

 robbery and treason against humanity. 



