SOCIAL PHILOSOPHY.

Dunstan Times, Issue 754, 29 September 1876, Page 2

SOCIAL PHILOSOPHY.

—o No. I.— Distributive Industry. Although comp iratively of secondary importance, the distributive industry of a country exercises a very considerable influence over its affairs either for good or for evil; and it is to the trading community which we have to look to, not only as suti lers to the grand army of workers, but a giving a value to the produce of labor, for the very fact of their finding a market for it,»or exchanging, or converting it into other commodities necessary for the operations or cimfort of those engaged in the work of pr ; Auction. Nov, while the producers of raw material have their duties to perform, those e igagod in the work of distribution have equally so theirs. In this chapter it will be necessary for us to go beyond the limits of the goldfields, consequently we ihust deprive those engaged in the work of distribution here of a good deal of that importance, which, treating the subject generally, wo should be obliged to attach to them. The functions of a goldfields’ trading community are necessarily of an inferior order, for reasons that the produce of the labor of the miner is convertible into the coin 5E the realm without their intervention ; the usual customs aud conditions of trade in regard to all other commodities being unnecessary where the product is gold. Traders in a mining district can only, therefore, occupy the position of mere providers for the daily and bodily wants of a given section of society. A knowledge of business in its higher branches is therefore not wanted, and although in some few instances its possession may be possible, still, from the fact of so few opportunities occurring for its exercise, our community of traders fail in that comprehensiveness and large mindedness found in their contemporaries in large towns on the seaboard. The mere fact of being able to drive a hard bargain, or, figuratively speaking, the ability to purchase a thing for a shilling and sell it again for eighteenpence, does not constitute knowledge of business ; and it is perhaps to a very large extent due to this want of unnderstanding of the higher principles of trade that things on the goldfields are in their present deplorable condition. When gold was easily obtainable, and miners were able to pay cash for their goods, the business of a storekeeper was easily conducted, as scarcely any previous knowledge or forethought was re- f quired ; anybody, therefore, possessing the most ordinary requirements was able to engage in trade. But, this state of affairs could not last: gold became more difficult to obtain, and the thews and sinews engaged in its extraction from Mother Earth required to be supplemented with capital, and in addition to this superior knowledge and organisation became necessary ; and we have only to ask ourselves this question : that had these wants been judiciously supplied, what would have been the state of our mining industry, in contradistinction to what we really find it ?

Now, we Cannot do otherwise than acknowledge thatthe trading community, with very few exceptions, came forward very liberally to the rescue. But, then comes the query, did they do so wisely? We think not, the want of the knowledge of the higher principles of trade prevented them. Things therefore took an illegitimate channel, and from bad they have been (gradually going to worse. lleokleSsly giving credit is, without a doubt, one of the chief sources of the evils under which we noW suffer ; it was, of course, done with a good intent, and with the view to assist oneo good friends customers ; but there were these difficulties in the way of success : people, hy a long course of prosperity, had acquired expensive habits and modes of working, in fact, econo*' my was the lost thing they thonglit about, and, instead of cutting down th- ir expenditure as their incomes grew less they borrowed, or got into debt to make up the deficiency, and thus dragg.-d down with them

thoso tluit assisted them. Bat, the borrowers cannot bo charged with the fault, it Vos that of those who • lent; and it arose .from the want of business knowledge'bn their parts sufficient to define that. Where there was no ostensible means of payment 'it w(\s injudicious to,give credit, and when a trader depended for payment from his customer purely upon the success of the enterprise he was engaged in, he, in fact, became a partner in the concern, and hot a Creditor in the true acceptation of that term. Another thing, Unlimited credit at the store meant indifference in the matter of providing the riieans of payment, and money was expended at phldic houses when it should have been directed to those who furnished supplies of necessaries. When miners were not earning sufficient for food and luxuries combined notlllhg was more plain than that somebody must lose, and the loss must fall upon those who gave Credit. Besides, it in troduced a very vicious system, affecting ali parties concerned, and which will require to be eradicated before the l bushVesa of gold mining can hope to be prosperous again. It is certainly a very bitter pill to swallow ; but it is, nevertheless, an uumistakeable fact that, prop up ahy rotten Kyeterh as we may, it will tumble down at latet. 'Commercial evils, like other sores, will cure themselves in the end. In the 'blatter of trade it is an accepted maxim that, “ Whatever is illegitimate cannot stand long.” Now, as a case in point: it must be within the recollection of a number of our readers that, after the first success of the rich quartz reefs at Staweli, Victoria (and no mining district ever existed without some relapse in its measure of success) had been succeeded by a period of dullness, the system of credit became so enormous as to threaten the ruin of the trading classes, and it was only through the exertions of some few clear-headed men that a remedy was brought about—the modus operandi was thiswise. It was unmistakably shown that, while supplies could be obtained merely by asking, there existed no real incentive to labor, and instead of the dull times acting as a spur to increased exertions, they culminated in apathy, and men drank and gambled in public houses instead of going forth to labor, calmly leaving the consequences of a favorable or unfavorable re-action upon the shoulders of accommodating and confiding storekeepers. The upshot of all this was that 'the business people agreed amongst themselves to refuse all credit, and none whatever was given. Deserving people were not, however, permitted to suffer, as instead of booking purchases to this class of •customers traders—as the phrase is—“ante’d up ’ the money to pay for them. The ordeal, in many cases, was a painful one, still, it succeeded; and from the discontinuance of unlimited credit and the return to a more healthy system of trade at Stawell, must be dated the rapid rise of that now important mining district, and which occupies 'ifhe position of ‘being second to none in Victoria.

Another great drawback to the development of‘War mining induct ry is the high prices of almost every commodity in ordinary consumption. We do not of course undertake to dictate what profits a vendor should receive upon the sale of his articles, that is a question only to be regulated by the laws of supply and demand. We base our calculations upon this hypothesis that, when we purchase a loaf of a bake’ - we take in account of his labof Bi producing it; but we pay for the loaf itself, experience proves this much to be certain that, where things are either too dear or too cheap, it is unmistakable evidence that trade is out of joint somewhere. The first thing tbit strikes a stranger visiting the goldfields is the excessive deaftiess of everything, and we often hear expressions of unfeigned surprise how people manage to get a'ong under such a state of things ! The cost of the carriage of goods has certainly to be added, but then, traders in mining districts are not much troubled with high rents'dad other expensive concomitants which seriously affect their contemporaries on the seaboard ; "while the excuse is not a valid one that the number of persons engaged in trade are in excess of what is required, or that it is necessary to charge high prices for goods because one class of customers fail to pay for them, or require unreasonable long terms of credit. In the first instance, is it reasonable to suppose that, because more than a necessary number of persons are engaged in any particular line of business the general public should tax themselves for their support ? Secondly, it is equally as absurd to ask one class to pay more for their purchases ihan they arc tvorth, just because another pays seldom or at aIL It is the business of everybody to buy iu'the cheapest market so that he may have the more to expend ; and there would be no inducement to labor were it compulsory that the earnings of the diligent should be made to contribute towards making up the deficiencies of the indolent, or thriftless. The result of this pernicious system is that trade is even rendered worse than it otherwise should be, as those, having the means at their disposal, make their purchases in other and cheaper markets local dealers losing the profits, which, were their operations conducted ’upon sound business principles would be theirs. It is no argument whatever to refute this deduction by saying that persons who make their purchases in foreign markets do not support the place in which they livo. It is the duty of everybody to buy as'chekply as possible, and this is the more important when a pierson is engaged in the work of developing the resources of a country, as the further he can make his means go the more he is ablo to accomplish in the work of development. Now, were trade on the goldfields conducted npon purely legitimate principles, a person resident thereupon should be able to make nis purchases to better advantage at home than by making them away, as, while the prime coat should not be greater, he would e advantaged by seeing the article ba was buying before paying for it. In almost all matters of supplying the ordmary wants of n nuning p o p,, kli on the c „ st of tho arti( , lo ished is far too high in proportion to its

intrinsic value, "aftd it is by no means too lunch to say that, fr;o pay too groat a price for everything. What a thing costs, or whether persona deem themselves paid for supplying it at a given value, has nothing at all to do with the matter whatever, the question the consumer has to ask is, is the article or service worth the money he is called upon ’tb pay fdr it ? As things exist with ns at present the profits of distributive industry are out of all proportion to those realised by that of production, and it is folly to suppose that this state of inequality can exist without)mutu'al damage to both industries. The old story of “killing the goose that laid the golden eggs ’’ is fast being realised. Some one may perhaps reply to us that very few business people on the goldfields make money in the long run. This only serves to strengthen our argument that they are, for the most part, creatures of circumstance instead of calculation. It matters not what business we may engage in, unless it is conducted upon sound principles, success in the cud is seldom the final result.