Page:James Ramsay MacDonald - The Socialist Movement.pdf/72

 68 why so many trade unions have at some time or another tried to limit production by adopting the policy of "ca' canny." There is no justification in sound economies for this policy, but it can be excused as an incident in the attempts of capital to effect economies at the expense of labour.

A much more prolific source of waste is the machinery employed by capitalists to secure custom for their goods. This is the cause of enormous expenditure in advertising and in putting an army of travellers on the road. When the British soap combine was formed, the Daily Mail objected to it on the ground that it would mean a loss to newspapers in advertising of £200,000, and on further inquiries the head of an advertising firm put the loss "at nearer £500,000 than £200,000." The formation of the tobacco trust had a similar result. The hoardings showed that to the eye, and the ordinary newspaper reader, who but scanned advertisement columns, could not help missing familiar advertisements of tobacco manufacturers’ wares. Before the Standard Oil Company secured its monopoly in the supply of paraffin in America, advertisements of oil stared one in the face everywhere, now they have disappeared.

What has been aptly called "the standing army of commerce," the commercial travellers, is responsible for much larger expenditure. Mr. Bradley, who gave evidence before the United