Page:James Ramsay MacDonald - The Socialist Movement.pdf/73

 Rh States Industrial Commission, referring to the cost of putting whisky on the market, said that forty million dollars were thus spent every year. The president of the Commercial Travellers' National League stated that 35,000 salesmen had been thrown out of employment by the organisation of trusts, and that 25,000 others had to suffer reductions in salaries. He estimated that this reduction in the number of commercial travellers meant a loss to railways of £50 per day for 240 days in the year, or, in all, £5,000,000; and that hotels were hit to about the same amount.

This dislocation of labour has a justification in economy, but the fact that it has taken place shows what numbers of printers, bill-posters, papermakers, travellers, have to be maintained at the cost of general industry. For, it must be emphasised, few of these are producers in the strict sense of the word. The vast majority of them are engaged in transferring custom from one firm to another. They are taking from Peter to give to Paul, without adding a halfpenny to the wealth of the community which consists of Peter and Paul. I must not be understood to argue that all advertisement or commercial travelling is waste. One of the functions of advertisement is to give information to consumers and users; one of the functions of travelling is to facilitate the exchange of goods between producer and distributor. These functions are necessary and are of the nature of real service which creates or adds