Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 31.djvu/614

596 has shown that, under a good organization of clerks, shopmen, porters, and distributors, it costs much less proportionally to sell a large amount of goods than a small amount, and that the buyer of large quantities can, without sacrifice of satisfactory profit, afford to offer to his retail customers such advantages in respect to prices and range of selection, as almost to preclude competition on the part of dealers operating on a smaller scale, no matter how otherwise capable, honest, and diligent they may be. The various retail trades, in the cities and larger towns of all civilized countries, are accordingly being rapidly superseded by vast and skillfully organized establishments—and in Great Britain and Europe by co-operative associations which can sell at little over wholesale prices a great variety of merchandise—dry-goods, manufactures of leather, books, stationery, furs, ready-made clothing, hats and caps, and sometimes groceries and hardware—and at the same time give their customers far greater conveniences than can be offered by the ordinary shopkeeper or tradesman. In London, the extension of the "tramway" or street-railroad system is even advocated, on the single ground that the big stores need quicker access to their branch establishments, in order to still further promote the economy of goods distribution.

The spirit of progress conjoined with capital, and having in view economy in distribution and the equalization of values, is therefore controlling and concentrating the business of retailing, in the same manner as the business of wholesale distribution and transportation, and of production by machinery, is being controlled and concentrated, and all to an extent never before known in the world's experience.

Keeping economy in distribution constantly in view as an essential for material progress, the tendency is also everywhere to dispense to the greatest extent with the "middle-man," and put the locomotive and the telegraph in his place. Retail grocers, as before shown, now buy their teas directly of the Chinaman, and dispense with the services of the East Indian merchant and his warehouses. Manufacturers deal more directly with retailers, with the result, it is claimed, of steadying supply and demand, and preventing the recurrence of business crises. The English cotton-spinner at Manchester now buys his raw cotton by cable in the interior towns of the cotton-growing States of North America, and dispenses with the services of the American broker or commission-merchant. European manufacturers now send their agents with samples of merchandise to almost every locality in America, Asia, and the Pacific islands, where commerce is protected and transportation practicable, and offer supplies, even in comparatively small quantities, on better terms than dealers and consumers can obtain from the established wholesale or retail merchants of their vicinity. And all of these changes have inevitably occasioned, and for a long time yet will continue to occasion, great disturbances