Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 45.djvu/308

292 fields—all classes profiting by the economy incident to production in the especially favored localities.

With increasing demand for all kinds of products, men of shrewdness to see and ability to grasp larger opportunities enlisted to a greater extent the co-operation of others by the payment of wages or the forming of partnerships. Such co-ordination afforded means for securing in a greater degree the advantages gained by the simpler combinations. For, as the artisan devoting his time to one kind of work tended to acquire the skill, appliances, and the material best adapted thereto; as, under the simplest combination—an organization of two men—these advantages were heightened; he who on a larger scale directed the efforts of others could, by careful training, develop further increase of skill, could because of a larger revenue afford to secure appliances increasing in number and cost, could procure greater quantities of the best adapted material at a decreasing price, and could devote greater energy to multiplying the consumption of his products by increasing their sale in old and extending their use in new markets. And these factors, stimulated by competition, all tend toward economy of production, to the serving of a community increasing both in extent and population with better articles at less expense. Contributing to this result was not only the economy in the immediate production of articles for immediate personal use and consumption, but the economy in the production of material and appliances used in the production of these articles.

With industrial combination and recombination an increase of capital is required for the maintenance of the larger sphere of operation. Such capital necessarily is obtained from the accumulation of those directly in conduct of the operations or from the accumulation of others. The first artisans, as a rule, doubtless obtained by their own exertions the few rude tools and appliances used in their vocations, but in the succeeding combinations funds are contributed by partners, one or more of whom may not be directly or actively engaged in the conduct of the business, in which case the active partner or partners, while benefiting by the use of the contributed capital themselves, also assume a trust, in the ethical sense of the word, for the benefit of the others. Or included in the capital may be the funds of widows and minors, which those in the active conduct of the business therefore hold in trust. When the field of operations so extends as to necessitate plant and appliances more extensive than can be provided except by contributions from the accumulations of a considerable number of persons, there arises a new form of organization the corporation. The ownership of the various contributions to the capital fund is vouched by certificates of stock. The corporation, therefore, benefits the community as a whole, in that it commands