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I will not make dainty mockery
With a painted thin display

Of a life that breathes and burgeons
With the fullness of the May.

I will see my dear Scotch lassie
In the ray that sweeps the hills,
In the bright far-shimmering ocean,
In the silver-flashing rills.

I will see her where the wandering
Bee sucks honey from the brae,
Where the mavis to the mavis
Pours his rich full-throated lay.

I will feed upon the sweetness
Of her presence near to me,

And her wealth of grace that hangeth
Like a peach upon a tree.

I will live on the dear memory

Of that hour of burning bliss,

When she lent her lips and thrilled me

With the rapture of her kiss!

JOHN STUART BLACKIE.

THEORY AND LAW IN RELATION TO COMMERCIAL

PRACTICES.

THAT the institutions under which we live are, to a certain extent, experimental, may be proved by a comparison of statutes now in force and customs now prevalent, with such as corresponded to them a century ago. For the sake of order, a law must in practice be regarded as perfect and unimpeachable, however much its infallibility may be questioned in theory. But theory is a liquid whose precipitate is decision, and so in the reforms or lapses of one age the institutions of another are overturned, or fall into decay. A poetic philosopher might be tempted to regard this tendency to change as a mark of weakness "the fashion of this world passeth away;" the practical man, on the other hand, usually draws another lesson, and is found bent on keeping his eyes open, in order to maintain himself on the profitable side of whatever changes may come. Speaking generally, the revolution which is still in progress is in the direction of more and more freedom for the individual. If a larger and wider spirit than that of old time were not being born of this freedom, and of the consequent growth of the individual in opportunities of knowledge, it might be said that we were proceeding further and further away from the true conception of a commonwealth. Freedom of contract for the individual means the principle of "each for himself;" if this were not counteracted by

another new development-that of public opinion-we might be reduced to a chaos of reckless, selfish competition. Public opinion is a commodious and convenient bridge between theories and institutions. The bridge is made short where the theory is easily apprehended, and satisfies a large number; it is long and difficult where theory is too ideal or immature. We do not obtain the best institutions possible, but those that seem most practicable according to common light.

The recent revival in certain departments of commerce has afforded some curious instances of modern customs. Depression in trade, which, in this country, means an inability to find a market for manufactured articles at remunerative prices, and a consequent lack of enterprise, affects not only the manufactured goods, but the raw material. There is no great anxiety to buy that which it is doubtful profit to work up. The merchant of raw material cannot find a profitable market because the merchant in manufactured articles cannot find his. In an ideal state, so soon as the merchant found his stock, in process of gradual absorption, was coming to an end, he would resort to the dealer in material, and lift his burden of unsold stuff from him at a gradually advancing price, equally profitable to both, until, with the full revival of trade, the old level of prices might be reached. What happens now in the un-ideal

state? The speculator is neither a purveyor of raw material nor a producer of manufactured commodities; he is simply a man with a longer nose and a keener brain than either of these useful individuals. He sees, by a commercial instinct, the fine indications of an advancing tide of prosperity before any one else sees them, he resorts to the dealers in one kind or another of raw material, and buys up, on credit, secretly, the whole of their stock, not only that which is in the warehouses, but that which is in vessels on the sea, expected to arrive. This can be done even with so important a commodity as cotton, by the aid of one of those financial combinations, or syndicates, which the economy of capital, due to the credit system, permits to wield enormous sums of nominal money. To similarly control a market in black pepper, in sumach, or other articles of less importance, requires a less gigantic financial operation. What is the result of this control? Cotton, or whatever be the commodity in question, becomes scarce. The rising demand for his goods compels the manufacturer to replenish his stock of raw material. On resorting to the market, he finds that he has to pay, not the price to which he has been accustomed, and on the basis of which he can sell his manufactured goods, but a new and factitious price-the price quoted by a speculator who has made a "corner," and placed himself in the position of being the only person able to furnish a supply of the commodity in question. The manufacturer is baulked: instead of being able to procure his raw material at a price allowing him a reasonable margin of profit on manufacture, he finds his hopes of honest prosperity baffled by the cunning of a speculator. The extra profit which in the ideal state would have been divided between

the legitimate dealers in raw and manufactured goods, to recoup them for perhaps years of stagnation or loss, another has snatched from them. Swift speculation has. stolen the cream; slow honest. trade may take its chance of making its bargain with the skimmed milk.

What had our ancestors to say about "buying to arrive," or getting control of a market? We turn to an advertisement in a newspaper of the beginning of the present century. To buy or to sell is harmless in itself, and so subtle is the distinction between buying for a legitimate and for a speculative purpose, that we are not surprised to find that local associations were found necessary for the due enforcement of any law upon such a subject. The following is the advertisement of a Norfolk society established to give effect in its own district to what was then the common law:

"Whereas the members of this Association have great reason to apprehend that the unlawful practice of forestalling, or what is termed in this neighbourhood fore-hand bargains, are at this time made on the growing crop of grain. This is to give notice, That whoever will give information of such practices to any of the members of the said Association, so that the persons offending

may be indicted, they shall receive Twenty Guineas reward, upon the conviction of the parties, from the Treasurer of the said Association.

"After the very excellent charge delivered by Judge Grose to the Grand Juries of the counties of Suffolk and Norfolk on this subject at the last Lent assizes; and after the publication of that part of his Lordship's charge, in the provincial papers, we can hardly suppose men can be ignorant of the

enormity of the evil, or of the illegality of such transactions; but to remove all pretences of that kind in future, we think it proper to give the following abstract of the law against such practices:

"By the Common law, all endeavours whatsoever to enhance the common price of any merchandise, and all kinds of practices which have an apparent tendency thereto, whether by spreading false rumours, or by buying things in the market before the accustomed hour, or by buying and selling again the same thing in the same market, or by any other such like devices, are highly criminal, and punishable by fine and imprisonment.

"And so jealous is the Common law of all practices of this kind, that it will not suffer corn to be sold in the sheaf, perhaps for this reason, because by such means the market is in effect forestalled.

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Whosoever doth ingross, or get into his hands by buying, contracting, or promise-taking, other than by demise, grant, or lease of land or tithe, any corn growing in the fields, or any other corn or grain, butter, cheese, fish, or other dead victuals whatsoever, to the intent to sell the same again, is deemed an unlawful ingrosser.

"And whosoever doth by any means regrate, obtain, or get into his hands or possession, in a fair or market, any corn, wine, fish, butter, cheese, tallow, sheep, lambs, calves, swine, pigs, geese, capons, hens, chickens, pigeons, conies, or other dead victuals whatsoever, that shall be brought to any fair or market to be sold, and do sell the same again in any fair or market holden or kept in the same place, or in any other fair or market within four miles thereof, is deemed a regrator.''

How our modern operator, who has bought raw material, not for manufacture and legitimate use, but

to sell again, and has made a hundred thousand pounds clear profit by cornering' the market, would smile at these obsolete enactments! His profit, he would claim, was a perfectly fair one ;-did he not risk the loss of an enormous sum if his plot had been less cleverly laid, or had miscarried through some accident? The argument seems fair at first sight, and the fallacy in it is hard to discover. It lies in this, that no one asked or desired him to run that risk; it was undertaken at his own choice, and moreover reduced to a remote contingency by the elaboration of his plan. The argument of gain being a righteous equivalent for risk is a fair one only in the case of honest manufacture or trade. There is no fallacy to be detected here; the risk is not undertaken solely at the freak of the manufacturer, and for the chance of sudden profit, after the realisation of which the liability is over, and the successful freelance may plan a fresh operation, or remain idle as he will. In the case of the manufacturer, the public. needs his office and understands his position and use in the commonwealth; his risk is no spasmodic and temporary danger, but a permanent liability, and one that is called for, since some one must undertake it. On this ground he is on quite a different level from the speculator, who pursues his own advantage solely from the outset. But, the operator may argue, the trade of the country could not be carried on if any theoretic enactment were to hamper the perfect liberty of buying and selling. Herein indeed lies the difficulty. At the beginning of the century it had to be met by local associations bent on seeing the law carried out in its meaning, spirit, and integrity.

Now the difficulty is met by the easier method of having no such arduous law, but freedom for the

individual instead, who may 'regrate,' 'forestall,' or 'fore-hand bargain' as he chooses. Formerly the liberty of trade was defined, now it may include the licentiousness of trade, and the Common law has ceased to be jealous of its practices.

We have many professors of political economy, but as a rule their works omit all reference to current commercial practice, of which it may be presumed they are ignorant. The public might fairly claim from the holders of endowed appointments who have little to do, some careful study of everyday affairs. Commerce is now so complex, and each man in the whirl of it is so busy, that there is no opportunity for theory. The sufferer is always the unprotected public which pays blindly, not knowing how the amount charged is made up. We venture to suggest a homely but interesting study for any University Don or Fellow who has a leaning towards political economy. Let him take the average price per lb. of a variety of familiar commodities and divide out that price fractionally as follows. Cost of production, or cost where grown, cost of transit, middlemen, depreciation, insurance against reasonable risk, profit of retailer. It would require a considerable and very arduous study of facts to arrive at so simple a conclusion, but the result would be valuable, and ought to include an estimate of what proportion of the price might be deemed justifiable, and what proportion the public ought to regard as imposition. General opinion might thus become formed, and steps be taken to inaugurate a better system in the cases wherein the old system might prove to lay an unfair tax upon the consumer. Our professor, when he can bestir himself to emerge from his classic leisure, may well begin with an analysis of the price of

fish. The retail price of fish, with the exception of the plebeian herring and sprat, and one or two coarse varieties, is about as high per pound as that of butcher's meat. Our student of the theory of commercial practice will be able to ascertain whether the hardy fisherman, to whom no one grudges his wage, is the person who obtains that fraction of the price of a pound of fish which corresponds to the cost of breeding and rearing cattle, the rent of grazing land, the cost of the supply of winter food, of the attention of skilled herdsmen and drovers, of the labour of the slaughterhouse, all of which form a part of the price of a pound of butcher's meat. The question can soon be settled how much of the price per pound the fisherman obtains, how much the owner of his boat, and how much the middlemen who have the control of the wholesale market.

The present writer has bought a codling fresh from the fishers' boat for three-pence; how many times three-pence would he not have to give for a similar fish in London? The co-operative societies have succeeded in reducing the business of retailing to some sort of order, and charge with fair evenness their percentage of commission for performing the office of retailer with regard to each article sold. But they have not yet succeeded to any extent in being the sole intermediary between the producer and the consumer. difference in price resulting from so doing might in some instances prove too startling,-too great a shock to the mind accustomed to vested interest, too strange a surprise to the ignorant consumer wont to pay an unauthorised secret tax heavier by far than any income tax. Coal might make another profitable study for the philanthropic political economist:-What the

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