Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software.
Social Problems And Their Peaceful Solution.
cause ; whilst in very great measure the folly of the purchaser himself it is that is at the root of the evil . This folly of the purchaser himself we will discuss presently , just now let us look at the other two reasons . The dishonesty
of the trader , caused either by the keen competition in tho present overwhelming number of those who would earn their bread by becoming sellers , or by the overreaching of those who desire to make money fast by any means in their
power . The first of these causes of mischief would probably be reached , and eliminated by a free competition in every trade , that is by the removal of all licenses whatever , when " the weakest would go to the wall , " and only " the fittest survive ; " but a more
effectual check would be given by a rigorous system of universally licensing every public salesman of any article whatever . In either case a rigorous system of inspection , not only of weights and
measures , but also of quality , must be instituted and enforced on all alike . Any loss of revenue that might accrue to the national exchequer by the abolition of licenses might be amply made up for , either by a slight increase of taxation upon
the article purchased , and , if any objection should be raised to this plan , as laying a burden upon those we wish to benefit , we should simply reply that the small increase of outlay would be fully compensated by the increase of both quantity
and excellence of the purchase in question . An alternative mode of making up this deficit in the revenue would be to impose a special income-tax upon the jn-ofits of all articles publicly sold ; but as this system would be almost an equivalentin a
mone-, tary point of view , to our second or universal licensing plan , without its advantages , we will pass directly to a consideration of this latter system , which seems to us to be the best .
This licensing system , then , should be in the hands of some perfectly impartial Board of Government Commissioners , the members of which should be so well paid as to be willing to give a guarantee that they would enter into no financial
operations—that is as a matter of business or speculation—whatever , and thus be , and remain , " above suspicion . " By this Board , holders of suitable
premises on due proof of respectabilit y and on payment of a fee calculated upon the amount of capital to he employed should be duly licensed for a limited period , - such license to be renewable at stated times on payment of like fees ,
unless a valid objection should be raised and substantiated , or a third conviction should have been made against the holder as hereunder mentioned . It might , perhaps , here be urged that a fee calculated upon capital would act unfairly as pressing hardly
upon those who , from having limited means , were working with borrowed money . This objection hardly needs a further answer than the counter-question as to whether many traders , holding and paying for excise-licensesare not even now
, working with borrowed capital ; but beyond this , we have a reply , and it is this : —that this very pressure would be ultimately beneficial to trade in general , as capitalists would naturally test more carefully the worth of any scheme towards
the promotion of which they were lending , and thus extort beforehand , by its capacity of bearing a double harden , the guarantee of the stability of the projected enterprise .
The respectability of the trader having been established , and guaranteed by the license thus obtained , there would remain of course , the necessity of a supervision that the details of the business were honestly carried on , and for this purpose
the powers of the present Inspectors of Weights and Measures should be extended to the quality of all articles prepared for sale . More rigorous and definite inspection , too , would be necessary than is now the casefor although the scalebeam may
, balance to a hair and the weights be perfectionitself , whatguarantee is there yet that the purchaser gets even his proper quantity . Such tricks as the lump of suet stuck to the bottom of the scale , it is not our province here to discussfurther than to
, say that they must be detected where possible , and punished one by one , and further that in a case like this , no excuse of accidental adhesion should be for a moment entertained , for it is as much a tradesman's bounden duty to see before every sale that
his weighing apparatus and its surroundings are honestly true , as it is for him to ascertain that the amount tendered in payment is not short of the stipulated price .
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software.
Social Problems And Their Peaceful Solution.
cause ; whilst in very great measure the folly of the purchaser himself it is that is at the root of the evil . This folly of the purchaser himself we will discuss presently , just now let us look at the other two reasons . The dishonesty
of the trader , caused either by the keen competition in tho present overwhelming number of those who would earn their bread by becoming sellers , or by the overreaching of those who desire to make money fast by any means in their
power . The first of these causes of mischief would probably be reached , and eliminated by a free competition in every trade , that is by the removal of all licenses whatever , when " the weakest would go to the wall , " and only " the fittest survive ; " but a more
effectual check would be given by a rigorous system of universally licensing every public salesman of any article whatever . In either case a rigorous system of inspection , not only of weights and
measures , but also of quality , must be instituted and enforced on all alike . Any loss of revenue that might accrue to the national exchequer by the abolition of licenses might be amply made up for , either by a slight increase of taxation upon
the article purchased , and , if any objection should be raised to this plan , as laying a burden upon those we wish to benefit , we should simply reply that the small increase of outlay would be fully compensated by the increase of both quantity
and excellence of the purchase in question . An alternative mode of making up this deficit in the revenue would be to impose a special income-tax upon the jn-ofits of all articles publicly sold ; but as this system would be almost an equivalentin a
mone-, tary point of view , to our second or universal licensing plan , without its advantages , we will pass directly to a consideration of this latter system , which seems to us to be the best .
This licensing system , then , should be in the hands of some perfectly impartial Board of Government Commissioners , the members of which should be so well paid as to be willing to give a guarantee that they would enter into no financial
operations—that is as a matter of business or speculation—whatever , and thus be , and remain , " above suspicion . " By this Board , holders of suitable
premises on due proof of respectabilit y and on payment of a fee calculated upon the amount of capital to he employed should be duly licensed for a limited period , - such license to be renewable at stated times on payment of like fees ,
unless a valid objection should be raised and substantiated , or a third conviction should have been made against the holder as hereunder mentioned . It might , perhaps , here be urged that a fee calculated upon capital would act unfairly as pressing hardly
upon those who , from having limited means , were working with borrowed money . This objection hardly needs a further answer than the counter-question as to whether many traders , holding and paying for excise-licensesare not even now
, working with borrowed capital ; but beyond this , we have a reply , and it is this : —that this very pressure would be ultimately beneficial to trade in general , as capitalists would naturally test more carefully the worth of any scheme towards
the promotion of which they were lending , and thus extort beforehand , by its capacity of bearing a double harden , the guarantee of the stability of the projected enterprise .
The respectability of the trader having been established , and guaranteed by the license thus obtained , there would remain of course , the necessity of a supervision that the details of the business were honestly carried on , and for this purpose
the powers of the present Inspectors of Weights and Measures should be extended to the quality of all articles prepared for sale . More rigorous and definite inspection , too , would be necessary than is now the casefor although the scalebeam may
, balance to a hair and the weights be perfectionitself , whatguarantee is there yet that the purchaser gets even his proper quantity . Such tricks as the lump of suet stuck to the bottom of the scale , it is not our province here to discussfurther than to
, say that they must be detected where possible , and punished one by one , and further that in a case like this , no excuse of accidental adhesion should be for a moment entertained , for it is as much a tradesman's bounden duty to see before every sale that
his weighing apparatus and its surroundings are honestly true , as it is for him to ascertain that the amount tendered in payment is not short of the stipulated price .