70

THE  PROBLEM  OF  THE  UNEMPLOYED

wealth  to  be  effectively  distributed  without  any  considerable
increase  of  the  labour  or  capital  engaged  in  distributive
industries.  Even  if  some  increase  of  distributors  be
economically  necessary,  it  will  not  be  denied  that  the
actual  increase  of  all  classes  of  middle-men  and  retailers
has  passed  far  beyond  this  wholesome  necessary  limit.
A  diminishing  proportion  of  commercial  effort  is  expended
in  the  actual  work  of  distribution,  an  increasing  proportion
in  the  work  of  getting  business.  A  proof  of  this  is  the
phenomenal  growth  of  commercial  travellers,  local  agents,
jobbers,  touts,  and  the  enormous  expenditure  in  every
form  of  advertisement.  The  actual  energy  given  out  in
trades,  directly  or  indirectly  concerned  in  distribution,  is
thus  swollen  far  beyond  the  demands  of  such  wholesome
and  effective  competition  as  will  ensure  for  the  consuming
public  a  cheap  and  rapid  service  of  supply.  The  keenness
of  competition  among  rival  distributors  is  admittedly  responsible ­
  for  much  of  the  adulteration  and  other  deceitful
practices  which  tend  to  the  deterioration  of  commodities.
Unfortunately,  we  possess  no  official  or  reliable  records
of  the  general  movements  in  retail  trade,  which  we  can
compare  with  the  statistics  of  wholesale  prices  prepared  by
Mr.  Sauerbeck.  It  is,  however,  generally  believed,  and  such
fragmentary  evidence  as  we  possess  accords  with  the  belief,
that  the  great  fall  of  wholesale  prices  since  1873  has  not
been  attended  by  a  commensurate  fall  of  retail  prices.
§  12.  Why  Waste  takes  a  Different  Form  in
Distribution  and  in  Manufactures.
Nor  is  it  unreasonable  that  this  should  be  the  case.
The  effects  of  competition  are  somewhat  different  in
manufacturing  and  in  distributing  industries.  In  the  former