THE MODERN ORGANIZATION
=385. Qualities of modern commerce. Certainty.=—The changes in the
instruments and objects of commerce, described in preceding chapters,
have had far-reaching effects on commercial methods and organization,
to which the reader is now asked to give his attention. As a partial
summary of what has gone before, and a preparation for what is to
follow, modern commerce may be said to have made great gains in four
important qualities: certainty, regularity, economy, sensitiveness.
In former times a merchant who gave an order involving the
transportation of goods over considerable distances took a leap in the
dark. He was fortunate if he could estimate with some accuracy the
expense of transportation; he was almost helpless in estimating the
time that would be consumed. So dependent were men on wind and weather,
heat and cold, war and peace, and all the manifold conditions of nature
and man, that loss was frequent and delay was constant. The element
of chance, great by nature, was heightened by man; carriers were
emboldened to make the most of their opportunities and to extort from
the merchant all that the difficulties of his position might force him
to pay.
Contrast these conditions, as they existed in the period before
1800, with conditions at the present time. The modern system of
transportation has been likened to clockwork. The modern merchant
feels aggrieved if a telegram is delayed a few minutes, a train a few
hours, a steamer a few days. His expectations, indeed, are seldom
disappointed, and even then he is often informed of the probable
duration of the delay, and is enabled to prepare for it. The rates of
transportation now are relatively stable, and, for the most part,
are a matter of public knowledge. We have not yet reached perfection
in this respect, as is shown by the wide-spread complaints against
American railroad managers, but we have approached nearer to it than
would have been imagined possible a century ago.
=386. Regularity.=—Certainty brings with it regularity. Steamers
which are sure to arrive within a certain period can be advertised
to leave on certain days. Merchants and producers are encouraged to
make their preparations, and the whole body of people is stimulated to
new activity and efficiency. Consider the following example, which,
however trivial in itself, is typical of the course of development in
the nineteenth century. “Before the establishment of steam-vessels,
the market at Cork was most irregularly supplied with eggs from the
surrounding district; at certain seasons they were exceedingly abundant
and cheap, but these seasons were sure to be followed by periods
of scarcity and high prices, and at times it is said to have been
difficult to purchase eggs at any price in the market. At the first
opening of the improved channel of conveyance to England (the steamer),
the residents of Cork had to complain of the constant high price of
this and other articles of farm produce; but as a more extensive market
was now permanently open to them, the farmers gave their attention to
the rearing and keeping of poultry, and, at the present time (1838),
eggs are procurable at all seasons in the market at Cork, not, it
is true, at the extremely low rate at which they could formerly be
sometimes bought, but still at much less than the average price of
the year. A like result has followed the introduction of this great
improvement in regard to the supply and cost of various other articles
of produce.”
=387. Economy.=—As to the economy in the carriage of wares resulting
from recent improvements much has already been said in other chapters,
but the student may find in the following estimate, by a German author,
a helpful summary. For $3 a hundred kilograms of wheat (220 pounds, a
little less than 4 bushels) could be carried the following distances
in kilometers (about five eights of a mile): on a common road 100,
on a good road 400, on an early railroad 1,500, on a modern railroad
4,500, on an ocean steamer 25,000. There is little danger that the
student will underestimate the advantage to commerce of this reduction
in the cost of carriage, but he should note also the economy resulting
from the speed and certainty of modern instruments of transportation.
A considerable part of the world’s capital, a century ago, was locked
up in goods in transit or in warehouse. These goods were of no use to
anybody. Nowadays not only are goods put where they are wanted, they
are put there with such speed and certainty that merchants do not need
to keep a large stock on hand, and the stock in transit is relatively
small. In the India trade, for instance, when a voyage around the Cape
of Good Hope took a good part of a year, and the time of arrival could
not be calculated within a month or two, India merchants had to keep
great stocks to meet the varying demand. Now that steamers make the
trip by the Suez Canal in a month, and the time of their arrival is
exact to a day, dealers order goods as they are needed, and the great
India warehouses have been rendered in large part useless for their
original purpose.
=388. Sensitiveness.=—The modern commercial organization has been
likened to clock work, because of its regularity. Carrying further this
comparison, it may be said that it is like a delicate chronometer,
in which every movement is attended with the minimum of friction.
The power of modern commerce appears in the vast quantities of wares
which are exchanged through its agency; its sensitiveness is shown
by the readiness with which the currents of trade are turned or even
reversed to suit the occasion. It has been said that commerce turns
from one side of the globe to the other on a difference of a cent on
a bushel of grain, a dollar on a ton of metal, a quarter of a cent
a yard on a textile fabric, or a sixteenth of a cent on a pound of
sugar. So sensitive has the commercial world become to every stimulus
that it feels also every shock. When the McKinley tariff bill was
passed in the United States, it is said that the next day several
thousand workmen, employed in the manufacture of pearl buttons in a
city of far-off Austria, were thrown out of work. Brief interruptions
of commerce, by the outbreak of epidemic diseases, by storms or other
natural phenomena, or by strikes of workers engaged in transportation,
rouse serious anxiety. The sensitiveness of modern commerce may be
shown, further, by the refinements to which the principle of the
division of labor has been carried. It is said that in the leather
manufacture skins are sometimes sent across the ocean four times, to
effect economies in subordinate treatments.
=389. Importance of the telegraph, illustrated by conditions preceding
its introduction.=—While the various changes in commerce indicated
above can be ascribed largely to the use of steam in transportation,
they would be inconceivable, in their present form, if the electric
telegraph had not been extended over all lands and under all seas.
The importance of the telegraph in commerce can be illustrated by
conditions in Shanghai about 1870, before the cable reached that port.
The rate of foreign exchange, a decisive factor in all commercial
calculations, was at that time determined by European advices brought
by post steamers. The news brought by one steamer would make the
Chinese tael equivalent to 7.25 francs; on the arrival of another
steamer the rate would rise to 8.10. As merchants bought in taels and
sold in francs or other European currency, their profits and losses
were largely dependent on variations in the rate. Two mercantile
houses of Shanghai had found it worth their while to invest a large
sum in the construction of special vessels, which could be made like
modern torpedo boats, practically all machinery and hence very fast,
as the only cargo they had to carry was a single letter, bringing
from Singapore or Hong-Kong the European news affecting the rate
of exchange, many hours in advance of the regular steamer. The few
merchants who enjoyed the benefit of this news service had, of course,
a great advantage over their competitors, buying and selling with
full knowledge of what the rate would be. With the introduction of the
cable, however, all merchants shared alike in such information, and,
furthermore, by the continuous communication thus established, the
former violent fluctations in rates became a thing of the past.
=390. Services of the telegraph to the modern organization.=—Newspapers
spread broadcast the market quotations which are carried by the
telegraph to all parts of the world, and the farmer in the American
West, the cotton grower in the South, or the sheep raiser in Australia,
can learn with ease what prices his staple brings in the great markets
and what price he can ask for it. At the centers of business the great
merchants, in touch, by the post and telegraph, with both consumers and
producers, study to apportion the supply so that it will reach those
who stand most in need of it, and seek to regulate future production so
that there may be neither waste nor want when the product is brought
to market. The remarkable progress of Brazil in coffee production has
been explained by a student of the subject as due in large part to the
spread of the telegraph in South America and the laying of a cable to
Pernambuco in 1874, bringing the country into communication with the
world’s coffee markets.
The telegraph has, moreover, enabled commerce to dispense with a
whole army of middlemen, commission merchants, and brokers, who were
necessary under the old system, but who have now been released to find
more useful employments. Merchants in the wool trade, for example, send
their buyers to the countries of production on fast steamers, transmit
their instructions by telegraph, and bring the wool directly to the
country of consumption, cutting out entirely the middlemen of London,
Antwerp, and Havre, who once controlled the trade. Before the first
Atlantic cable was laid it cost about 3 per cent to get cotton through
the hands of the commission merchant and broker; the cable did away
with the old consignment system, and in a dozen years the charge was
reduced to about 1 per cent.
=391. Functions of the merchant.=—I spoke above of the elimination of
unnecessary middlemen. To many people all middlemen seem unnecessary,
and fit only for elimination. These people regard as worthless drones
all who are not engaged in the work of raising raw materials, of
manufactures, or of transportation; they see no reason why a man who
merely sits in an office, receives reports and writes letters, who
perhaps rarely sees the wares he “handles,” should grow rich off
society.
The defence of the middleman may be given in the words of an English
writer, describing the important part which merchants play in marketing
the great output of the British iron industry. “The merchant usually
has a better knowledge of the conditions affecting different markets
than the producer. He comes more directly in contact with the buyer;
he knows better to whom credit can safely be given, and is prepared
to risk credits that the manufacturer would often refuse; he is well
posted in railway and shipping rates and conditions, understands the
peculiarities, practices, and requirements of particular markets, and
has all other necessary commercial information, including freights
and tariff duties, at his fingers’ ends.” Surely the functions thus
suggested are sufficiently important to keep specialists employed, with
profit to society as well as to the individuals engaged.
=392. Growth in number and variety of the mercantile class.=—In fact,
the class of middlemen, those who are occupied merely in the exchange
of wares, has increased greatly in the course of the century. The great
commercial machine runs now with such power and smoothness, only by
the help of myriads of men who get their livelihood by tending it.
In Prussia, for example, the number of wholesale merchants or firms
increased twenty-fold in sixty years.
The change would lack a large part of its present significance if
it affected only the number of middlemen. It has been a change in
quality as well as quantity. The increase in business has furnished
the opportunity for a redistribution of tasks, and has led to a
specialization which was before impracticable. To be a jack of all
trades nowadays one must be a man of supreme genius; to be master of
one branch of trade is sufficient for the energy and the ambitions of
the ordinary man. It pays a few men to take the position of Charles
Broadway Rouse, to offer to buy anything and to sell everything.
Most wholesale merchants are content to confine themselves to one
branch of trade: lumber, iron, wool, leather, grain, etc. Most of
these merchants, moreover, rely further on specialists to help them
with certain parts of their business. They depend constantly on the
banker, the speculator, the broker, the forwarder, the warehouseman,
the commission merchant, and agents of many different kinds. It
is impossible, in this book, to do more than suggest the complex
commercial organization which has grown up in the course of the
century. Only a few of the most prominent features can be treated in
the following sections.
=393. Insurance and speculation.=—The practice of insurance has made us
familiar with the means by which producers secure themselves against
some of the risks of their business. A farmer can insure his growing
crop against hail, a merchant can insure his stock against loss by
fire, a shipowner can insure his vessel against loss at sea. For a
small annual payment, which the producer can well spare, he secures
himself against a loss which might prove ruinous, if it chanced to
come to him. He gains relief from anxiety, strengthens his credit (he
could not borrow on the security of uninsured goods), and secures that
regularity of operation which is essential to the greatest efficiency.
So obvious are the advantages of insurance that every one accepts it as
a benefit. We have now to see how the same service which is performed
for the producer by the insurance company is performed for the merchant
by the speculator. Among the greatest risks in commerce is that of
price changes due to great events (wet seasons or dry seasons, war or
peace, etc.) which the merchant can neither control nor foresee. A
grain merchant, for instance, who has bought some excellent wheat in
Dakota, has made advantageous arrangements for its transportation, and
is confident of finding a ready sale to an English miller, may find the
whole transaction results not in profit but in loss, if the level of
wheat prices falls before his sale is accomplished, by reason, perhaps,
of the unexpected yield of wheat in a distant country, or by the
conclusion of a great war. Why does he not sell the wheat in advance to
the miller, and so protect himself from this danger? He would simply be
shifting the burden to shoulders still less able to bear it. The miller
is a manufacturer, who needs to give all his thought to the technical
details of his business, and who can ill afford to buy wheat when it
is high, only to find when he comes to market the flour that it has
dropped in price, in sympathy with a decline in wheat.
=394. Services of the speculator to commerce.=—The class of speculators
has grown up in the course of the century, to assume such risks. It
can do great harm to business by creating risks where none naturally
existed, producing artificial scarcity by “corners,” etc.; this danger
should not blind us to the benefits it confers when it confines itself
to its legitimate business. Let us see how, in practice, this business
of speculation serves commerce.
A merchant who has bought wheat or cotton in America, for sale in the
Liverpool market, sells immediately an equal quantity for _future
delivery_, at a time when he expects to have his ware ready for sale
in England. It makes no difference to him then whether the general
price of his ware goes up or down. If prices go up he will have to pay
more to “cover” his sale of futures, but he will also get more for
his real ware. If prices go down he may not be able to get as much
for his real wheat or cotton as he expected, possibly not as much as
he paid for it; but he will make up just the difference, by the low
price at which he can cover. He renounces all chance at great gains,
but also secures himself against great loss, and is glad to pay the
speculator’s commission to attain this result. He makes his profit
by the differences in the price of wheat or cotton not at different
times, but in different places; reference to the section above, in
which the description of the modern merchant was quoted, will suggest
how he earns his living. In a manner similar to this many manufacturers
(millers or cotton manufacturers) protect themselves against variations
in the price of their raw material.
=395. Decline of the market and fair, and rise of the produce
exchange.=—I spoke above of the regularity of modern commerce as one
of its distinctive features. The gain in regularity shows itself
notably in institutions like the market, the fair, and the exchange.
The old system of market-days, under which country people came to
town on stated days to display their wares and enable housewives to
lay in a supply of provisions, has given place to a steady flow of
products through city shops and market halls to the consumers. Fairs
have lost their significance in modern countries, because the volume
of trade is now so great, and the instruments of trade are so highly
developed, that commerce has developed into one permanent fair. The
great expositions, which began toward the close of the eighteenth
century, but of which the London Exposition of 1851 (Crystal Palace)
was the first of world-wide significance, seem to have continued
to the present time the principle of periodical recurrence, but a
tendency to permanence is to be noted even with respect to them. Many
of these expositions have led to the establishment of museums of
industry, art, and commerce, and the use of permanent expositions of
models and samples has come to be a recognized means of furthering
industry and commerce. Finally, the nineteenth century has witnessed
the foundation of most of the modern produce exchanges, which have
proved indispensable to the rapid development of commerce in the great
staples. The experience of Hamburg is significant in this respect. The
coffee trade of that port declined after 1882, when Havre adopted the
system of dealings in futures, and did not recover until 1887, when
Hamburg adopted the system also, and then enjoyed a rapid growth of the
trade. These produce exchanges are to be found, with variations in the
wares handled and in the system pursued, in all advanced countries.
Germany, for instance, offers facilities for the characteristic trade
of a produce exchange (including dealings in futures), in the following
articles: wheat, rye, maize, oats, rye flour, crude alcohol, rape-seed
oil, kerosene, cotton, coffee, raw sugar, granulated sugar, and carded
wool.
=396. Contrast of the character of association in commerce and in
manufactures or transportation.=—A previous section, describing the
specialization of merchants in the nineteenth century, suggests
the gain which commerce has made in the way of cooperation. The
tendency, however, has been to split tasks up into small pieces, and
to distribute these among individuals or small groups, rather than to
associate great numbers of men under one management. We do not find in
strictly commercial undertakings the tremendous aggregations of men
and capital which have become characteristic of modern transportation
and manufactures. Modern trusts, it is true, have invaded the field of
commerce to a certain extent, and have effected some of their chief
economies in improved methods of marketing their products. What the
development may be along the line thus indicated is an interesting
subject for speculation, but a subject which cannot be allowed to
detain us here. Mercantile enterprises are still, for the most part,
carried on by individuals, by partnerships, or by corporations in which
the personal and local element is predominant.
=397. More efficient utilization of capital in modern trade.=—The
middleman, therefore, cannot as a rule secure the capital which he
needs for carrying on his business by offering securities for public
subscription through the stock exchange. He seems, in this respect,
at a disadvantage in comparison with the manufacturer, the railroad,
or the steamship operator. He is, however, better off in at least two
respects than his predecessors of an earlier time. First, he can do
much more business with the same amount of capital than was possible
under the old conditions. The great technical improvements have
resulted in a much more rapid “turn-over” of capital, and a merchant
now sells out and replenishes his stock far more rapidly than he could
formerly do. The instance of the India trade, given in a section above,
illustrates this fact. The “merchant princes” who once ruled this trade
by their great capital have given place to many smaller merchants, who
can make less capital suffice by its rapid turn-over.
=398. Benefit of banks to trade.=—Second, the deserving merchant can
manage with a smaller capital than formerly, because he can borrow more
easily and to much better advantage. The reader must be content with a
summary of the results of the development of banking in the course of
the century, for there is no space in which to treat the details of its
history. Banks have followed business throughout the world. They have
attracted the unused capital of the community until they control now
a fund of enormous dimensions, available for mercantile loans. On the
security of business paper (bills of exchange, bills of lading, drafts,
notes, etc.), merchants secure the use of this capital, and find their
means limited now only by the extent of their business. It is the
function of the banker to judge of the soundness of this business, and
to accord or withhold the use of the bank’s money according to the
promise of the enterprise. Mistakes are made, of course, but they are
comparatively rare because a mistake in either direction compromises
the bank’s success. Special institutions, the commercial and credit
agencies, have grown up since 1841, to aid bankers and merchants in
this delicate task of judging the credit of individuals.
=399. Criticism of the present organization; crises.=—Of the general
power and efficiency of the present organization there can be no
question. It meets the supreme test of maintaining a population greater
than in any previous period of the world’s history, on a scale of
comfort formerly unknown. That it is perfect, however, no sensible
man believes. We cannot discuss the many criticisms directed against
it from various points of view, but must not omit the consideration
of one confessed weakness. The organization is wonderfully efficient
in normal times, but it is unsteady. It passes, at intervals, through
periods of feverish activity, culminating in a crisis and followed
by dull stagnation. A curve showing the course of the world’s trade
during the century would not present a steady rise, but a series of
waves, with distinctly marked crest and trough. There is a waste of
labor and capital in all periods of a crisis. In the good times men
strain themselves to build railroads where they are not needed, or to
make machines for which there is no profitable use. Sooner or later
they come to their senses with a shock, and realize that they have been
wasting their time; then they are as depressed as they formerly were
sanguine, and are too timid for a time to make good use of the capital
which the crisis has left on their hands.
=400. Crises before 1850.=—The tendency of the commercial organization
to these interruptions in its regularity of operation, which was
apparent in advanced countries before 1800, has grown more marked
in the nineteenth century; and, with the spread of the modern
organization, crises now affect the whole world. Crises have occurred
at intervals of about eleven years since 1800. A crisis marked the end
of the Napoleonic wars in 1815. Another followed in 1825, occasioned,
in England, by speculation in banks, turnpikes, and canals, and by
unwise investments in South America. Commerce recovered from its
depression only to decline again after the crisis of 1836-39, which was
felt with particular severity in the United States in 1837. The last of
the crises in the first half of the century, and the first crisis for
which railroad speculation can be held largely responsible, followed
in 1847, and was the more severe on the Continent because it coincided
with a period of political revolution.
=401. Crises since 1850.=—Toward the middle of the century the new
instruments of steam transportation began to work their great changes.
At just this time, moreover, the discovery of gold in California (1848)
and in Australia (1851) led to an immense increase in the world’s stock
of gold, which is said to have doubled in little more than ten years.
The results, inflation and speculation, were as marked as though the
new money had been of paper, and a period of over-trading ceased only
with the outbreak of the crisis of 1857, which spread quickly from the
United States to England and thence to the Continent.
A longer period than usual intervened, broken only by local
disturbances (failure of a great English banking firm in 1866, “Black
Friday” in the United States, 1869). The crisis of 1873 was, perhaps,
on this account, more serious; it led to a depression of many years,
affecting all branches of trade, and even distant countries like
Australia and South America. Beginning, this time, on the Continent,
where the outcome of the Franco-Prussian war and the payment of
the great war indemnity had led to unprecedented speculation, it
found a ready field in the United States, where there had been an
active speculation in land and stocks, and proved to be the greatest
international crisis which the world has known. As though the air had
been cleared by this great storm, succeeding disturbances have been far
more restricted in their action. A banking crisis in France in 1882 and
a railroad crisis in the United States in 1884 were the chief events of
the next period of danger; and in more recent times have followed the
American currency crisis of 1893, and the German industrial crisis of
1901.
=402. Rise in the price level since 1896.=—Toward the close of the
nineteenth century a change became apparent in the very basis of
business, namely in the world’s money in which prices are expressed.
The prices of different commodities never rise or fall exactly in
unison, but it is possible by statistics to show the change in the
average of prices or the price level, as it is called; and a study of
recent statistics shows a rise in prices so extensive and so rapid as
to make it clearly a topic deserving serious attention from the student
of commercial development.
Taking for the basis of comparison the average of prices in the decade
1890-1899, the price of staple raw commodities in the United States
had risen in 1910 by almost 40%; or, comparing 1910 with 1896, when
prices were lowest, by 66.3%, almost two-thirds. The change has been
less marked in manufactured wares, for it has been offset to a certain
extent by improvements in methods of production, but still it is very
great: nearly 30% compared with the decade before 1900, and over 40%
compared with 1896.
=403. Effects of increase in the world’s gold production.=—Countless
factors have contributed to this result, in one way or another, but
economists are generally agreed that the one cause overshadowing all
others is the increase in the world’s output of gold. The metal which
is the basis of the world’s currency system has become so plentiful
that it has cheapened; and the purchaser of wares has now to give more
gold for them, that is, prices have risen.
From the time of the Californian and the Australian gold discoveries,
for almost half a century, the world’s annual gold output was curiously
constant, at a figure somewhat over _one_ hundred million dollars.
The discovery of new gold fields and the perfection of new processes
effected a revolution. The output of 1896 first exceeded the figure of
_two_ hundred million, in 1899 it passed the mark of _three_ hundred,
in 1906 and in succeeding years past 1910 it never fell below _four_
hundred million.
While some classes in the community lose in a period of rising prices,
particularly wage-earners and bond-holders whose income rises slowly in
comparison with the increase in the cost of living, the speculators,
merchants and manufacturers find in such a period a great opportunity
to make money and business rapidly expands. The following pages will
describe a noteworthy development of industry and trade in the period
immediately preceding the World War; and the reader will realize, even
when no reference is made to it, that the change in the price level
has been an important factor in the development. One caution, however,
seems at this point particularly advisable. Many of the statistics
following, in which the development is pictured, are given in terms
of money values. These figures grow with the rise in prices, even when
there is no change in the physical amount of business transacted, and
are an accurate index of the volume of trade only when they are reduced
to an extent corresponding with the rise of prices.
QUESTIONS AND TOPICS
1. In the example given, sect. 386, distinguish the producer, the
transporter, and the consumer. Show how each one of these gained by
the advance in organization. Did any one lose by it?
2. Of what wares are large amounts still kept in storehouses, and why?
[Cf. U. S. Monthly Summary, Oct., 1903, vol. 11. no. 4, pp. 1033-1095,
Warehousing industry in U. S.]
3. Study, from newspaper accounts, the effect of an interruption of
commerce by one of the causes suggested in the text.
4. Distinguishing producer, middleman, and consumer, show what has
been the effect on each of the introduction of the telegraph.
5. Service of the postal system to commerce. [James in Depew, One
hund. years, chap. 5.]
6. Development of the modern system of advertising. [Ayer in Depew,
One hund. years, chap. 13.]
7. Nobody complains because the farmer who grows wheat or wool does
not also make flour or cloth. Is there any good reason why the man who
makes the flour or cloth should also market it?
8. Study the biography of some great merchant, and find out whether
he made money out of people, or made money for people and kept only
a share for himself. [James Burnley, Millionaires and kings of
enterprise, Lond. and Phila., 1901; Fortunes made in business, London,
1884, 2 vols.]
9. Make a genealogical chart, showing how, from a single ancestor
(the medieval artisan) the many specialists in modern manufactures
and trade have proceeded. [Small and Vincent, Introduction to Study
of society, contains a chart of this character, which may be used for
guidance. See the U. S. Census or a business directory for suggestions
of the present organization.]
10. If you have personal knowledge of some trade or manufacture, write
a report on the development of its organization and the resulting
specialization.
11. Write a report on the advantages to society of (_a_) fire
insurance, or (_b_) speculation. [Hadley, Economics, chap. 4, or other
manual of economics; H. C. Emery, Speculation on the stock and produce
exchanges of the United States, N. Y., 1896, Columbia Studies, 7:
283-512.]
12. Write the history of any institution for periodical trade, like
a market or fair, which has ever existed in your neighborhood. Has
it any commercial importance at present? [Residents of the original
thirteen colonies and of the older States will find in local histories
and early legislation much information on this subject.]
13. The London exposition of 1851. [McCarthy, Hist., vol. 1, chap. 21.]
14. Write the history of some produce exchange. [Emery, Speculation;
local history and biography, reports of the exchange.]
15. Note, in connection with sect. 394, that the industrial
organization has become so complex in recent times that this book
cannot follow out topics which were treated in earlier periods. For
the importance of capital and of large scale enterprise at present see
the books on economics, on railroads, trusts, etc.
16. Advantages of the modern department store. [Scribner’s Magazine,
1897, vol. 21, p. 4 ff.; restrictions of space forbid the treatment of
the organization of retail trade in the text, but many interesting and
fruitful topics may be found in studying it.]
17. The business of a modern bank. [Scribner’s Magazine, 1897, vol.
21, p. 575 ff.; manuals on economics and banking.]
18. The benefits of commercial and credit agencies. [Question bankers
and business men; I find no historical treatment of the topic
available in English.]
19. Character and course of a commercial crisis. [Manuals of
economics.]
20. Write the history of some particular crisis. [Bibliography in
Jones, Bowker and Iles, and Palgrave; consult narrative histories of
the period, and periodical articles.]
21. Effect of the gold discoveries about 1850. [Rand, Ec. hist., chap.
10, from Cairnes.]
BIBLIOGRAPHY
This chapter touches so closely the field of economics that it
seems unnecessary to duplicate the references which are supplied in
abundance by the manuals on that subject. See for bibliography Bowker
and Iles, and Bullock’s Introduction to the Study of Economics, N.
Y., 1897. A full classified bibliography of commercial crises will be
found in Edward D. Jones, Economic crises, N. Y., Macmillan, 1900, pp.
225-245. The book which covers most fully the topics treated here is
Wells, **Recent econ. changes. References on special topics are given
above.