Chapter 7 - Page 2

admit of a competition in labor, advantage is taken of the eager demand for work, and prices reduced to the lowest possible standard. In the eager scramble for monopolizing more than a just share of custom, or to increase the amount of sales by the temptation of extremely moderate rates, the prices of goods are put down to the lowest scale they will bear. If, in doing this, the dealer was content with a profit reduced in some proportion to the increase of his sales, no one would have a right to complain. He would be free to sell his goods at cost, or even below cost, if that suited his fancy. Instead of this, however, the profits on his articles are often the same that they were when prices were ten or fifteen per cent. higher, and he reaps the advantage of a greatly increased sale, consequent upon the more moderate rates at which he can sell. The evil lies in his cutting down his operatives' wages; in taking off of them, while they make no party to his voluntary reduction of prices, the precise amount that he throws in to his customer as a temptation to buy more freely. But to the promised dialogue--

"Money don't come in hand-over-fist, as it ought to come," remarked Grasp, of the flourishing firm of Grasp & Co., Merchant Tailors, of Boston, to the junior partner of the establishment. "The nimble sixpence is better than the slow shilling, you know. We must make our shears eat up cloth a little faster, or we sha'n't clear ten thousand dollars this year by one-third of the sum."

"Although that would be a pretty decent business these times."

"I don't call any business a decent one that can be bettered," replied Grasp, contemptuously.

"But can ours be bettered?"

"Certainly!"

"How?"

"By selling more goods."

"How are we to do that?"

"By putting down the prices, and then making a confounded noise about it. Do you understand?"

"I do. But our prices are very low now."

"True. But we may reduce them still further, and, by so doing, increase our sales to an extent that will make our business net us beyond the present income quite handsomely. But, to do this, we must cut down the prices now paid for making up our clothes. In this way, we shall be able to greatly increase our sales, with but a slight reduction upon our present rates of profit."

"But will our workmen stand it? Our needlewomen, particularly, work very low now."

"They'll have to stand it!" replied Grasp; "most of them are glad to get work at any price. Women, with half a dozen hungry mouths around them, don't stand long to higgle about a few cents in a garment, when there are so many willing to step in and take their places. Besides, what are three or four cents to them on a vest, or pair of pants, or