COMMERCIALISM ERRING FROM ITSELF.
PROTESTS against the charges of retail tradesmen have daily ap- peared in the Times, the attack being led by that powerful journal in a special onslaught on the butchers and undertakers. Beasts are cheaper in Smithfield market, yet butcher's meat is scarcely lower in price, or falls long after the fall in carcasses. On this word fathers of families speak, and rush into print with com- plaints of other retail tradesmen. One says that his miller con- tinues to charge the same price for flour, although corn is cheaper. Another denounces his baker, and has much to say on brewers. "A Diner-out" complains that people of the tavern-keeper race do not follow the fall in meat, but still charge the sixpence for the chop, the shilling for the steak, and so on. "A Daily Victim" cries out against the penny tax for attendance from the waiter. Numbers of undertakers' bills are poured into the Times, ranging from 46/. 14s. 11d. to 187/. The most singular of these bills, how- ever, is one sent by "An Executor." A lady died while on a visit in the country to her relation, an undertaker : her property realized "little more than 2701,"; she was buried in her own tomb ; there was only one mourning-coach : the bill was 62/. 17s. 5id. But then, the bill included such items as "horse and gig and toll-gates" for the carpenter, 10s.; "gin and brandy" for ditto, 9d.; "16 gallons of ale and a half, 1/. 13s." ; "tobacco and cigars, 2s. 6d." ; " providence the day of the funeral, 3/. 3s." The last does not seem an extravagant fee, until you learn that " providence " means "refreshment."
To these attacks there have been various replies. A butcher explains that he must cut up his meat to suit customers, and that the offal trade does not harmonize in its fluctuations with the meat trade. "One who would wish to do right" hints that long credits are demanded by customers, and " poundage" by cooks, butlers, footmen, or housekeepers. A coffeeshop-keeper explains that the sixpence for chop includes lights, periodicals, condi- ments, pen-and-ink, &c. Then there are rejoinders ; "A Servant" denying the poundage, and denouncing the 40 per cent of over- charge made by tradesmen, even if " poundage " were deducted. In all this controversy, the undertakers preserve a judicious si- lence; they have no defence.
We do not see how these attacks are justified by commercial principles. After all, the tradesmen are only fulfilling the rule of "buying in the cheapest market and selling in the dearest,"— in other words, getting what they can for their wares. The mil- ler, who continues to sell his flour at the same price as when corn was dearer, probably makes his flour from stores of the dearer corn. Bakers often keep their prices steady, refusing to follow all the fluctuations of the corn-market either way. The dealer in articles for prompt consumption, like the tavern-keeper, must al- ways study the public desire for steadiness, uniformity, and (aqua measurement of charges : the public likes to stick to a fixed " round " sum. The coffeeshop-keeper is right in enu- merating what is really charged with the chop, and the charge. is not excessive : but the public, in the person of the " Daily Vic- tim," would be terribly harassed and annoyed by a detailed bill of all the fractional charges lumped with the "chop, 6d." Again, the " gentleman " will not attend to his own household matters in detail : his custom is worth having, but he is too grand or too busy to dispense it personally ; leaving that to his butler, house- keeper, or steward : the servant therefore has something to dis- pose of—the "preference," which has a market value ; and as qommercialism brings all things to a money value, why should not the servant have his piice for his preference? To abolish these things, you must introduce a new element into retail trade—the spirit of justice, the love of your neigh- bour, or the religious desire to work out good wherever it is to be worked out. The housekeeper must carry the preference to such a one because he has the largest family, or is the worthiest man. The butcher must forego his undue profits, and waive the id. not justified by the carcass value for the love of his neighbour the gentleman. But will the gentleman reciprocate that love of neighbour ? Confess, now : do you love your butcher as your- self—or a tithe as much—or at all! Not at all. You look into the "markets" of the Times, to find out how little you can pay your neighbour ; if he does not pare his charges to the very quick—that is, to the smallest profit possible—you transfer your custom, or write to the Times; and when you have paid your minimum bill, you consider yourself quits. Why should not he ? Nay, you expect him to thank you : when you, with much dig- nity—supercilious or affable as the case may be, but still with dignity—make your annual call—if indeed you are not above even that—to pay your Christmas bill, due perhaps three years ago, you expect the "mere tradesman" to be "much obliged to you." You may be "equal in the sight of God," as good Queen Ade- laide wrote in her last charity to the world, but you will not consent to be so in the sight of the butcher-boy. Why then do you expect moral influences in the bill, or anything but "the higgling of the market." Again, the Daily Victim pays his penny to the waiter for a specific article—a certain formal civility. Does the Daily Vic- tim treat the waiter as a man and a brother? does he love his waiter as himself—or a tithe as much—or at all? Not at all. Ten to one, he calls out " Waiter 1" in a hard, unfeeling voice, such as he would resent if applied to himself. He bullies the waiter if the meat is under-done or over-done—though the waiter is not the cook. He not only suspects the waiter of meaning to overcharge him, but overtly and flagrantly manifests that un- generous feeling. To the waiter the Daily Victim is troublesome, supercilious, and alien ; yet he expects civility. Anything may be had for money, and accordingly the waiter sells the required civility, at the small charge of one penny. What would the Daily Victim have? He desires to be on the aristrocratic side of that hedge—to be one of the pence-paying orders of society ; yet not to be called upon to pay his penny. He expects a Chris- tian brotherhood which he scorns to concede. He seeks an article of purchase without paying for it. In short, he asks the waiter's attention as an alms. The charge is a shabby shape of the mer- cenary spirit ; but so is the Daily Victim's resentment of it, un- less the Daily Victim is prepared to cry to the waiter, "Come to my arms, my slight acquaintance let us swear eternal friendship." No doubt, it is very disgusting when we encounter this mercenary spirit, which reduces all obligingness and homage to some money relation ; but it is only the naked edge of the universal com- mercialism. The Daily Victim who calls out "Waiter 1" with the domineering alien tone peculiar to that invocation, perpetrates a mercenary trespass on natural justice, precisely correlative to the charge of one penny. You may trace throughout the usage of society the same ori- ginal sin which is only reflected in the bad tradesmanlike prac- tices now denounced. It is only that the spirit has come to per- fection. That fact you may teat by asking what hinders the direct remedy! If the Daily Victim grudges or cannot spare the daily penny, why does he not join the Whittington Club, or some similar institution, where the members form a community for certain purposes ? Is it because his pride keeps him from identi- fying himself with a community rated at a certain scale of ex- penditure? Why do not the complainers against undertakers re- sort to Mr. Shillibeer, who will convey your respected relative to the grave at the most reasonable charge ? Is it because "respect for the deceased" not only demands black feathers, but also for- bids the resort to a tradesman capable of such a thing 88 a cheap funeral? or is it because the pride of the living emulates the osten- tation of the other bereaved snobs, and flinches under the sneers of the neighbour whom you do not love as yourself, and who does not love you, but comes out to stare at the idle and ugly parade in which you feel bound to burlesque the tragedy of your own grief?
Truly, a more preposterous combination of cross-purposes and self-conflicts, with the best feelings ever yielding to the poorest, cannot be imagined. And this helpless yielding is the strangest part of it. When it comes to the point—when we are called upon to take part in the ugly pageant of death, or to pay the tribute of pence to our neighbour the waiter, whose used countenance so shockingly reflects our own unfeeling relation to him—we become conscious of the overwhelming evil : the last penny breaks the back of our patience; but we do not feel the overwhelming evil while we are only promoters of it, not victims. We trust to the omnipotence of commercialism, and cry out only when we are thwarted by its impotency—which is indeed manifold. It will not imbue the undertaker and his mutes with a sacerdotal spirit, nor make the waiter perform his labours for love. Yet we trust the last rites of love to the conduct of said undertaker : we suf- fer the retail tradesman to design the ceremonial of regret, as we suffer the tailor to design the costume which makes the outward man, the retail builder to usurp the office of architect in de- signing our houses, and so bit by bit our metropolis. And we go on trusting, although the impotencies thwart us at every turn. We cannot even know the commonest facts—for instance, whether
our servants take vails of our tradespeople or not. Ask either of them—and believe the answer, if you can. As well ask your to- bacconist if these are "real Havanna cigars." Retail commercial- ism does not deal in truth, any more than in love of neighbour over the counter. Why should it—unless you pay for it ? Some trades- men do deal in it ; but they charge high for the verification, and you are bent on cutting down your bills. Perhaps retail commer- cialism might feel the moral obligation of truth if it had an ex- ample ; a useful duty for retail gentility to perform. Perhaps it might even learn to supply love of neighbour, and (mirabile dictu!) not put it in the bill, if it had adequate example and pre- cept—if retail gentility were to expand into more hearty relations, and if the love of neighbour were taught by its special teachers in a more exemplary manner : only the retail tradesman knows well enough, from his Sunday dealings, that in the appointed school for the love of neighbour "sittings" are retailed at so much a piece, with an allowance on taking a quantity ; and that his beloved neighbour the parochial apostle of love of neighbour would not supply the exhortation at all if their mutual friend and beloved neighbour the rate-collector did not gather in the Christmas bills of that estimable dealer ; who sometimes enforces his claim upon their other beloved neighbour in a broad-brimmed hat by process of law.
Can you mend all this vitiated circle of social relations ? Per- haps not: but meanwhile it is hard to turn round upon those who are merely the ultimate exponents, the butchers and waiters of human existence, and castigate them for our own ladies in moral sentiment or our own exclusive trust in the omnipotence of free trade. Are we to pass a sumptuary law on butcher's bills, or extend protection to the trade in coffeehouse civility ?
Previous page
