TRICKS OF SHOPKEEPERS.
FROM A CROAKER IN THE COUNTRY: of Trade and, Manufactures, it would appear that the opinions upon. Toy Landon Press has missed the grand fault of PousETT Scaope's the state of the retail trade in London are not those of the retail trades_ - letter re the Agriculturists. All of you, I see, deny that Irish food is men themselves ; who, you justly observer might not have given so ally tliv cheaper for want of Irish Poor-laws. None of you, therefore, favourable an account of the state of their business. I need scarcely as.:eet to the doctrine that the English agriculturists have a special in- point out the inconsistency of the opinions pronounced upon the general tero-t i:i giving Poor-laws to Ireland : but some of you, and the Chro- prosperity of this class of traders, with the fact that the bnsiness of the sick le particular, congratulate Mr. SCROPE on his cunning appeal to steady and straightforward tradesman is in a great measure absorbed by the selfishness of English. landlords. For shame ! What ! palm a monstrous monopolies, that are partly stocked out of the plunder of gross el or in political economy on the stupid landlords, in order to get swindling adventurers, and are mainly supported by the frauds practised wine good out of their selfish ignorance ! Such morality is on a level on shallow bargain-hunters. with t list which permits us to tell children for their good, that the nas- Had retail shopkeepers—I do not mean the monopolizing wholesale tiest physic is delicious. In that case, however, no more harm is done retailers, but those who buy of the wholesale dealer, and sell to the thae %rliat belongs to the lie per se i but in this ease of POULETT small consumer—had traders of this class been examined, they would Seitors's appeal to English selfishness, there is infinite mischief over have given a picture of their struggles and anxieties, which none but and ab:■ve the mischief of lying. Suppose the stupid landlords con- themselves can truly describe. Not being one myself, I will not vested to Mr. SCROPE'S doctrine—what happens ? This. See, say attempt it. My object is to call your attention to the real state of the they, how much we suffer from the admission of cheap Irish food : let case, which the evidence—notwithstanding the glossing over of well- us Make Irish food as-dear as English food ; and then, ci fortiori, let us known facts and the distortion of inferences—must, I think, make clear stick to the Corn-laws, which keep up the price of English foild. The to all who have given any degree of attention to the matter. I will Chronicle says, that Mr. SCROPE'S letter, is a crafty appeal to the sel- endeavour to assign some of the proximate causes of the distress of the fisluiess of England in favour of Ireland. To me it looks like a crafty retail traders ; leaving the ultimate ones to your matures consideration - argument in favour of the Corn-laws. Supposing his doctrine true, The grand cause of the distress of the retailer, I conceive to be the would those English grandees who own so great a part of Ireland, competition of the wholesale dealer or large manufacturer. This has consent to lose half their Irish rents, perhaps, for the sake of raising aggravated the injurious effect of minor evils,—such as excessive renN the price of Irish food in the English market ? Never: and, if not, overgrown-stocks, superfluous show, Szc: by causing a great increase in then Mr. SCROPE'S argument is nothing more or less than an argument the expense and risk of trade, as well as a diminution of profits. Large in favour of' excluding all cheap food ; an argument the more dange- capitals may be the source of benefit to trade; but great capitalists, I. sous, since he never mentions the conclusion to.which his argument in- fear, are the occasion of much ruin to tradesinen. The lines of GOLD- evitably -leads. On this point I have been astonished at the blindness SMITH sound prophetically just now—
n
No retail trader of small capital can compete with the great manufae- which I turer or wholesale dealer. If the manufacturer does not sell cheaper, of English landlords, not cunning, but very straightforward,. find in a book reviewed by you last week, England and America. Who he has a larger stock ; and although the consumer may not be -better' served, he fancies he is ; and his eye is gratified by the sight of the irn- is the author ? He does not prove, but he shows very clearly the pos-
sibility of proving to demonstration,- that cheap corn would be good for mense heaps of goods that are around him. Show is an article that the customers of the retail dealer like, and will have, even if they pay the English landlords; and that the sooner corn should be made cheap, the better for them. The essay is most interesting, and must lead to dear for it. The appearance of wealth and splendour is now more much discussion. We have all been sadly misled- by the RICARDO necessary to a retail shopkeeper than honesty and civility used to' theory of Rent. Do you observe the many signs of a coming storm for
be. Even the bankers, whose low' gloomy shops, with dirty iron- barred windows, were once the sign of wealth above show, are now Cheap Bread ? Your Whig Ministers will let it come—fight against it being transformed into lofty and spacious offices architecturally grand in style, and fitted up with polished mahogany and plate-glass. Those pearance. It seems to me that they take a pleasure in having to yield " whited sepulchres," the gin temples, with their tawdry splendour, are. to force, and in letting all the world. see it. What a disgraceful expo-
sure of Tory influence on Whig decisions in that curious but mianamed now scarcely to be distinguished by the bad taste and .profusion of ;heir decorations. Look at Regent Street, in which nine out of ten of' appointment England and America ! I am • sick of the Whigs; sick with dis-
those who have tenanted the shops have been ruined. Only the retail- appointment ; and almost sick of politics. Are better days coming?
I fear not. For I give up the Whigs as incurable, and fear that the shopkeeper of eitablished connexion, or the wealthy manufacturer, or•svholesale dealer, can afford to pay the enormous rents of the houses ha Radicals who are fit to be trusted will be kept down by the weight of
this street. A prominent situation and a showy shop are necessary to '
BICKERSTF:TH AND LAW-REFORM in the place of LOT& BROUGHAM with mirrors, and their floors carpeted like a drawing-room—would, VAUX AND DO-NOTHING. one should think, deter customers from entering them ; for they must. I wonder whether Lord GREY ever thinks about any thing but get- know that it is they who are made to pay for all this show. But it is ting money for his family. Auroone and MELBOURNE cannot think, not surprising that those leviathans of linendrapery, whose long . —it is not their fault. But what do you think of the progress of corn- counters stretch out into a perspective like the temples in Mairrna's binations amongst mechanics, and stack-burning amongst the villeins ? pictures, and are studded with rows of smart shopmen, should ' Has not education led to a feeling amongst the poor more awful than invite customers, who can supply almost every. want in the way that which was expressed forty years ago by the French cry of liberty of apparel without moving off the stool they sit down upon. But I - and equality? Instead of--" the rights of man," which means any thing have a tale to unfold that will diminish the number of the dupes of one or nothing,—we have now "the rights of industry," which means that class of monopolists at least,—I mean of those who.buy without asking the state of the great mass of the people-will not much longer be borne any question but what the goods cost, and who sell without any cheek in countries where the populace read. I often think of Orator Hurr's upon their impositions but the-fear of detection. ' Leaving outof con-. story about the servant of all-work; who, pending the -Reform Bill, sideration the way in which the unfair dealers I allude to procure their - refused to engage herself for more than six months, saying, " When stocks, (for that, say the bargain-hunters, is nothing-to us), I will just- - the Bill is passed we shall work less for better wages." A caricature, relate a few of the modes in which the deception of -selling cheap is - called "Catching a Gudgeon," has got into these parts, and is sold for a kept up. halfpenny. It represents Lords Grisir and BROUGHAM fishing for The old fraud of substituting 'another article-for the one sold to the . John Bull, and catching him on a. hook baited with "Reform "and purchaser is nearly exploded, as too barefaced a robbery; but it is a "-Fair Promises." As I am sick, so are millions savage-with disap- common practice to sell an article or two below even-cost price, to lure pointrnent. . That those should be disappointed who - expected that the bargain-hunter into the purcbase of others at a higher rate than the mere Reform of Parliament would raise profits and wages, is all Patti- fair dealer would sell them at. In the measure, if not in the quality of ral and proper ; but the least sanguine of us had a right to hope that the article, a deficiency is made, so slight as to be hardly of consequence Reform of Parliament would lead to measures for raising profits and enough to complain of if detected; it being often passed over by the , wages; that the Reforine,d Parliament would open the .world to our purchaser, and always treated as an accidental and unaccountable mis- industry, by sweeping away the-rascally Corn-laws.. Before the nation take by the vendor. A short yard marked out upon the counter by ' shall be satisfied we must have changes enough of a political kind; but pegs, a yard-measure worn or rounded off at each end, and a dexte- the most pressing and frightful of our diseases is wholly economical. rous sleight of hand in the act of measuring, are the means by which It was not any abstract dislike of rotten boroughs thatproduced reform, the purchaser is robbed of more than. the equivalent of the lower price but the discontent of all but the very rich in consequence of low profits per yard. These shops, too, never give credit; so that bad debts, and low wages. This is shown in a striking manner by the writer of which are a great source of loss to the regular trader, are not experienced - the book mentioned above. He explains (in the fourth chapter, I by them.
have an interest in theprosperity of their tenant ; and great capitalists f may he slow to be convinced, that - by injuring the retailer - they are
on them
A PLAIN DEALE
Previous page
