254

COMBINATIONS AMONGST

the plan succeed in reducing the cost of articles ofnecessity to the men, it is clearly the interest ofthe master to encourage it. The master may indeedbe enabled to afford them facilities in making theirwholesale purchases; but he ought never to be insuch a position as to have the least interest in theprofit made by the articles sold. The men, on theother hand, who subscribe to set up the shop, oughtnot, in the slightest degree, to be compelled to maketheir purchases at it : the goodness and cheapnessof the article ought to be their sole inducements.

It may perhaps be objected, that this plan is onlyemploying a portion of the capital belonging to theworkmen in a retail trade ; and that, without it, com-petition amongst small shopkeepers will reduce thearticles to nearly the same price. Perhaps therewould be less reason to have recourse to it, if theobjects of consumption required no verification; butcombining what has been stated on that subject inthe fourteenth chapter, on price, with the presentargument, the plan seems liable to no serious ob-jections.

(288.) The truck system is quite different in itseffects. The master-manufacturer keeps a retail shopfor articles in demand by his men, and either pays theirwages in goods, or compels them by direct agree-ment, or incidentally by unfair means, to expend thewhole or a certain part of their wages at his shop.If the manufacturer kept this shop merely for thepurpose of securing good articles, at fair prices, tohis workmen, and if he offered no inducement tothem to purchase at his shop, except the superiorcheapness of his articles, it would certainly be ad-