It is said that competition will in the end correct the middleman evil, but competition does not correct it; and competition alone, under the present structure of society, will not correct it in most cases because "agreements" between traders restrict or remove competition: the situation does not have within itself the remedies for its own ills.
When we finally eliminate combinations in restraint of trade, the middleman abuses may be in the process of passing out. It is to check dishonesty on the one hand and to allow real competition on the other that I am now making suggestions.
Must be a continuing process of control.
I have no suggestion to make as to the nature of the laws themselves. There are many diverse situations to be met; and I intentionally do not make my remarks specific. Of course, any law that really attempts to reach the case must recognize the middleman as exercising a public or semi-public function, and that, as such, he is amenable to control, even beyond the point of mere personal honesty. The licensing of middlemen (a practice that might be carried much further, and which is a first step in reform) recognizes this status; and if it is competent for government to license a middleman, it is also competent for it to exercise some oversight over him. It is not necessary that government declare an agency a monopoly in order to regulate it. Commercial situations that unmistakably involve service to the public are proper for governmental control in greater or lesser degree. The supervision of weights and measures is a good beginning in the regulation of middleman trading.
But the enactment of laws, even of good laws, is only another step in the solution. A law does not operate itself, and the common man cannot resort to courts of law to secure justice in such cases as these. There must be a continuing process of government with which to work out the reform and to adjust each case on its merits. Whatever the merits of the laws, their success lies in the continuing application of them to specific cases by persons whose business it is to discern the facts rather than to prove a case.
There are three steps in the control of the middleman: (1) an aroused public conscience on the question; (2) good fundamental laws for interstate phases and similar state laws for local phases; (3) good commissions or other agencies or bodies to which any producer or consumer or middleman may take his case, and which may exercise regulatory functions. The interstate commerce commission has jurisdiction over so much of the problem as relates to the service and rates of common carriers; no doubt, its powers could be extended to other interstate phases. Perhaps departments of agriculture, in states in which public service commissions have not been established, could be given sufficient scope to handle some of the questions.
Of course, some of the middlemen and associated traders will contend that all this interferes with business and with private rights, but no man has a private right to oppress or defraud another or to deprive him of his proper rewards; and we must correct a faulty economic system. There is little danger that the legitimate business of any honest middleman will be interfered with.
I know that commissions and similar bodies have not always been wholly successful. This is because we have not yet had experience enough, have not consciously trained our people for this kind of work, and have not been able to make water-tight laws. Neither do older systems now prove to be adequate. New economic conditions must bring new methods of regulation and control.
I have no desire that society (or government) engage in the middleman business or that it take over private enterprise; but no government can expect to throw back on the producer the responsibility of controlling the middleman. I look for the present agitation to awaken government to the necessity of doing what it is plainly its duty to do. In future, a government that will not protect its people in those cases in which the people, acting to the best of their individual and coöperating capacity, cannot protect themselves, will be known as either a bad government or an undeveloped government.