Britain for the British

by Robert Blatchford

In Liverpool the profit on gas was 8-1/2d. per thousand feet. In Manchester the profit was 7-1/2d. per thousand feet.

In Liverpool the profits went to the company. In Manchester the profits went to the ratepayers.

Thus the Manchester ratepayer was getting his gas for 2s. 3d. less 7-1/2d., which means that he was getting it at 1s. 7-1/2d., while the Liverpool ratepayer was being charged 2s. 9d. The public monopoly of Manchester was, therefore, beating the private monopoly of Liverpool by 1s. 1-1/2d. per thousand feet in the price of gas.

In To-day's Work, by George Haw, and in Does Municipal Management Pay? by R. B. Suthers, you will find many examples as striking and conclusive as the one I have suggested above.

The waste incidental to private traders' competition is enormous. Take the one item of advertisement alone. There are draughtsmen, paper-makers, printers, billposters, painters, carpenters, gilders, mechanics, and a perfect army of other people all employed in making advertisement bills, pictures, hoardings, and other abominations—for what? Not to benefit the consumer, but to enable one private dealer to sell more of his wares than another. In Merrie England I dealt with this question, and I quoted from an excellent pamphlet by Mr. Washington, a man of splendid talents, whose death we have unfortunately to deplore. Mr. Washington, who was an inventor and a thoroughly practical man of business, spoke as follows:—

Taking soap as an example, it requires a purchaser of this commodity to expend a shilling in obtaining sixpennyworth of it, the additional sixpence being requisite to cover the cost of advertising, travelling, etc. It requires him to expend 1s. 1-1/2d. to obtain twopennyworth of pills for the same reason. For a sewing machine he must, if spending £7 on it, part with £4 of this amount on account of unnecessary cost; and so on in the case of all widely advertised articles. In the price of less-advertised commodities there is, in like manner, included as unnecessary cost a long string of middlemen's profits and expenses. It may be necessary to treat of these later, but for the present suffice it to say that in the price of goods as sold by retail the margin of unnecessary cost ranges from threepence to tenpence in the shilling, and taking an average of one thing with another, it may be safely stated that one-half of the price paid is rendered necessary simply through the foolish and inconvenient manner in which the business is carried on.

All this expense would be saved by State or Municipal production for use. The New York Milk Trust, I understand, on its formation dispensed with the services of 15,000 men.

You may ask what is to become of these men, and of the immense numbers of other men, now uselessly employed, who would not be needed under Socialism.

Well! What are these men now doing? Are they adding to the wealth of the nation? No. Are they not doing work that is unnecessary to the nation? Yes. Are they not now being paid wages? Yes.