Chamber of commerce

“ The greater and the more productive the stock or capital in any community, the more goods it can put into the currents of trade. A mill will make a town a center of trade. Docks, elevators, warehouses and railway terminals help to transform a harbor into a port of commerce. ”

“ These chambers of commerce have now gone far beyond their old discussions of the need for foreign markets as a field for the expansion of our manufacturing, or as a balance to offset any temporary contraction in home markets. ”

“ In all commercial communities there is a commercial mart, or a capital, where exchanges are effected, cargoes disposed of in gross, and where all the great interests of trade concentrate, as the blood flows to and from the heart. In identified governments, like that of England, for instance, legislation may respect this natural tendency to concentration in commerce, and enact laws for its especial benefit and protection. ”

“ These chambers, of which there are some fifty in existence, are laced under the control of the minister of commerce, but instead of being kept out of the patentes, like chambers of commerce, they are supported by the municipality of the town where they are situated, which has also to provide them with offices rent free, and with clerical assistance. In addition to giving advice in connexion with manufacturing and industrial matters, they have to look after and report upon improvements in manufactures and machinery, new industrial processes, &c. ”

“ In this practice is found the origin of the market, a medieval institution of which more will be said later. A market was a place appointed by the government, where bargains could properly be made; and only small exchanges of household produce could be made outside it, in the open country. Beginning in the need that was felt to prevent thieving it developed as a public institution, which the people found it profitable to extend as a means of collecting tolls and of regulating internal trade.
35. Society organized to exist with the minimum of commerce ”

“ American trade organizations have been developed mainly on the lines of the British system. Of the associations which come within the scope of this article, the most important are'the chambers of commerce, which in certain cases are called boards of trade. Theoretically there is a distinction between the two, chambers of commerce being entrusted with the protection of general commercial interests, especially in connexion with foreign trade, whilst boards of trade look after local commercial questions. ”

“ Approximately 26% of the rentable area of the building is occupied by the executive offices of manufacturing and mining concerns which are concededly engaged in the production of goods for commerce. Corporate policies are formed and directed from these offices. Most of them purchase raw materials for use in the physical processes of manufacturing. They keep in constant and close contact with the factories, supervising all of the manufacturing activities. ”

“ The merchant gilds.—Much more might be said about the general characteristics of the medieval town, but the student of the history of commerce must devote most of his time to its economic life. He must prepare himself to accept and understand conditions quite different from those of modern times, and must try to realize how much the world has gained by the advance of the commercial organization from these early stages. In every town the merchants and manufacturers were organized in gilds and subject to strict regulation. ”

“ In the second place, at the period we have now reached the towns devoted themselves far more to commerce than to industry. Few could be cited that appear thus early as manufacturing centres. The concentration of artisans within their walls is still incomplete. If their merchants export, along with the products of the soil, such as wine and grain, a quantity of manufactured products, such, for example, as cloth, it is more than probable that these were for the most part made in the country. ”

“ In our time, small shops are swallowed up in magnificent warehouses, in which every article of dress especially can be purchased under one roof—from a penny yard of ribbon to a hundred-guinea shawl. In splendour these bazaars, with one proprietor, rival the oriental with many competitors. But their distinguishing characteristic is the far-seeing organization, by which the capital is turned over with unexampled rapidity, and no unsaleable stock is kept on hand. ”

“ It was the time of transition from the old system of home production and home markets to the era of world-wide commerce. Under the old system, industry had been largely regulated by guilds, and there was a fair measure of equality ”

“ It is neither a shop devoted to one limited branch of trade, nor a warehouse implying the same branch carried out on a greater scale, nor is it a bazaar where many different owners offer goods of various kinds within the same walls. ”

“ The commerce is centralised in those bazaars-not the industry. The furniture palaces and bazaars are thus merely playing the part which the feudal castle formerly played in agriculture: they centralise the profits -not the production.
In reality, the extension of the petty trades, side by side with the great factories, is nothing to be wondered at. It is an economic necessity.
The absorption of the small workshops by bigger concerns is a fact which had struck the economists in the 'forties of the last century, especially in the textile trades. ”

“ Blocks of shops, shipping bureaus and warehouses split up further on into single gigantic buildings, the offices of the state and of great trading companies, full as beehives, and glittering with prosperity ”

“ In seeking for employment to a capital, manufactures are, upon equal or nearly equal profits, naturally preferred to foreign commerce, for the same reason that agriculture is naturally preferred to manufactures. As the capital of the landlord or farmer is more secure than that of the manufacturer, so the capital of the manufacturer, being at all times more within his view and command, is more secure than that of the foreign merchant. ”

“ Let us suppose a national store of wealth, composed of material things either useful, or believed to be so, taken charge of by the Government, [18] and that every workman, having produced any article involving labour in its production, and for which he has no immediate use, brings it to add to this store, receiving from the Government, in exchange, an order either for the return of the thing itself, or of its equivalent in other things, such as he may choose out of the store, at any time when he needs them. ”

“ In Europe chambers of Commerce and similar institutions have a legal status, and, logically, if there can be chambers of commerce, there is no reason why there should not be workingmen’s chambers, which shall be the legally authorized representatives and spokesmen of the workingmen, even as the chambers of commerce speak for the man ufacturer and the merchant. ”

“ But, as a matter of fact, the division of what was formerly the home into unproductive and productive departments, into domestic work and work outside the house, has been far less thorough and complete in the retail trade than in other spheres of labour. The factory, which has absorbed industry after industry formerly carried on in the house, is a comparatively modern institution ”

“ Most amusing of all, however, are those bazaars in which each trade occupies its separate quarter. You pass through an old stone gateway or down a narrow turning, and find yourself amid a colony of saddlers, stitching, hammering, punching, riveting. ”

“ You seldom see the narghile, or Turkish water pipe with a long tube. The bazaars cover many acres, which are cut up into narrow, winding streets sheltered from the sun by roofs of masonry or awnings of matting, and, as usual, the trade is classified for the convenience of the public. The vegetable dealers, the butchers, the candlestick makers, the hardware and iron mongers, the leather mongers and print dealers, all have their own streets, and the shops are so close together that rival merchants can chatter together while waiting for customers. ”

“ He had a warehouse in which space was sometimes let for the storage of other people's goods, but which also served to hold country produce whenever, in view of a probable rise in the market, he chose to enter the field as a cash buyer in competition with the "storekeepers," who bought only in exchange for goods. ”

“ Public stores should be established, with storekeepers and clerks appointed by the governor, in which goods should be sold to the inhabitants of the commonwealth, and their produce bought for resale or export. The people might exchange their commodities with each other, or sell them to private persons, but no person should buy to sell again. ”

“ It seems to me that a store might be established where articles of good quality should be furnished to the poor at cost. Something has already been done in this way, by the "Trade's Union," who need it much less. ”

“ It is when the transfer of goods is accompanied by a breaking of bulk or by a change of ownership, there being then added the complex mechanism of commercial exchange performed by importers, exporters, wholesalers, retailers, insurers, brokers and bankers, that wealth is accumulated and localized, with consequent power to control business for local benefit.
Manufactures are of constantly increasing importance in city growth, owing to the development of the factory system and the advantages of labor supply, transportation, and markets in the larger cities. ”

“ Their small, cool, clean, and sparingly-furnished shops, with sanded floor and towelled walls, relieved by the white-painted, well-scoured shelves, scantily adorned with the various implements of their art, denote the snug system of economy which characterises the owners. ”

“ Mercantile Exchange.—Important as is the manufacturing industry in the life of the city, it is only a part of the economic activity that is continually going on in its streets and buildings. The mercantile houses that carry on wholesale and retail trade, the towering office-buildings, and the railway and steamship terminals contain numerous groups of workers all engaged in the social task of supplying human wants, while streets and railways are avenues of traffic. The manufacture of goods is but a part of the process; distribution is as important as production. ”

“ Even the stores and warehouses from which goods are retailed in some provinces, particularly in Virginia and Maryland, belong many of them to merchants who reside in the mother country, and afford one of the few instances of the retail trade of a society being carried on by the capitals of those who are not resident members of it. ”

“ For just as in London you expect to find bankers in Lombard Street, silkweavers in Spitalfields, coachbuilders in Long Acre, watchmakers in Clerkenwell, and so forth, so in the East each trade has its own bazaar—the silkweavers, the coppersmiths, the saddlers, letter-writers, the dealers in Moorish, Turkish, Persian, or Algerian stuffs, each cluster together in their own quarter. ”

“ One dealer will have nothing but silk shawls, another nothing but calico prints, a third nothing but fezzes. The business is all divided and dealers in the [123] same line of goods occupy the same quarter and sit cross-legged in their shops waiting for customers. Several hundred merchants are found in each of the bazaars, who pay a small rental to the government and are under the control of a superintendent appointed by the minister of the interior, who is supposed to keep the alleys clean and preserve order. Ladies of wealth seldom go into the bazaars to trade. ”

“ After I had been at the Town-House, I went to visit the Square where the Merchants assemble about the Affairs of their Trade from Noon till half an Hour past one o'clock. This Square, which is longer than 'tis broad, is surrounded136 with a large open Gallery or Corridor, supported by Free-stone Pillars, for shelter in case of Rain; and is call'd the Bourse or Exchange. Here are Merchants of all Nations, the diversity of whose Habits and Languages is as pleasing as the Beauty of the Place ”

“ In our municipal life, for example, it is the aroused interest and zeal of the best business community for better government and better conditions that can alone produce important results. Happily, all over the country we find chambers of commerce, boards of trade, merchants' associations, and other bodies of men of practical business affairs, taking their stand for the transaction of public business upon high standards of character and efficiency. ”

“ If they were extended to almost all sorts of goods, as at present, public warehouses of sufficient extent could not easily be provided, and goods of a very delicate nature, or of which the preservation required much care and attention, could not safely be trusted by the merchant in any warehouse but his own. ”

“ Every thing is here arranged to facilitate industry; the towns are built on the English plan; men of business, instead of being scattered over the town, occupy a particular quarter, which is devoted exclusively to them, in which there is not a building used as a dwelling-house, and nothing but offices and warehouses are to be seen. The brokers, bankers, and lawyers here have their cells, the merchants their counting-rooms; here the banks, insurance offices, and other companies, have their chambers, and other buildings are filled from cellar to garret with articles of merchandise. ”

“ This body is probably as powerful a working-class organization as exists in the world, composed as it is of the unions of more than fifty different trades, all knit compactly together under an executive known at first as the Operatives' Board of Trade, and now as the Trades' Hall Council, and quartered in a spacious mansion-house erected by the trades themselves on a site presented to them by the Government. ”