Distributary

“ The discharge is, of course, increased, and it becomes dependent at all times on the working head. Another difficulty is that any rise or fall in the water-level of the distributary (and such rises and falls may occur owing to silting or scour, however carefully the discharge may be regulated) alters the discharge somewhat, though not to the same degree as in an ordinary outlet with a working head of, say, ·5 foot. In short, Kennedy’s gauge outlet, or “semi-module” as it is sometimes called, can modify but not do away with the variations of the discharges of outlets. ”

“ Most of the difficulties just mentioned can, in the case of a minor which is not too large, either absolutely or relatively to the main distributary downstream of the off-take, be got over by making the minor head like a watercourse outlet, building it up to the proper size, removing the regulating apparatus and abolishing the reading of the gauge, but in this case the minor is not likely to be bigger than a large watercourse. Such minors should not be constructed, and any existing ones should, after the head has been treated as above, be made over to the people and considered as watercourses. ”

“ Outlets. —The top of the head and tail walls of an outlet are level with the F.S. levels in the distributary and watercourse respectively. The steps in the head wall enable the cultivators to go down either to stop up the outlet or to remove any obstruction. The stepping is arranged so as to fall inside the side slope ultimately proposed. It is usual, in some places, to have the entrance to the “barrel” of the outlet made of cast iron. The cast iron pieces are made of various standard sizes. This to some extent prevents the “barrel” being built to a wrong size. ”

“ The great object is to reduce the total length of channels, i.e., minors and watercourses. No watercourse can be allowed to run alongside of or near to another. It may run alongside a canal or distributary when really necessary to gain command but not otherwise. The longer the watercourse the larger the chak. The discharge of an outlet may be anything up to 4 or 5 c. feet per second. This limits the size of a chak. If a chak is too big it can be split up or a minor can be designed. Very small chaks are to be avoided, but it is difficult to fix a minimum size. ”

“ When two or more works are close together they should be made to conform, and the whole site should be considered with reference to a neat and suitable arrangement of works, ramps and roadways. If an outlet is near to a minor or distributary head the parapets of the two should be in line. If two masonry works of any kind are near together it is often suitable to pitch the intervening space. If there are outlets or distributaries on opposite banks they should be exactly opposite each other. ”

“ The number of persons capable of managing a small retail store is vastly greater than the class fit to assume control of the very complex duties involved in the care of wholesale houses—or, at all events, of mills and factories. Distributive co-operation has its origin in the fact that the expenses of a middle-man between the producer and consumer may be entirely dispensed with, and in the fact that more capital had collected in the business of distribution than could economically be so employed. ”

“ Now, however, studies are being made everywhere of the distributive systems by which products get to market and to determine what share of the consumer's price should go to the producer and what to the distributor. ”

“ Distribution thus becomes a work performed by agents selected and paid by those who have no interest in anything but the cheapness and goodness of the article; and the distributors are capable of being thus reduced to the numbers which the quantity of work to be done really requires. The difficulties of the plan consist in the skill and trustworthiness required in the managers, and the imperfect nature of the control which can be exercised over them by the body at large. ”

“ Whether they be wholesale dealers, who collect into large masses the commodities of various producers; or whether they be retailers, who divide out to those who want them, the masses of commodities thus collected together; all mercantile men are agents of transfer from the places where things are produced to the places where they are consumed. Thus the distributing apparatus of a society, answers to the distributing 407 apparatus of a living body; not only in its functions, but in its intermediate origin and subsequent position, and in the time of its appearance. ”

“ But the system of distribution being entirely under human control is continually changing as affected by human impulses, whether they be selfish, as in the olden time, or altruistic as they are now.
"We now exchange a product for a product of equal value, for the convenience and benefit of all, without any charge except for the necessary labor expended [Pg 250] in the production and distribution. But under the old civilization the product was first exchanged for money and the money was then exchanged with some one else for the product that was wanted in return. ”

“ The subdivisions and organization of distribution are determined by the subdivisions and organization of production. Distribution is itself a product of production, not only in so far as the material goods are concerned, since only the results of production can be distributed; but also as regards its form, since the definite manner of participation in production determines the particular form of distribution, the form under which participation in distribution takes place. It is quite an illusion to place land under production, rent under distribution, etc. ”

“ Distributing Production more Encouraging.
We need not fold our hands, however, nor devote them to the futilities of worsted work, because into two of the great armies of the world's wealth-makers we can find no admittance. That division of productive labour which consists in direct distribution to the consumer will afford "ample room and verge enough" for the energies and powers of most of us, if we only have spirit to undertake it. ”

“ The arrangement is altogether a most improvident one for society, whose interest it is to produce the greatest amount of wealth of the best qualities; while the existing system of distribution is not only to withdraw great numbers from producing to become distributers, but to add to the cost of the consumer all the expense of a most wasteful and extravagant distribution; the distribution costing to the consumer many times the price of the original cost of the wealth purchased. ”

“ In the first place, the class of mere distributors, who are not producers but auxiliaries of production, and whose inordinate numbers, far more than the gains of capitalists, are the cause why so great a portion of the wealth produced does not reach the producers—will be reduced to more modest dimensions. Distributors differ from producers in this, that when producers increase, even though in any given department of industry they may be too numerous, they actually produce more: but the multiplication of distributors does not make more distribution to be done, more wealth to be distributed ”

“ The distributers, small, medium, and large, have all to be supported by the producers, and the greater the number of the former compared with the latter, the greater will be the burden which the producer has to sustain; for as the number of distributers increases, the accumulation of wealth must decrease, and more must be required from the producer. ”

“ It is impossible to take possession of production properly without taking control of the distribution of products. When products are wrongly distributed there can be no proper production. Supposing that the largest branches of industry are nationalised. ”

“ Instead of distributing the product of the nation directly to its members, which would seem the most natural and obvious method, it would actually appear that you had given your minds to devising a plan of hand to hand distribution, involving the maximum of personal humiliation to all classes of recipients. ”

“ The English laws of distribution, by which paper wealth is divided upon principles similar to our laws of distribution, have been unable to prevent the existence of a separate, stock, paper, or taxation interest, or the ruinous effects of that existence.
Such is the fact; let us search for its cause. It presents itself in the consideration, that corporations, or factitious separate interests, neither live-nor die naturally; they only live or die by law. ”

“ As we have seen above, one branch of production works for another. To make production systematic it is necessary that each branch should be supplied with as much material as it requires; one enterprise getting more, another less. That means that each product should be distributed regularly, according to plan, in correspondence with the demands of the branches in question. The various organs of supply, that is to say, such working organisations as deal with distribution of products, must be in direct communication with the organs dealing with its production. ”

“ Inasmuch as all material wealth was created by labor, and distributed by being bought and sold, it followed as a logical sequence, that there was but one way by which every useful worker could secure a just share in the distribution, and that was to take charge of the business of exchange (buying and selling) and divide the benefits equally among all who united their efforts to establish the largest possible round of exchange between producers and consumers. ”

“ While the ownership of a single retail or wholesale store resting in an individual, or in a partnership composed of individuals who make this business their means of livelihood, or in a group of investors in the form of a corporation, may be considered the normal unit, gradual integration is going on both from the producers' and consumers' ends of the distribution chain. ”

“ In the wider sense the term also includes the apportionment of the sacrifices incurred in the joint production. Distribution, as thus defined, is the element that appears in economic life in consequence of social organization. This is a secondary element, indeed; for man, nature and their relations and interactions are the primary facts, and the relations of men to each other come logically after these. ”

“ Distribution is a part of production. Nothing is wholly produced until it is ready for use, and nothing is ready for use until it has reached the place where it is to be used. Whoever brings it to that place is a producer, and as such entitled to charge for his work. The trouble with middlemen is that they charge consumers not only for their work, but for the use of their invested capital. As it is, they are useful members of society. Eliminate usury from their methods, and they will become respectable members also.—Liberty, October 1, 1881. ”

“ This was simply the organization of the market for the express purpose of establishing Equity in Distribution, by paying dividends to labor. The people had at last discovered the vital truth upon which the application of the Golden Rule depends, that Organized Consumption Controls Distribution.
"Organizations of consumers were effected with a view to concentrating their purchasing power through channels of their own, not to reduce prices, but to pool the net profits into a common fund for the equal benefit of all the members. ”

“ In discussing these problems, however, we must remember that wealth production and distribution takes place in modern society under conditions imposed by the social order in which we live; these were defined as competition, private property and personal liberty. If any modifications of the processes of distribution were desired, it would undoubtedly be necessary to alter these fundamental institutions. ”

“ Kirchmann’s imagining, again, the products are distributed first, and only afterwards, when the distribution is accomplished, is there to be universal exchange, whereas on the solid ground of capitalist production it is, as we know, the exchange which inaugurates the distribution of the product and serves as its agent. ”

“ Into the distribution between individuals and classes there enter other and variable factors, governed by no fundamental economic law; and here, the conclusion should at once suggest itself, is the field for action designed to alter the distribution of wealth. ”

“ The principle now in practice is to induce a large portion of society to devote their lives to distribute wealth upon a large, a medium, and a small scale, and to have it conveyed from place to place in larger or smaller quantities, to meet the means and wants of various divisions of society and individuals, as they are now situated in cities, towns, villages, and country places. This principle of distribution makes a class in society whose business is to buy from some parties and to sell to others. ”

“ In production the person is embodied in things, in [consumption157] things are embodied in persons; in distribution, society assumes the part of go-between of production and consumption in the form of generally prevailing rules; in exchange this is accomplished by the accidental make-up of the individual.
Distribution determines what proportion (quantity) of the products the individual is to receive; exchange determines the products in which the individual desires to receive his share allotted to him by distribution. ”

“ The moment that you introduce bulk shipments into any distributive system you necessarily introduce a middleman somewhere to divide up that bulk shipment for individual consumers; and the greater the bulk economically shipped the more middlemen there will be between producer and consumer.
[57]
Now where the parcels post could afford a cheaper way of doing the distributing than the machinery at present in use, the people ought to have the benefit of it; but in spite of the obvious benefits of a parcels post it is not wise to jump to the ultimate conclusion. ”