DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.22140#0089
THE DEVELOPMENT OF CREDIT AGENCIES.
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gives, it simply, and for the time, enables the purchaser to satisfy
his demand. Sooner or later, generally very soon, it will be found
that the purchaser has used his credit temporarily, and that he
must give value for his acquisition. He has merely anticipated
for a brief space what the article was worth.
Take, again, a commercial speculation. Persons will strain
their powers and their credit among their powers, in purchasing
a commodity, cotton, copper, tin, the supply of which they think
that they can estimate, the demand for which they assume that
they can interpret. They are simply engaged, if their calculations
are sound, in anticipating that which is sure to arise, and in
appropriating that exaltation of price which others have not been
acute enough to foresee. In such a case, credit is not raising
prices, it is merely enabling an individual to take early advantage
of an inevitable rise. Hence, speculations of this kind are looked
on with much leniency. They are supposed, and with much show
of reason, to stimulate supply. It is also alleged that if they are
mistaken they bring their Nemesis with them, and that no trader,
or combination of traders, is strong; enough to exercise more than
a very temporary control over the market. Whether, indeed, the
law or the custom of mercantile transactions is not over lenient to
speculative failures, is a question of considerable gravity. Whether
it is possible for combination to produce a monopoly, for a mono-
poly to defy competition, and for monopoly to exact an over-heavy
charge, not for intelligent apprehension, but by the sheer force of
what may be called a commercial conspiracy, is a question which
is by no means easily answered. The law does contemplate such
possibilities, as, for example, in the costs of railway transit, and take
precautions against them, in the just interests of consumers. It
has done so in the case of certain labourers, whose demands, with
the alternative of the cessation of work, might paralyze society at
a crisis, and therefore insists on the continuity of contracts made
by such persons. It seems easy to conclude that such action is
just. Under a voluntary system of enlistment, men may refuse
or accept the pay and prospects of the public service. But for an
army to strike for higher pay, at the commencement of a cam-
paign or an engagement, would be fatal, and could not be enter-
tained. But the sudden abandonment of a calling where
73
gives, it simply, and for the time, enables the purchaser to satisfy
his demand. Sooner or later, generally very soon, it will be found
that the purchaser has used his credit temporarily, and that he
must give value for his acquisition. He has merely anticipated
for a brief space what the article was worth.
Take, again, a commercial speculation. Persons will strain
their powers and their credit among their powers, in purchasing
a commodity, cotton, copper, tin, the supply of which they think
that they can estimate, the demand for which they assume that
they can interpret. They are simply engaged, if their calculations
are sound, in anticipating that which is sure to arise, and in
appropriating that exaltation of price which others have not been
acute enough to foresee. In such a case, credit is not raising
prices, it is merely enabling an individual to take early advantage
of an inevitable rise. Hence, speculations of this kind are looked
on with much leniency. They are supposed, and with much show
of reason, to stimulate supply. It is also alleged that if they are
mistaken they bring their Nemesis with them, and that no trader,
or combination of traders, is strong; enough to exercise more than
a very temporary control over the market. Whether, indeed, the
law or the custom of mercantile transactions is not over lenient to
speculative failures, is a question of considerable gravity. Whether
it is possible for combination to produce a monopoly, for a mono-
poly to defy competition, and for monopoly to exact an over-heavy
charge, not for intelligent apprehension, but by the sheer force of
what may be called a commercial conspiracy, is a question which
is by no means easily answered. The law does contemplate such
possibilities, as, for example, in the costs of railway transit, and take
precautions against them, in the just interests of consumers. It
has done so in the case of certain labourers, whose demands, with
the alternative of the cessation of work, might paralyze society at
a crisis, and therefore insists on the continuity of contracts made
by such persons. It seems easy to conclude that such action is
just. Under a voluntary system of enlistment, men may refuse
or accept the pay and prospects of the public service. But for an
army to strike for higher pay, at the commencement of a cam-
paign or an engagement, would be fatal, and could not be enter-
tained. But the sudden abandonment of a calling where