to the competent, or, in other words, the employees of the service.

8. The service not being the property of the public, who are paying for it, but of the employees, who ought to render it, its profits belong to them, and ought to be divided among them.

9. The employees, being the rightful proprietors of the service, ought to be bound by no other rule than to make use of it for their own best interests.

10. The model government employer, confiding state undertakings and their operation to employees more or less federated, should not only provide an example of abdication for private employers, but it should force them to it by the above rules, which are essential conditions of direct public ownership.

CHAPTER VI

THE CONSUMER

The Consumer of an Extortionate Monopoly Is Without Redress. The Sole Remedy; To Go Without.-Water in Paris.-Short Allowance.-Government Matches.-Tobacco. Deceptions in Quantity and Quality.-The Consumer a Dependent, Not a Contracting Party. The Postoffice. The Telephone.-The Privilege of Patience and Good Temper Left to Telephone Subscribers. Subscription Rates in France.-The Telephone in Great Britain.-The Prussian Government Railway Lines Form a Trust.-Private and Municipal Employment Bureaus.

Under a régime of economic liberty the manufacturer and the merchant need the consumer more than the consumer needs them. Under a monopolistic régime the consumer has but one duty-to submit. He has but one other recourse-to go without.

Now, if there is any service which ought to be provided on a large scale it is water. Yet nearly everywhere the demand is greater than the supply. Paris has always lagged behind. There has scarcely been a summer when, under one pretext or another, there has not been an interruption in the water service.

We have become used to being told that our faucets will be shut off during the night, and that, if we have not taken proper precautions, we run the risk of a

temporary water famine. If a fire should break out we would not have even a pitcher of water to extinguish it.

At the same time official warnings are incessant against wasting water-as though there were a limit to the supply. Here we have the very quintessence of monopoly. Inactive themselves, the municipal councillors content themselves with interfering with the freedom of action of others.

The employees of a monopoly through all the degrees of the hierarchy know their power and use it. We have already seen this in the case of tobacco.1 But let me illustrate by one or two other examples.

All those who must use government matches have complained, not alone of their quality, but even of their quantity.

Ten centime boxes, which bear upon their wrapper, "Swedish matches, 60 matches," are passable, although they generally contain a certain number of uninflammable bits of wood. But lately, in the country, I have had to content myself with boxes at 5 centimes, bearing a label: "French matches, 50

matches."

I observe that the difference in the cost of the matches is offset by a difference of 10 matches in the cheaper box, or 17 per cent. less. Matches which will light are the exception.

Now please notice that in our democratic country these cheaper matches are provided for people in poor 'See above, book 2, chapter 20.

circumstances. Yet the department is deceiving them in regard to the quality of the goods.

In order to sell its matches, the government relies on wholesale and part wholesale merchants. The first must buy a supply at a minimum sum of 20,000 francs, and the second at 2,000 francs. The commission in the first case is 16 per cent. and in the second 14 per cent. The total profit from these commissions is not realized by the merchants, because they are forced to pay commissions to grocers and other retail merchants up to 10 per cent.

Nevertheless, small as they were, the government determined to reduce the first-mentioned commissions, which it considered too generous, and an order of December 30, 1911, provided that, beginning with February 1, 1912, the commissions should not only be lowered to 15 and 13 per cent., respectively, but also that only those shall be considered as wholesale merchants who buy 20,000 francs' worth of matches at a time, and at least 125,000 francs' worth a month. Against this last condition, however, interested parties protested, and the director general of indirect taxes (Directeur General des Contributions Indirects) informed his departmental heads that the order aforesaid would be modified in regard to this special point. The number of middlemen was also reduced because, by demanding large sums from a few, the government could get along with a much smaller number.

Occasionally those who are curious enough to investigate will find that they are being deceived as to the number of matches in the boxes sold by the government. Indeed, after a number of experiences of this

character, I have become convinced that the department looks upon the consumer not as a contracting party, but as a beneficiary.

In 1906, during several weeks, if not several months, the situation of the smoker, as described by Le Journal,1 was about as follows:

"Yesterday, as I entered a tobacco shop, a customer was asking for a 70-centime green package of cigarettes. "'We haven't any,' answered the dealer.

""Then give me a pink package at the same price.' ""We are out of those, too.'

"The astonished customer glanced at the luxurious fittings of this large shop on the Boulevard and inquired: "How do you happen to be out of the most popular brands?'

"Because the supply in the warehouse from which we order our tobacco is not large enough to meet the demand. One day it is one kind and another day another which I am refused,' added the clerk, shaking her head.

"As an actual fact, when one kind of tobacco or cigarettes is manufactured in a district, the warehouses and their customers, the retailers in that particular district, must go without all the other brands.

"I don't know where all this will end,' continued the clerk. 'First customers complain, then they become angry, and we can do nothing about it. And yet it is too bad to lose a sale through the fault of the manufacturer!"

The article terminates thus:

1 July 30, 1906.