or the manufacturer, or the wholesale dealer must protect himself against the contingency of fluctuation; and thus he puts upon the price of his goods a certain percentage to cover that contingency. In other words, he makes his customers pay for the gambling risk which he himself has to run. The jobber who buys from the importer or the manufacturer has to put his gambling risk upon the price again, for he runs the same chance. The Western or Southern wholesale dealer who buys from the jobber has to do the same thing once more, for he again runs the same chance. Then the Western or Southern retailer, into whose hands the goods finally pass, has to do the same thing again, if he sells on credit, for he again runs the same chance. Thus two, three or four gambling risks are put upon the price of an article before the commodity, as it issues from the hands of the original seller, passes into the hands of the consumer; and thus the rise in the price of commodities goes far beyond the premium on gold, especially when the fluctuations of the currency, as inflation will always make them, are tending in the way of depreciation.
Now go to New York and every candid merchant will tell you the same story. I know of merchants in New York who actually changed the prices of their commodities during violent fluctuations of the currency six times in one week; and one told me himself that he had done so several times in one day, always lowering or raising the gambling risk he had put upon the price of his commodities as circumstances changed. And experience teaches us that merchants are apt to be very quick in putting up prices and very slow in putting them down.
Hence it is clear that while the farmer or planter gets for his product only the gold price, with the gold premium added at the place of sale, he must pay for all he has to buy the gold price, with the premium added, and an
