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The working class, as in Germany, feels that it lost the war and cannot expect extra fine conditions. The Hungarian working man outworks and therefore undersells or can undersell the English working man. The nation whose working men are ready to do most work is the most fortunate in 1921. If Hungary can avoid indemnities and export taxes she is likely to do well.
But General Booth was advised of the sound economic conditions of his experiment, and seemed to recognize the value of the advice. The defence of his action sometimes takes the form of a denial that the Salvation Army undersells outside produce in the market. Salvation matches are sold, it is said, rather above than below the ordinary price of matches.
"'There's only one thing the matter with my mill, said he, 'and that's Jones's mill over in Harristown. The railroads give him rebates, and he undersells me. "'Well, damn his soul, said Stagg, 'we'll have his mill, too. "And so they bundled into their special again, and about six o'clock in the morning they got to Harristown, and they bought another mill. And that started them, you know.
Hardware is flimsy, ill finished, and of bad materials. All leather work, such as saddlery, harness, shoes, &c. is wretchedly bad, but undersells our manufactures of the same kind by about one half. Cabinet work and furniture is handsome, shewy, insufficient, and dear. Jewellery equal, if not superior to ours in neatness, but not so sufficient. Hats and hosiery very indifferent.
In order to feel that quick reaction of physical loathing to the story of an irregular relationship before hearing its details, which is known as being shocked, one must be either not quite innocent and have ugly associations with sex, or have had reason to conceive woman's life as a market where there are few buyers, and a woman who is willing to live with a lover outside marriage as a merchant who undersells her competitors; and Ellen was innocent and undefeated.
The commercial nation that undersells Englishmen in England, Frenchmen in France, Italians in Italy and Turks in Turkey, consumes more malt liquor than they drink of all other liquors. The intellectual race that has produced Kant, Goethe and Helmholtz, Bismarck, Moltke, Mommsen, and Richard Wagner in a century, swallows Homeric draughts of beer at breakfast, dinner and supper.
The Indian peasant already, in the case of wheat, undersells the English farmer, and it seems merely a question of time as to when the Indian operative will undersell his Lancashire rival, and when perhaps calico will come to England, as it once did, from Calicut. And no doubt, some such thoughts were passing through Cobden's mind when he once said, "What ugly ruins our mills will make."
To-morrow it may be the Greek, who already undersells the Italian from his push-cart in the Fourth Ward, and the Syrian, who can give Greek, Italian, and Jew points at a trade. The rebellious Slovak holds his own corner in our industrial system, though never for long. He yearns ever for the mountain sides of his own Hungary. He remembers, where the Jew tries only to forget.
Germany is taking our trade from us because she undersells us, and because her merchants don't wait for trade to come to them, but go after it. Before the Woermann boat is due their agent here will come to my factory and spy out all I have in my compound. 'Why don't you ship those logs with us? he'll ask. "'Can't spare the boys to carry them to the beach, I'll say.