ld go well, arises from a confusion of thought
which deserves notice. This confusion springs from a failure to
understand that the "middleman" is a part of a commercial System. He is
not a mere intruder, a parasitic party, who forces his way between
employer and worker, or between producer and consumer, and without
conferring any service, extracts for himself a profit which involves a
loss to the worker or the consumer, or to both. If we examine this
notion, either by reference to facts, or from _a priori_ consideration,
we shall find it based on a superstition. "Middleman" is a broad generic
term used to describe a man through whose hands goods pass on their way
to the consuming public, but who does not appear to add any value to the
goods he handles. At any stage in the production of these goods,
previous to their final distribution, the middleman may come in and take
his profit for no visible work done. He may be a speculator, buying up
grain or timber, and holding or manipulating it in the large markets; or
he may be a wholesale merchant, who, buying directly from the fisherman,
and selling to the retail fishmonger, is supposed to be responsible for
the high price of fish; he may be the retailer who in East London is
supposed to cause the high price of vegetables.

With these species of middlemen we are not now concerned, except to say
that their work, which is that of distribution, i.e. the more convenient
disposal of forms of material wealth, may be equally important with the
work of the farmer, the fisherman, or the market-gardener, though the
latter produce changes in the shape and appearance of the goods, while
the former do not. The middleman who stands between the employing firm
and the worker is of three forms. He may undertake a piece of work for a
wholesale house, and taking the material home, execute it with the aid
of his family or outside assistants. This is the chamber-master proper,
or "sweater" in the tailoring trade. Or he may act as distributor,
receive the material, and undertake to find workers who will execute it
at their own homes, he undertaking the responsibility of collection.
Where the workers are scattered over a large city area, or over a number
of villages, this work of distribution, and its responsibility, may be
considerable. Lastly, there may be the "sub-contractor" proper, who
undertakes to do a portion of a work already contracted for, and either
finds materials and tools, and pays w