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ality of the product shown without catering too distinctly for the enthusiasm of the crowd or for individual profit. The chief end of all such incentives is rightly found in the educational influence from comparison of products and the establishment of standards which the whole mass of the people may be led to accept. _Bounties._--A less common but extensively used incentive is in bounties. These are advantages of various kinds, frequently in money, given by local or general authority for peculiar services or special enterprises. A familiar illustration is seen in the bounty of late years offered by different states for the production of sugar, especially sugar from beets or from sorghum. The object is evidently to arouse the energies of a community in a special direction, with the expectation that the establishment of a new industry will, in the nature of exchange, promote the welfare of all. Some countries have stimulated foreign exchange by a bounty upon exports, such as Germany now pays upon the beet sugar exported to other countries. Of the same nature are the gifts made by local communities for the establishment of mills, factories, railroads, irrigating ditches, all of which are supposed to bring profit to the community in general in much larger proportion than the special enterprises have received. The principle is the same when bounties are offered for the destruction of wolves, foxes and other vermin, or when standing rewards are given for the arrest of criminals. There can be no question of the right of a community to offer this extra stimulant to particular exertions, but the wisdom is doubtful. In the first place, bounties are liable to withdraw capital and labor from more certain methods of production to more uncertain methods. Indeed, the chief object of the bounty is to entice into experiments those who would otherwise hesitate. The advantage of the bounty is very liable to be overestimated. People hasten in steps to secure bounty without careful study of the business they undertake. This is especially true of bounties for establishment of factories in new locations. They attract the least experienced and most speculative men, without consideration of the far more important elements of immediate market and convenient employment of labor. Railroads are built for the bonds voted without care for future profit. Enterprises of this kind, promoted by bounties, are especially liable to failure. The history
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