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