hink you will agree after a few words of
explanation. Since you already have a pretty good idea of the working
of the distributive system, let us begin at that end. Even in your day
statisticians were able to tell you the number of yards of cotton,
velvet, woolen, the number of barrels of flour, potatoes, butter,
number of pairs of shoes, hats, and umbrellas annually consumed by the
nation. Owing to the fact that production was in private hands, and
that there was no way of getting statistics of actual distribution,
these figures were not exact, but they were nearly so. Now that every
pin which is given out from a national warehouse is recorded, of
course the figures of consumption for any week, month, or year, in the
possession of the department of distribution at the end of that
period, are precise. On these figures, allowing for tendencies to
increase or decrease and for any special causes likely to affect
demand, the estimates, say for a year ahead, are based. These
estimates, with a proper margin for security, having been accepted by
the general administration, the responsibility of the distributive
department ceases until the goods are delivered to it. I speak of the
estimates being furnished for an entire year ahead, but in reality
they cover that much time only in case of the great staples for which
the demand can be calculated on as steady. In the great majority of
smaller industries for the product of which popular taste fluctuates,
and novelty is frequently required, production is kept barely ahead of
consumption, the distributive department furnishing frequent estimates
based on the weekly state of demand.

"Now the entire field of productive and constructive industry is
divided into ten great departments, each representing a group of
allied industries, each particular industry being in turn represented
by a subordinate bureau, which has a complete record of the plant and
force under its control, of the present product, and means of
increasing it. The estimates of the distributive department, after
adoption by the administration, are sent as mandates to the ten great
departments, which allot them to the subordinate bureaus representing
the particular industries, and these set the men at work. Each bureau
is responsible for the task given it, and this responsibility is
enforced by departmental oversight and that of the administration; nor
does the distributive department accept the product without its own
in