t us put the
subject before you in the familiar light of your own local experience.
To whom do the tradesmen of Liverpool sell the most goods at the highest
profit? To the ignorant and poor, or to the educated and prosperous? [A
voice: "To the Southerners." Laughter.] The poor man buys simply for his
body; he buys food, he buys clothing, he buys fuel, he buys lodging. His
rule is to buy the least and the cheapest that he can. He goes to the
store as seldom as he can; he brings away as little as he can; and he
buys for the least he can. [Much laughter.] Poverty is not a misfortune
to the poor only who suffer it, but it is more or less a misfortune to
all with whom he deals. On the other hand, a man well off--how is it
with him? He buys in far greater quantity. He can afford to do it; he
has the money to pay for it. He buys in far greater variety, because he
seeks to gratify not merely physical wants, but also mental wants. He
buys for the satisfaction of sentiment and taste, as well as of sense.
He buys silk, wool, flax, cotton; he buys all metals--iron, silver,
gold, platinum; in short he buys for all necessities and all substances.
But that is not all. He buys a better quality of goods. He buys richer
silks, finer cottons, higher grained wools. Now a rich silk means so
much skill and care of somebody's that has been expended upon it to make
it finer and richer; and so of cotton and so of wool. That is, the price
of the finer goods runs back to the very beginning, and remunerates the
workman as well as the merchant. Now, the whole laboring community is
as much interested and profited as the mere merchant, in this buying and
selling of the higher grades in the greater varieties and quantities.
The law of price is the skill; and the amount of skill expended in the
work is as much for the market as are the goods. A man comes to market
and says: "I have a pair of hands," and he obtains the lowest wages.
Another man comes and says: "I have something more than a pair of hands;
I have truth and fidelity." He gets a higher price. Another man comes
and says: "I have something more; I have hands, and strength, and
fidelity, and skill." He gets more than either of the others.

The next man comes and says: "I have got hands, and strength, and skill,
and fidelity; but my hands work more than that. They know how to create
things for the fancy, for the affections, for the moral sentiments"; and
he gets more than either of the others. T