Page:American Anthropologist NS vol. 1.djvu/387

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33 6 AMERICAN ANTHROPOLOGIST [n. s. t i, 1899

comes an important element in commerce ; hence ships and rail- roads are constructed, and large bodies of men are employed in these industries. At first thought these industries along the great highways seem to absorb our whole attention, but on more minute consideration we find that the transportation of commodities for short distances is no inconsiderable item. Thus, the transporta- tion of the bread, milk, and other items of trade through the streets of the city and the highways of the country, from the marts of trade to the individuals who are the entelic consumers, is of much relative importance. The transportation of commod- ities altogether will be found almost to vie in importance with the production of commodities by substantiation or construction or mechanism. We find that all of these operations are con- comitant.

To the carrier, goods transported become freight. Goods and freight, therefore, are the same thing from different standpoints of consideration. In transportation we have to consider not only the freight but the substances, the constructions, and the powers employed in freighting, as well as the persons who direct the operations.

We must notice the correlation involved in transportation. In every transaction which involves transportation there is a producer and a consumer, and each party is both. The man who produces wheat . is the consumer of the goods for which he exchanges wheat, so that there is correlative transportation. But the subject of correlation is to some extent masked through the employment of money as a medium of exchange, for as goods are not ex- changed directly, the correlation of transportation is in the first step the transporting of money in one direction and the trans- porting of goods in the other. When credits are used as symbols of money, the correlation is still further masked, and wherever a man may be he has demands which must be supplied. These demands must be transported to him, because he lives on the goods produced by other men which must be transported to

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