Now, e-commerce reports to the head of retail.

That's one of the reasons (why) our Chamber of Commerce has decided to take this issue on. If small businesses don't have advocates - and they don't - what chance do they have?

But hope, I can tell you, is an exhausting emotion; perhaps, along with fear, the most exhausting of all. It is like juggling eggs: the hope is the shell, and inside is despair. A single crack and the despair might spill everywhere, stain everything.

Trade has all the fascination of gambling without its moral guilt.

This relationship forms the cornerstone of the next phase of our commerce strategy,

It's not your father's chamber of commerce.