European civilization differs in character from civilizations of the Egyptian type because it springs not from the a.s.sociation of a h.o.m.ogeneous people developing from the beginning, or at least for a long time, under the same conditions, but from the a.s.sociation of peoples who in separation had acquired distinctive social characteristics, and whose smaller organizations longer prevented the concentration of power and wealth in one centre. The physical conformation of the Grecian peninsula is such as to separate the people at first into a number of small communities. As those petty republics and nominal kingdoms ceased to waste their energies in warfare, and the peaceable co-operation of commerce extended, the light of civilization blazed up. But the principle of a.s.sociation was never strong enough to save Greece from inter-tribal war, and when this was put an end to by conquest, the tendency to inequality, which had been combated with various devices by Grecian sages and statesmen, worked its result, and Grecian valor, art, and literature became things of the past. And so in the rise and extension, the decline and fall, of Roman civilization, may be seen the working of these two principles of a.s.sociation and equality, from the combination of which springs progress.
Springing from the a.s.sociation of the independent husbandmen and free citizens of Italy, and gaining fresh strength from conquests which brought hostile nations into common relations, the Roman power hushed the world in peace. But the tendency to inequality, checking real progress from the first, increased as the Roman civilization extended.
The Roman civilization did not petrify as did the h.o.m.ogeneous civilizations where the strong bonds of custom and superst.i.tion that held the people in subjection probably also protected them, or at any rate kept the peace between rulers and ruled: it rotted, declined and fell. Long before Goth or Vandal had broken through the cordon of the legions, even while her frontiers were advancing, Rome was dead at the heart. Great estates had ruined Italy. Inequality had dried up the strength and destroyed the vigor of the Roman world. Government became despotism, which even a.s.sa.s.sination could not temper; patriotism became servility; vices the most foul flouted themselves in public; literature sank to puerilities; learning was forgotten; fertile districts became waste without the ravages of war--everywhere inequality produced decay, political, mental, moral, and material. The barbarism which overwhelmed Rome came not from without, but from within. It was the necessary product of the system which had subst.i.tuted slaves and colonii for the independent husbandmen of Italy, and carved the provinces into estates of senatorial families.
Modern civilization owes its superiority to the growth of equality with the growth of a.s.sociation. Two great causes contributed to this--the splitting up of concentrated power into innumerable little centers by the influx of the Northern nations, and the influence of Christianity.
Without the first there would have been the petrifaction and slow decay of the Eastern Empire, where church and state were closely married and loss of external power brought no relief of internal tyranny. And but for the other there would have been barbarism without principle of a.s.sociation or amelioration. The petty chiefs and allodial lords who everywhere grasped local sovereignty held each other in check. Italian cities recovered their ancient liberty, free towns were founded, village communities took root, and serfs acquired rights in the soil they tilled. The leaven of Teutonic ideas of equality worked through the disorganized and disjointed fabric of society. And although society was split up into an innumerable number of separated fragments, yet the idea of closer a.s.sociation was always present--it existed in the recollections of a universal empire; it existed in the claims of a universal church.
Though Christianity became distorted and alloyed in percolating through a rotting civilization; though pagan G.o.ds were taken into her pantheon, and pagan forms into her ritual, and pagan ideas into her creed; yet her essential idea of the equality of men was never wholly destroyed. And two things happened of the utmost moment to incipient civilization--the establishment of the papacy and the celibacy of the clergy. The first prevented the spiritual power from concentrating in the same lines as the temporal power; and the latter prevented the establishment of a priestly caste, during a time when all power tended to hereditary form.
In her efforts for the abolition of slavery; in her Truce of G.o.d; in her monastic orders; in her councils which united nations, and her edicts which ran without regard to political boundaries; in the low-born hands in which she placed a sign before which the proudest knelt; in her bishops who by consecration became the peers of the greatest n.o.bles; in her "Servant of Servants," for so his official t.i.tle ran, who, by virtue of the ring of a simple fisherman, claimed the right to arbitrate between nations, and whose stirrup was held by kings; the Church, in spite of everything, was yet a promoter of a.s.sociation, a witness for the natural equality of men; and by the Church herself was nurtured a spirit that, when her early work of a.s.sociation and emanc.i.p.ation was well-nigh done--when the ties she had knit had become strong, and the learning she had preserved had been given to the world--broke the chains with which she would have fettered the human mind, and in a great part of Europe rent her organization.
The rise and growth of European civilization is too vast and complex a subject to be thrown into proper perspective and relation in a few paragraphs; but in all its details, as in its main features, it ill.u.s.trates the truth that progress goes on just as society tends toward closer a.s.sociation and greater equality. Civilization is co-operation.
Union and liberty are its factors. The great extension of a.s.sociation--not alone in the growth of larger and denser communities, but in the increase of commerce and the manifold exchanges which knit each community together and link them with other though widely separated communities; the growth of international and munic.i.p.al law; the advances in security of property and of person, in individual liberty, and towards democratic government--advances, in short, towards the recognition of the equal rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness--it is these that make our modern civilization so much greater, so much higher, than any that has gone before. It is these that have set free the mental power which has rolled back the veil of ignorance which hid all but a small portion of the globe from men"s knowledge; which has measured the orbits of the circling spheres and bids us see moving, pulsing life in a drop of water; which has opened to us the antechamber of nature"s mysteries and read the secrets of a long-buried past; which has harnessed in our service physical forces beside which man"s efforts are puny; and increased productive power by a thousand great inventions.
In that spirit of fatalism to which I have alluded as pervading current literature, it is the fashion to speak even of war and slavery as means of human progress. But war, which is the opposite of a.s.sociation, can aid progress only when it prevents further war or breaks down antisocial barriers which are themselves pa.s.sive war.
As for slavery, I cannot see how it could ever have aided in establishing freedom, and freedom, the synonym of equality is, from the very rudest state in which man can be imagined, the stimulus and condition of progress. Auguste Comte"s idea that the inst.i.tution of slavery destroyed cannibalism is as fanciful as Elia"s humorous notion of the way mankind acquired a taste for roast pig. It a.s.sumes that a propensity that has never been found developed in man save as the result of the most unnatural conditions--the direst want or the most brutalizing superst.i.tions[46]--is an original impulse, and that he, even in his lowest state the highest of all animals, has natural appet.i.tes which the n.o.bler brutes do not show. And so of the idea that slavery began civilization by giving slave owners leisure for improvement.
Slavery never did and never could aid improvement. Whether the community consist of a single master and a single slave, or of thousands of masters and millions of slaves, slavery necessarily involves a waste of human power; for not only is slave labor less productive than free labor, but the power of masters is likewise wasted in holding and watching their slaves, and is called away from directions in which real improvement lies. From first to last, slavery, like every other denial of the natural equality of men, has hampered and prevented progress.
Just in proportion as slavery plays an important part in the social organization does improvement cease. That in the cla.s.sical world slavery was so universal, is undoubtedly the reason why the mental activity which so polished literature and refined art never hit on any of the great discoveries and inventions which distinguish modern civilization.
No slave-holding people ever were an inventive people. In a slave-holding community the upper cla.s.ses may become luxurious and polished; but never inventive. Whatever degrades the laborer and robs him of the fruits of his toil stifles the spirit of invention and forbids the utilization of inventions and discoveries even when made. To freedom alone is given the spell of power which summons the genii in whose keeping are the treasures of earth and the viewless forces of the air.
The law of human progress, what is it but the moral law? Just as social adjustments promote justice, just as they acknowledge the equality of right between man and man, just as they insure to each the perfect liberty which is bounded only by the equal liberty of every other, must civilization advance. Just as they fail in this, must advancing civilization come to a halt and recede. Political economy and social science cannot teach any lessons that are not embraced in the simple truths that were taught to poor fishermen and Jewish peasants by One who eighteen hundred years ago was crucified--the simple truths which, beneath the warpings of selfishness and the distortions of superst.i.tion, seem to underlie every religion that has ever striven to formulate the spiritual yearnings of man.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 44: Chapter III, Book X, of "Progress and Poverty;" copyright, 1907, by Henry George, Richard F. George, and Anna G. de Mille. The chapter is here reprinted by permission of Mr. Henry George, Junior, and the publishers, Messrs. Doubleday, Page and Company.]
[Footnote 45: How easy it is for ignorance to pa.s.s into contempt and dislike; how natural it is for us to consider any difference in manners, customs, religion, etc., as proof of the inferiority of those who differ from us, any one who has emanc.i.p.ated himself in any degree from prejudice, and who mixes with different cla.s.ses, may see in civilized society. In religion, for instance, the spirit of the hymn--
"I"d rather be a Baptist, and wear a shining face, Than for to be a Methodist and always fall from grace,"
is observable in all denominations. As the English Bishop said, "Orthodoxy is my doxy, and heterodoxy is any other doxy," while the universal tendency is to cla.s.sify all outside of the orthodoxies and heterodoxies of the prevailing religion as heathens or atheists. And the like tendency is observable as to all other differences.--Author"s note.]
[Footnote 46: The Sandwich Islanders did honor to their good chiefs by eating their bodies. Their bad and tyrannical chiefs they would not touch. The New Zealanders had a notion that by eating their enemies they acquired their strength and valor. And this seems to be the general origin of eating prisoners of war.--Author"s note.]
THE MORALS OF TRADE[47]
HERBERT SPENCER
On all sides we have found the result of long personal experience, to be the conviction that trade is essentially corrupt. In tones of disgust or discouragement, reprehension or derision, according to their several natures, men in business have one after another expressed or implied this belief. Omitting the highest mercantile cla.s.ses, a few of the less common trades, and those exceptional cases where an entire command of the market has been obtained, the uniform testimony of competent judges is, that success is incompatible with strict integrity. To live in the commercial world it appears necessary to adopt its ethical code: neither exceeding nor falling short of it--neither being less honest nor more honest. Those who sink below its standard are expelled; while those who rise above it are either pulled down to it or ruined. As, in self-defence, the civilised man becomes savage among savages; so, it seems that in self-defence, the scrupulous trader is obliged to become as little scrupulous as his compet.i.tors. It has been said that the law of the animal creation is--"Eat and be eaten;" and of our trading community it may be similarly said that its law is--Cheat and be cheated. A system of keen compet.i.tion, carried on, as it is, without adequate moral restraint, is very much a system of commercial cannibalism. Its alternatives are--Use the same weapons as your antagonists, or be conquered and devoured.
Of questions suggested by these facts, one of the most obvious is--Are not the prejudices that have ever been entertained against trade and traders, thus fully justified? do not these meannesses and dishonesties, and the moral degradation they imply, warrant the disrespect shown to men in business? A prompt affirmative answer will probably be looked for; but we very much doubt whether it should be given. We are rather of opinion that these delinquencies are products of the average English character placed under special conditions. There is no good reason for a.s.suming that the trading cla.s.ses are intrinsically worse than other cla.s.ses. Men taken at random from higher and lower ranks, would, most likely, if similarly circ.u.mstanced, do much the same.
Indeed the mercantile world might readily recriminate. Is it a solicitor who comments on their misdoings? They may quickly silence him by referring to the countless dark stains on the reputation of his fraternity. Is it a barrister? His frequent practice of putting in pleas which he knows are not valid; and his established habit of taking fees for work that he does not perform; make his criticism somewhat suicidal.
Does the condemnation come through the press? The condemned may remind those who write, of the fact that it is not quite honest to utter a positive verdict on a book merely glanced through, or to pen glowing eulogies on the mediocre work of a friend while slighting the good one of an enemy; and may further ask whether those who, at the dictation of an employer, write what they disbelieve, are not guilty of the serious offence of adulterating public opinion.
Moreover, traders might contend that many of their delinquencies are thrust on them by the injustice of their customers. They, and especially drapers, might point to the fact that the habitual demand for an abatement of price, is made in utter disregard of their reasonable profits; and that to protect themselves against attempts to gain by their loss, they are obliged to name prices greater than those they intend to take. They might also urge that the strait to which they are often brought by the non-payment of accounts due from their wealthier customers, is itself a cause of their malpractices: obliging them, as it does, to use all means, illegitimate as well as legitimate, for getting the wherewith to meet their engagements. In proof of the wrongs inflicted on them by the non-trading cla.s.ses, they might instance the well-known cases of large shopkeepers in the West-end, who have been either ruined by the unpunctuality of their customers, or have been obliged periodically to stop payment, as the only way of getting their bills settled. And then, after proving that those without excuse show this disregard of other men"s claims, traders might ask whether they, who have the excuse of having to contend with a merciless compet.i.tion, are alone to be blamed if they display a like disregard in other forms.
Nay, even to the guardians of social rect.i.tude--members of the legislature--they might use the _tu quoque_ argument: asking whether bribery of a customer"s servant, is any worse than bribery of an elector? or whether the gaining of suffrages by claptrap hustings-speeches, containing insincere professions adapted to the taste of the const.i.tuency, is not as bad as getting an order for goods by delusive representations respecting their quality? No; it seems probable that close inquiry would show few if any cla.s.ses to be free from immoralities that are as great, _relatively to the temptations_, as those which we have been exposing. Of course they will not be so petty or so gross where the circ.u.mstances do not prompt pettiness or grossness; nor so constant and organised where the cla.s.s-conditions have not tended to make them habitual. But, taken with these qualifications, we think that much might be said for the proposition that the trading cla.s.ses, neither better nor worse intrinsically than other cla.s.ses, are betrayed into their flagitious habits by external causes.
Another question, here naturally arising, is--"Are not these evils growing worse?" Many of the facts we have cited seem to imply that they are. And yet there are many other facts which point as distinctly the other way. In weighing the evidence, we must bear in mind, that the much greater public attention at present paid to such matters, is itself a source of error--is apt to generate the belief that evils now becoming recognised, are evils that have recently arisen; when in truth they have merely been hitherto disregarded, or less regarded. It has been clearly thus with crime, with distress, with popular ignorance; and it is very probably thus with trading-dishonesties. As it is true of individual beings, that their height in the scale of creation may be measured by the degree of their self-consciousness; so, in a sense, it is true of societies. Advanced and highly-organised societies are distinguished from lower ones by the evolution of something that stands for a _social self-consciousness_--a consciousness in each citizen, of the state of the aggregate of citizens. Among ourselves there has, happily, been of late years a remarkable growth of this social self-consciousness; and we believe that to this is chiefly ascribable the impression that commercial malpractices are increasing.
Such facts as have come down to us respecting the trade of past times, confirm this view. In his "Complete English Tradesman," Defoe mentions, among other manoeuvres of retailers, the false lights which they introduced into their shops, for the purpose of giving delusive appearances to their goods. He comments on the "shop rhetorick," the "flux of falsehoods," which tradesmen habitually uttered to their customers; and quotes their defence as being that they could not live without lying. He says, too, that there was scarce a shopkeeper who had not a bag of spurious or debased coin, from which he gave change whenever he could; and that men, even the most honest, triumphed in their skill in getting rid of bad money. These facts show that the mercantile morals of that day were, at any rate, not better than ours; and if we call to mind the numerous Acts of Parliament pa.s.sed in old times to prevent frauds of all kinds, we perceive the like implication.
As much may, indeed, be safely inferred from the general state of society.
When, reign after reign, governments debased the coinage, the moral tone of the middle cla.s.ses could scarcely have been higher than now.
Among generations whose sympathy with the claims of fellow-creatures was so weak, that the slave-trade was not only thought justifiable, but the initiator of it was rewarded by permission to record the feat in his coat of arms, it is hardly possible that men respected the claims of their fellow-citizens more than at present. Times characterized by an administration of justice so inefficient that there were in London nests of criminals who defied the law, and on all high roads robbers who eluded it, cannot have been distinguished by just mercantile dealings.
While, conversely, an age which, like ours, has seen so many equitable social changes thrust on the legislature by public opinion, is very unlikely to be an age in which the transactions between individuals have been growing more inequitable. Yet, on the other hand, it is undeniable that many of the dishonesties we have described are of modern origin.
Not a few of them have become established during the last thirty years; and others are even now arising. How are the seeming contradictions to be reconciled?
We believe the reconciliation is not difficult. It lies in the fact that while the _great_ and _direct_ frauds have been diminishing, the _small_ and _indirect_ frauds have been increasing: alike in variety and in number. And this admission we take to be quite consistent with the opinion that the standard of commercial morals is higher than it was.
For, if we omit, as excluded from the question, the penal restraints--religious and legal--and ask what is the ultimate moral restraint to the aggression of man on man, we find it to be--sympathy with the pain inflicted. Now the keenness of the sympathy, depending on the vividness with which this pain is realised, varies with the conditions of the case. It may be active enough to check misdeeds which will cause great suffering; and yet not be active enough to check misdeeds which will cause but slight annoyance. While sufficiently acute to prevent a man from doing that which will entail immediate injury on a given person, it may not be sufficiently acute to prevent him from doing that which will entail remote injuries on unknown persons. And we find the facts to agree with this deduction, that the moral restraint varies according to the clearness with which the evil consequences are conceived. Many a one who would shrink from picking a pocket does not scruple to adulterate his goods; and he who never dreams of pa.s.sing base coin, will yet be a party to joint-stock-bank deceptions. Hence, as we say, the multiplication of the more subtle and complex forms of fraud, is consistent with a general progress in morality; provided it is accompanied with a decrease in the grosser forms of fraud.
But the question which most concerns us is, not whether the morals of trade are better or worse than they have been, but rather--why are they so bad? Why in this civilised state of ours, is there so much that betrays the cunning selfishness of the savage? Why, after the careful inculcations of rect.i.tude during education, comes there in afterlife all this knavery? Why, in spite of all the exhortations to which the commercial cla.s.ses listen every Sunday, do they next morning recommence their evil deeds? What is this so potent agency which almost neutralises the discipline of education, of law, of religion?
Various subsidiary causes that might be a.s.signed, must be pa.s.sed over, that we may have s.p.a.ce to deal with the chief cause. In an exhaustive statement, something would have to be said on the credulity of consumers, which leads them to believe in representations of impossible advantages; and something, too, on their greediness, which, ever prompting them to look for more than they ought to get, encourages the sellers to offer delusive bargains. The increased difficulty of living consequent on growing pressure of population, might perhaps come in as a part cause; and that greater cost of bringing up a family, which results from the higher standard of education, might be added. But all these are relatively insignificant. The great inciter of these trading malpractices is, intense desire for wealth. And if we ask--Why this intense desire? the reply is--It results from the _indiscriminate respect paid to wealth_.
To be distinguished from the common herd--to be somebody--to make a name, a position--this is the universal ambition; and to acc.u.mulate riches, is alike the surest and the easiest way of fulfilling this ambition. Very early in life all learn this. At school, the court paid to one whose parents have called in their carriage to see him, is conspicuous; while the poor boy, whose insufficient stock of clothes implies the small means of his family, soon has burnt into his memory the fact that poverty is contemptible. On entering the world, the lessons that may have been taught about the n.o.bility of self-sacrifice, the reverence due to genius, the admirableness of high integrity, are quickly neutralised by experience: men"s actions proving that these are not their standards of respect. It is soon perceived that while abundant outward marks of deference from fellow-citizens, may almost certainly be gained by directing every energy to the acc.u.mulation of property, they are but rarely to be gained in any other way; and that even in the few cases where they are otherwise gained, they are not given with entire unreserve; but are commonly joined with a more or less manifest display of patronage. When, seeing this, the young man further sees that while the acquisition of property is quite possible with his mediocre endowments, the acquirement of distinction by brilliant discoveries, or heroic acts, or high achievements in art, implies faculties and feelings which he does not possess; it is not difficult to understand why he devotes himself heart and soul to business.
We do not mean to say that men act on the consciously reasoned-out conclusions thus indicated; but we mean that these conclusions are the unconsciously-formed products of their daily experience. From early childhood, the sayings and doings of all around them have generated the idea that wealth and respectability are two sides of the same thing.
This idea, growing with their growth, and strengthening with their strength, becomes at last almost what we may call an organic conviction.
And this organic conviction it is, which prompts the expenditure of all their energies in money-making. We contend that the chief stimulus is not the desire for the wealth itself; but for the applause and position which the wealth brings. And in this belief, we find ourselves at one with various intelligent traders with whom we have talked on the matter.
It is incredible that men should make the sacrifices, mental and bodily, which they do, merely to get the material benefits which money purchases. Who would undertake an extra burden of business for the purpose of getting a cellar of choice wines for his own drinking? He who does it, does it that he may have choice wines to give his guests and gain their praises. What merchant would spend an additional hour at his office daily, merely that he might move into a larger house in a better quarter? In so far as health and comfort are concerned, he knows he will be a loser by the exchange; and would never be induced to make it, were it not for the increased social consideration which the new house will bring him. Where is the man who would lie awake at nights devising means of increasing his income in the hope of being able to provide his wife with a carriage, were the use of the carriage the sole consideration? It is because of the _eclat_ which the carriage will give, that he enters on these additional anxieties. So manifest, so trite, indeed, are these truths, that we should be ashamed of insisting on them, did not our argument require it.
For if the desire for that homage which wealth brings, is the chief stimulus to these strivings after wealth, then is the giving of this homage (when given, as it is, with but little discrimination) the chief cause of the dishonesties into which these strivings betray mercantile men. When the shopkeeper, on the strength of a prosperous year and favourable prospects, has yielded to his wife"s persuasions, and replaced the old furniture with new, at an outlay greater than his income covers--when, instead of the hoped-for increase, the next year brings a decrease in his returns--when he finds that his expenses are out-running his revenue; then does he fall under the strongest temptation to adopt some newly-introduced adulteration or other malpractice. When, having by display gained a certain recognition, the wholesale trader begins to give dinners appropriate only to those of ten times his income, with expensive other entertainments to match--when, having for a time carried on this style at a cost greater than he can afford, he finds that he cannot discontinue it without giving up his position: then is he most strongly prompted to enter into larger transactions; to trade beyond his means; to seek undue credit; to get into that ever-complicating series of misdeeds, which ends in disgraceful bankruptcy. And if these are the facts--the undeniable facts--then is it an unavoidable conclusion that the blind admiration which society gives to mere wealth, and the display of wealth, is the chief source of these mult.i.tudinous immoralities.
Yes, the evil is deeper than appears--draws its nutriment from far below the surface. This gigantic system of dishonesty, branching out into every conceivable form of fraud, has roots that run underneath our whole social fabric, and, sending fibres into every house, suck up strength from our daily sayings and doings. In every dining-room a rootlet finds food, when the conversation turns on So-and-so"s successful speculations, his purchase of an estate, his probable worth--on this man"s recent large legacy, and the other"s advantageous match; for being thus talked about is one form of that tacit respect which men struggle for. Every drawing-room furnishes nourishment, in the admiration awarded to costliness--to silks that are "rich," that is, expensive; to dresses that contain an enormous quant.i.ty of material, that is, are expensive; to laces that are handmade, that is, expensive; to diamonds that are rare, that is, expensive; to china that is old, that is, expensive. And from scores of small remarks and minutiae of behaviour, which, in all circles, hourly imply how completely the idea of respectability involves that of costly externals, there is drawn fresh pabulum.
We are all implicated. We all, whether with self-approbation or not, give expression to the established feeling. Even he who disapproves this feeling, finds himself unable to treat virtue in threadbare apparel with a cordiality as great as that which he would show to the same virtue endowed with prosperity. Scarcely a man is to be found who would not behave with more civility to a knave in broadcloth than to a knave in fustian. Though for the deference which they have shown to the vulgar rich, or the dishonestly successful, men afterwards compound with their consciences by privately venting their contempt; yet when they again come face to face with these imposing externals covering worthlessness, they do as before. And so long as imposing worthlessness gets the visible marks of respect, while the disrespect felt for it is hidden, it naturally flourishes.
Hence, then, is it that men persevere in these evil practices which all condemn. They can so purchase a homage, which if not genuine, is yet, so far as appearances go, as good as the best. To one whose wealth has been gained by a life of frauds, what matters it that his name is in all circles a synonym of roguery? Has he not been conspicuously honoured by being twice elected mayor of his town? (we state a fact) and does not this, joined to the personal consideration shown him, outweigh in his estimation all that is said against him: of which he hears scarcely anything? When, not many years after the exposure of his inequitable dealing, a trader attains to the highest civic distinction which the kingdom has to offer; and that, too, through the instrumentality of those who best know his delinquency; is not the fact an encouragement to him, and to all others, to sacrifice rect.i.tude to aggrandis.e.m.e.nt? If, after listening to a sermon that has by implication denounced the dishonesties he has been guilty of, the rich ill-doer finds, on leaving church, that his neighbours cap to him; does not this tacit approval go far to neutralise the effect of all he has heard? The truth is, that with the great majority of men, the visible expression of social opinion is far the most efficient of incentives and restraints. Let any one who wishes to estimate the strength of this control, propose to himself to walk through the streets in the dress of a dustman, or hawk vegetables from door to door. Let him feel, as he probably will, that he had rather do something morally wrong than commit such a breach of usage, and suffer the resulting derision. And he will then better estimate how powerful a curb to men is the open disapproval of their fellows; and how, conversely, the outward applause of their fellows is a stimulus surpa.s.sing all others in intensity. Fully realising which facts, he will see that the immoralities of trade are in great part traceable to an immoral public opinion.
Let none infer, from what has been said, that the payment of respect to wealth rightly acquired and rightly used, is deprecated. In its original meaning, and in due degree, the feeling which prompts such respect is good. Primarily, wealth is the sign of mental power; and this is always respectable. To have honestly-acquired property, implies intelligence, energy, self-control; and these are worthy of the homage that is indirectly paid to them by admiring their results. Moreover, the good administration and increase of inherited property, also requires its virtues; and therefore demands its share of approbation. And besides being applauded for their display of faculty, men who gain and increase wealth are to be applauded as public benefactors. For he who as manufacturer or merchant, has, without injustice to others, realised a fortune, is thereby proved to have discharged his functions better than those who have been less successful. By greater skill, better judgment, or more economy than his compet.i.tors, he has afforded the public greater advantages. His extra profits are but a share of the extra produce obtained by the same expenditure: the other share going to the consumers. And similarly, the landowner who, by judicious outlay, has increased the value (that is, the productiveness) of his estate, has thereby added to the stock of national capital. By all means, then, let the right acquisition and proper use of wealth, have their due share of admiration.
But that which we condemn as the chief cause of commercial dishonesty, is the _indiscriminate_ admiration of wealth--an admiration that has little or no reference to the character of the possessor. When, as very generally happens, the external signs are reverenced, where they signify no internal worthiness--nay, even where they cover internal unworthiness; then does the feeling become vicious. It is this idolatry which worships the symbol apart from the thing symbolised, that is the root of all these evils we have been exposing. So long as men pay homage to those social benefactors who have grown rich honestly, they give a wholesome stimulus to industry; but when they accord a share of their homage to those social malefactors who have grown rich dishonestly, then do they foster corruption--then do they become accomplices in all these frauds of commerce.
As for remedy, it manifestly follows that there is none save a purified public opinion. When that abhorrence which society now shows to direct theft, is shown to theft of all degrees of indirectness, then will these mercantile vices disappear. When not only the trader who adulterates or gives short measure, but also the merchant who over-trades, the bank-director who countenances an exaggerated report, and the railway-director who repudiates his guarantee, come to be regarded as of the same genus as the pickpocket, and are treated with like disdain; then will the morals of trade become what they should be.
We have little hope, however, that any such higher tone of public opinion will shortly be reached. The present condition of things appears to be, in great measure, a necessary accompaniment of our present phase of progress. Throughout the civilised world, especially in England, and above all in America, social activity is almost wholly expended in material development. To subjugate Nature, and bring the powers of production and distribution to their highest perfection, is the task of our age; and probably of many future ages. And as in times when national defence and conquest were the chief desiderata, military achievement was honoured above all other things; so now, when the chief desideratum is industrial growth, honour is most conspicuously given to that which generally indicates the aiding of industrial growth. The English nation at present displays what we may call the commercial diathesis; and the undue admiration for wealth appears to be its concomitant--a relation still more conspicuous in the worship of "the almighty dollar" by the Americans. And while the commercial diathesis, with its accompanying standard of distinction, continues, we fear the evils we have been delineating can be but partially cured. It seems hopeless to expect that men will distinguish between that wealth which represents personal superiority and benefits done to society, from that which does not. The symbols, the externals, have all the world through swayed the ma.s.ses; and must long continue to do so. Even the cultivated, who are on their guard against the bias of a.s.sociated ideas, and try to separate the real from the seeming, cannot escape the influence of current opinion. We must, therefore, content ourselves with looking for a slow amelioration.
Something, however, may even now be done by vigorous protest against adoration of mere success. And it is important that it should be done, considering how this vicious sentiment is being fostered. When we have one of our leading moralists preaching, with increasing vehemence, the doctrine of sanctification by force--when we are told that while a selfishness troubled with qualms of conscience is contemptible, a selfishness intense enough to trample down every thing in the unscrupulous pursuit of its ends, is worthy of all admiration--when we find that if it be sufficiently great, power, no matter of what kind or how directed, is held up for our reverence; we may fear lest the prevalent applause of mere success, together with the commercial vices which it stimulates, should be increased rather than diminished. Not at all by this hero-worship grown into brute-worship, is society to be made better; but by exactly the opposite--by a stern criticism of the means through which success has been achieved; and by according honour to the higher and less selfish modes of activity.
And happily the signs of this more moral public opinion are already showing themselves. It is becoming a tacitly-received doctrine that the rich should not, as in by-gone times, spend their lives in personal gratification; but should devote them to the general welfare. Year by year is the improvement of the people occupying a larger share of the attention of the upper cla.s.ses. Year by year are they voluntarily devoting more and more energy to furthering the material and mental progress of the ma.s.ses. And those among them who do not join in the discharge of these high functions, are beginning to be looked upon with more or less contempt by their own order. This latest and most hopeful fact in human history--this new and better chivalry--promises to evolve a higher standard of honour; and so to ameliorate many evils: among others those which we have detailed. When wealth obtained by illegitimate means inevitably brings nothing but disgrace--when to wealth rightly acquired is accorded only its due share of homage, while the greatest homage is given to those who consecrate their energies and their means to the n.o.blest ends; then may we be sure that along with other accompanying benefits, the morals of trade will be greatly purified.