Principles of western civilisation

428 WESTERN CIVILISATION CHAP.

the student of social ethics under innumerable forms, involving results which are rightly described as being often beyond the imagination of those who live protected lives under shelter of assured incomes,’

That this moral dualism in business is not confined to the lower grades of commercial life, where the struggle for existence might be considered to be severest, but that it is a result more distinctive of the higher financial phases of commercialism may also be distinguished. <A characteristic feature accompanying the present tendencies of capital to accumulation in trusts and corporations in the United States is, says Mr. Forrest, the dishonesty “which mercilessly fleeces the legitimate investor in the securities of the corporation.”* In these combinations the capitalisation is often commonly inflated on paper merely in the interests of those who promote them, so that, “the manipulation of this stock, not the carrying on of the industry, is the main interest of the promoters.”* The fortunes to be made in the result are such as to excite the cupidity of men. And, it is added significantly, “the great prizes are for the most unscrupulous.” *

It must not be taken that such tendencies and results are in any way peculiar to the conditions prevailing in the United States. They are at least equally well marked in Great Britain. In the Report of the Inspector-General in Companies’ Liquidation, England, made in the penultimate

' Graham Taylor, 4. Jour. Sociology, vol. v. 3. + **The Control of Trusts,” by J. D. Forrest, University of Indianapolis, Am, Jour. Sociology, vol. v. 2. 3 [bid. © Lid.