Principles of western civilisation

XI TOWARDS THE FUTURE A31

it or keep it in check. In such circumstances the shareholders tend to become a mere body of isolated units without information, whose interest must, necessarily, be largely speculative, and with a considerable element of the gambling spirit behind it. Readjustments, amalgamations, or reorganisations, causing wide fluctuations in values, encourage this attitude, and, by enabling fortunes to be made in a short time by those possessing inner knowledge of the affairs of the undertaking, tend to demoralise all concerned. The dualism which prevails meets the observer at every step. Even in cases where gross mismanagement or fraud has brought affairs to the brink of ruin, the observer is often surprised to find how different is the attitude of those most deeply interested to that which might have been expected. The spectacle is often not so much that a number of partners loyally co-operating to put an enterprise once more on its feet, as that of a body of speculators anxious to come to some specious arrangement by which they may sell their holdings to the public, with advantage to themselves—with the feeling in the background that if, in so doing, they act as they would not dream of acting as private individuals, their conduct will be, in the words of the journal already quoted, “not only condoned, but justified by the company-promoting world on the ground that the public must look after itself.” The process, in short, everywhere tends, as in Professor Adams’ example, to be, in the last resort, governed at the level of its lowest and ruling denominator.

It must not be considered that it is the intention of the State to allow the evils, of which those here