MISCELLANEOUS ARTICLES.

Auckland Star, Volume XXXV, Issue 198, 19 August 1904, Page 2

MISCELLANEOUS ARTICLES.

THE FUTURE OF THE VERY RICH. THE POWER AND POSITION OF.THE MULTI-MILLIONAIRE. (By B. Fletcher Robinson.) There have always been rich men in the world. The prehistoric gentleman whose admirably developed muscles gave him. chieftainship among his fellows doubtless annexed the best skins and the finest stone hatchets in the clan. Slave-tilled provinces allowed the Roman plutocrats to afford nightingales' brains, and spend fortunes on banquets and private gladiators. Mediaeval Paris and London produced their wealthy goldsmiths and prosperous merchants. Indian trade, Army contracting, brewing, and banking' Drought fortunes to the successful in pre-Vic-torian times. But the richest of them all would seem but shabbily genteel as compared to a Rockefeller, a Rothschild, or a Carnegie. How has it become possible for one man to collect and hold such resources? Partly it is the increase in the general wealth of the world; partly it is the growing speed of communication and of transport; partly it i 3 the strong hand of law and order. Millions can be collected because jnijlions now exist; telegrams and telephones allow a business man to keep his hand on distant offices as easily as if they were in his own backyard; while the goods his manufacturing armies produce can find a quick sale all over the globe, and not merely in the narrow channels of the home trade; in whatever country he holds possessions he knows that they are safe. The law, backed by police, soldiers, and fleets, protects him and his. Are there limits to the wealth of the multi-millionaire? None, save those which are personal—which arise from continued failures of judgment or mental collapse. Let us take Rockefeller as an example. He has a natural monopoly in his oil-fields;-he commands great fleets, long railroads; he has obtained control, as it would seem, of that unwieldy monster, the Steel Trust. His interests and investments in minor enterprises are uncountable. His total wealth may be two hundred millions or three hundred millions of pounds. As he himself once complained to a- judge, "How can a man tell how much he is worth to a million or two?" Now, John D. Rockefeller is not an old man. His digestion, but not his mental power, is impaired. Year after year i his income increases, adding millions to hLs fortune, new extensions to his enterprises, new power to his position i? finance. Suppose that his son is a man of equal ability, suppose that he continues to add million to million, becoming more irresistible as his resources extend? What, then? i Think of the power of a multi-mil-j lionaire! A word from him can create \ a panic that shakes tile Bourses of the I world, and sends venerable houses doing i their "legitimate business" tumbling into ruin. A scheme that he has devised may shut down factories, squeeze out hun- , dreds of middle-men, make and unmake i towns. The joys and sorrows, the hopes and ideals, the loves and home life of millions lie in the hollow of his hand. His power is as great as that possessed by many moimrchs of these modern times. Yet it is a power without responsibility. He acts within the law when he drives a business rival from the I field and leaves his factories empty. He I has no ministers and people to force him to stay his hand from war for the sake of charity and mercy. No revolution can call him to account should his wheat corner drive Italian cities into riot or send the price of cotton bounding up until the mills are silent in stricken Lancashire. He can hire armies of private police or armed detectives, such as fired on the strikers at the Homestead riots in the U.S.A. He can subsidise parties, bribe legislatures, buy politicians, and, in many countries, influence judges and pplice officials—and stil} he stands legally immune. War is three parts finance in the twentieth century. He can give peace or war to the smaller nations by the refusal or the granting of loans. Even among the strong Powers, it is he andi his fellows who must first be consulted:

It is a power ao great =«i : sponsible tha* the tiffit"? *> ** Remember, moreover thlf iv millionaire with keen fad to win in the markets He holds the Jar<L r* 16 * wait his time; he can profit£'«. "*» he creates. He, can ending- W triumph in the end. 6 lo^:»Bd The pessimists say that ■««•>'■»•-' to the money king/ modelled mto four great * on the seats of money kings. Below the£ ! their managers, agents', middle class. Lastly there fft? . workers, the millions who t n nW their hands. The professi^ must remain, for there can never > trust m doctors or artists or 52L** coauthors. Th, sma u trader .|^ Will the nations tolerate' this *M aer of affairs? That is a probSSl* cient difficulty. Socialist but it is too impracticable to be Z^* , ous. Besides, every m an who hasS" a nest-egg for his old age against its hysterical suggestWsE new system must be devised that ,2» antagonise fewer of the backbone ofts. nations if the power of the aire is to be cheeked. "*f«»aThe very collection of sreat n«~ • tions like fleets of steaSS* of railways into one hand is temptation to a democratic country. - It was only the other day "New York Journal" publisher ?£*. toon which was suggestive of thi* j£f ing. The railway kings of the dressed like little boys, *erepkyfe in an enclosure. In their midet'wajii big bag, labelled "Railroad Trust" {nfe, which they were' dropping toy eftiinet "Go ahead, boys," said Uncle Sam.W ing over the fence. "Fill up your W and then I'll take it." ' ,

When a nation steps in arid* innexes railways or fleets or industries: are owned and run by hundreds and thousands of small capitalists, the result must be disorganisation and distress. But if all the railways are "in one bag," which is owned by three or four giant financiers, the change from private possession to State possession is comparatively easy. No one sufferersave' the financiers, and they- will;hot starve. . •■ : J ' Such is the danger that threaten* the multi-millionaire in the> distant.future. It will be years, generations perhaps: btfore the power of their wealty drives the nations into action. And if thafc&y should come, it will not be aepompanifi by blood-stained revolutions. Ther.£w§l be no need. A stroke of the legislate pen, and the organisations, perfect In every detail, will pass to the State. Such is the logical conclusion. ,'. > ■