BUSINESS MORALITY

Evening Post, Volume CXXXIII, Issue 50, 28 February 1942, Page 6

BUSINESS MORALITY

(To the Editor.)

Sir, —Mr. English, former president of the New Zealand Society of Accountants, and Mr. Wilkinson and others, are to be congratulated on the fine stand they made at their annual meeting for morality in business. Such a stand is a distinct help in a war which everyone recognises as spiritual at bottom. Quite a number of people give the impression that spiritual at bottom means only that we are fighting for freedom and our enemies for slavery, and they deduce from this that we are sure to win. While not questioning this deduction we have seriously 'to ask ourselves what freedom we are fighting for. Is it merely licence to carry on as we have been doing hitherto?

Mr. English pricks that bubble when he calls upon the commercial world to reform, and he speaks of practices which are a shame to mention—"dishonesty, selfishness, greed, and slackness," and again, "secret commissions, flagrant breaches of contract, deliberate lying and misrepresentation"— "an undoubted lowering of the standard of commercial morality which had occurred during recent years."

The call to reform is timely, and Mr. English is to be congratulated on his courage in making it. Nor should the call be confined to breaches of commercial morality. There are other breaches that need the same thought and attention, such as impurity and the neglect of God. It is only after acknowledging and forsaking our sins that we can hope for God's help in this most terrible war.—l am, etc.,

F. C. LONG.