MORALITY IN BUSINESS

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume XLI, Issue XLI, 10 September 1921, Page 9

MORALITY IN BUSINESS

LORD_ROBEBT CECIL'S COMMENTS

A movement has been started in. England towards "a Christian order of in- ' dustry and commerce,'' and.at one of its meetings recently the principal speaker was Lord Robert Cecil, He said that competition was not wrong, but it might be carried too far, and, the increase in competitidn, even in spocts and athletics, he attributed to the theories of evolution and political economy. He proceeded: "It is important to remember that neither evolution nor political economy is a moral code, and if we wish to see, w&en* morality will lead us we must look elsewhere. One of the results of competition has been to dehumanise business relations. The phrase 'business is bust ness' is a soul-destroying maxim if ever there was one. The spirit of rivalry in competition, not merely between onebusiness and another, but between Businesses themselves, has been insisted' upon until there is a great deep division, all over the world, With great trusts on one side, and on the other the general strike with all its incredible! roily. But, dangerous as I think trusts l are, I think the theory of the genera!l strike is -really absolutely destructive, and it is not sufficiently recognised that it is a logical development of the competitive spirit. We have really got to the position where industrial difficulties and differences become- so great and so profound that it does not seem unreasonable to one side to settle them by something which is really economic civil war. But do hot let vs •lay that any one section of the community is solely to blame. The workman brings his strength and skill into business, and it 'becomes just as much a part oT the capital of the business las anything else. It is his contribution to the essential foundation on which a business must be built, and he ought to hare —if he is really to be brought to feel, and if |he employer also is to be brought to feel, thtat they are both working together as )one whole—his proper share, not only of the profits, but. most of all, of the responsibilities and duties of management.'"