BUSINESS LIFE.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLVI, Issue 14142, 18 August 1909, Page 9

BUSINESS LIFE.

THE BOY'S FUTURE.

SOME HINTS ON SELECTING A CAREER. "What shall we do with our boys?" is a question which each successive generation must answer. A low position at commencement in a rising industry, under ordinary circumstances, carries with it infinitely better prospects than does a higher place in a decadent one. The youth who obtains the former may reasonably expect to better it by application, while the obtainer of the other discovers, sometimes too late, that he is engaged in one perpetual struggle to avoid bankruptcy or retain employment. ■■■'■>■> Parents and others who are responsible for the selection of business employment for youths should consider before making a final choice, " Is this a business which will increase in the ordinary course of events? Is there a growing demand for this firm's class of goods? Do the Board of Trade returns indicate that this particular trade is on the increase or decrease? Are there reasons for fearing that the class of goods will be superseded by another which the firm will not be able to handle to advantage?" NEED FOB EXPERT ADVICE. Such considerations call for serious reflection before the choice is made, and those who cannot form satisfactory conclusions for themselves should get " expert" advice on points of the kind. As an illustration : Thirty to forty years ago the petroleum lamp had not superseded the colza-oil lamp as it has done since. But it was beginning to do so, and many an oilman in the eighties found himself buying colza oil by the gallon instead of by the hogshead as he had done a. few years earlier. -Nowadays many a large ironmonger's shop does not contain a single specimen of a reading-lamp in which colza oil can be used.

What has to be persistently borne in mind is that, when a business is not calculated to lend itself to expansion, material increases in the payment of the staff cannot be looked for.

The young man of 20 who starts in such a concern with £60 per annum may not have worked up to £120 salary by the time he is 30, because his employers profits do not allow of increasing salaries. But in a large and progressive business establishment a beginner may be paid little or nothing to commence, and yet command an annual salary of some hundreds by the time that he has been there 10 years, because he is in a business where his work will earn money for the firm. TEMPERAMENT AND CONSTITUTION. Further considerations are those of temperament and constitution. A father sometimes assumes that his son will be able to succeed him in business because he has given him as good an education, or, perhaps, a better one, than he had himself. But he must allow for temperament. The son may inherit from his mother qualities which may not suit him for his father's business. There are few greater mistakes than that of assuming that what one member of a family succeeds in another can do equally well if he will only try as hard. Yet this is a doctrine which parents of little discrimination are apt to preach. RELATIVES IN BUSINESS. There are both advantages and disadvantages in the joint employment of members of the same family. The employer may suffer through being too easy with one "slacker" out of respect for a more industrious relative. The writer himself knew a case where a working foreman's services were so appreciated that the head of the fiim left him an annuity in his will. But a nephew of this valued servant robbed the firm systematically for some time, a circumstance which, when detected, seemed as if it would break the heart of the faithful old foreman. On the other hand, there are cases where one relative's help to another in the same employment is most serviceable. If, for example, it can be managed, that a competent commercial traveller, who finds it expedient to retire through age, infirmities, or some other justifiable reasons, shall manage to bring on his son to step into his place, the old representative is likely to take immense pains in coaching his successor. And the son will probably prove an apt pupil. 1 * FALSE STARTS. Some parents say that it is no use letting their sons choose" a business opening for themselves, because they do not really know what the calling, for which they express a fancy, is really 1 " like. / Pessimists, both in business and out of it, often say, You can't have what you like." Energetic people, all the same, have a way of working themselves out of what they dislike into something that they, at any rate, infinitely prefer. Valuable time, however, is lost, by false starts, which, in many cases, would have been obviated by a more judicious selection of employment in the first place.