THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS. SATURDAY, APRIL 5, 1913. THE AMERICAN MILLIONAIRE.

New Zealand Herald, Volume L, Issue 15269, 5 April 1913, Page 6

THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS. SATURDAY, APRIL 5, 1913. THE AMERICAN MILLIONAIRE.

The circumstances surrounding the passing of the American millionaire Mr. Pierpont Morgan inevitably suggest certain interesting, if obvious, reflections. It is well that even ordinary truths'; should be brougW home to times, lest their very obviousness should.'cause them to be forgotten. For it ia the unfortunate fate' of most truth's to become mere commonplaces, unless perhaps they are displayed in the form of tparadox, which someone has remarked is only truth standing on its head to attract attention. It is not altogether without value that Mr. Morgan's death emphasises at once the frail humanity of the and the inhuman power of his millions. With all his wealth the millionaire passes away, the victim oi some complication of acute indigeiiion, but the power of his dead hand remains behind him, and ( we read that the news of his death in Europe was carefully suppressed for a time lest it should cause a serious fluctuation on the Stock Exchange in America. These simple facts' must necessarily strike the imagination .oJ everyone who pauses for the briefest moment to consider them,, proclaiming as they do the inexorable doom of'efery human;b£irig,v the vast change which 'has been wrought in the material affairs; of -thei world by the of industries, and the %ver-increasing ■ trade and ness of a system which has brought the millionaire into existence ajnd concentrated such mighty powerful the hands of a single: man. Direct power has, of course, always been the privilege of the wealthy, whether we take the case of the owner of many herds of cattle in a savage land or that of the rich dweller in; a great and civilised community. For wealth means the ability to buy service and comfort, and the purchase of service is the ultimate basis of power. Nor can it be supposed that so long as inequality in wealth continues the, power of the rich can be seriously curtailed in this direction; But the striking feature of the modern system of business and finance is not the direct but the indirect power of great wealth, its influence upon the fate and fortune of countlesß individuals who have been drawn into the whirlpool of business. Mr. Morgan or some 'other great financial magnate dies, and the mere fact of his death may quite conceivably bring fortune to some and ruin to others who never dreamed of. a,ny connection between their affairs and his. The change of a few points in this or that market may cause the most far-reaching redistribution of wealth, the rise of one man and the downfall of another. Such a change may easily be brotight about by the operations of a millionaire, or even by the simple fact of his death,. The American type of millionaire is a very modern product rendered possible by the sudden development of a coimtry unrivalled in resources guarded by a protective tariff; cap able of unending alteration at the hands of an assembly in whicl wealth necessarily has a potehi influence, and dominated by &■ spirit of speculation and optimism whict is the child of prosperity and material development. There has been in America a wonderful field for industrial enterprise and fore sight, for fortunate speculation upoi acolossal soale, and for juggling with the markets which inevitably spring up in an expanding country where the rbsults of enterprise are great enough to justify the hopes oi energetic optimists. The result is the modern American millionaire with the crushing power of his millions over hundreds of thousands oi poorer, folk. And the method by which he is elevated differentiates the typical American plutocral from the millionaire produced by Biich a country as Great Britaip. There, it is true, are to>be found men of the American type, whose fortunes ' haxe been amassed By speculation, but for the, most?- part they have grown to wealth by slow degrees, by the gradual but direct of" building up >a successful business or industry, and with Teiss

assistance from the methods of; the trust or combine. They have rather succeeded by making their names household words ; for excellence in somie particular article or department of business, and though by their reputation they have sometimes crushed competition and' taken their toll of the public their methods have been fair, and their wealth represents a tribute spread over a wide area; instead of the crushing ■of a comparatively small number of unfortunate people. In America, on the other hand, too often one man's fortune has .meant simply the transfer to him of the whole capital of others. There are, however, not wanting indications that * American methods are spreading through the older countries and that the tendency to heavy speculation on the Stock Exchanges of the world is increasing. The development in methods of .communication has brought the various units of the civilised world more close together, the nations are ho longer isolated, the financial interests of one are bound up with those of another, and every market fluctuation is felt in regions 'far removed from that in which it originated. Capital has spread with amazing rapidity almost to the ends of the earth, and the development of new countries is no longer the concern of those countries only.

These phenomena are •so sudden and so recent that the world has hardly had time to realise their significance or to Consider with any degree of thoroughness .the practical problems involved) but it cannot seriously4>e questioned that notwithstanding the public service of ten j rendered by the millionaires the aggregation of great wealth 'and of control of the resources of a country in a few hands is a Berious evil the cure for which should be seduoualy sought.