BUSINESS METHODS

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXII, Issue 22018, 26 January 1935, Page 17

BUSINESS METHODS

CHANGE IN CANADA: EYEB BACK TO BRITAIN VALUE OF OLD TRADITIONS [FROM OUR OWN CORRESPONDENT] VANCOUVER, Jan. 4 The most arresting pronouncement hy a public man in Canada in recent years was made by the Prime Minister, Mr. Bennett, when he remarked, before a Conservative meeting in Ontario, that "the days of the robber baron in Canada have gone." Its effect recalled the shock Americans received when, alluding to the progress of the gangster and racketeer, President Hoover stated, in his inauguration address, "Our foundations have subsided."

Mr.. Bennett and his Government have been greatly embarrassed by the repeated disclosures of unethical business practices made before the Royal Commission presided over by his Minister of Trade and Commerce, Mr. Stevens, who is first in line of succession to the Premiership. These disclosures are as sensational to-day as when the commission, appointed by Mr. Bennett at the beginning of last session, took the spotlight from Parlia- ' ment during the whole of the session. I Half-way through the , recess Mr. j Stevens called public attention to the I practices of certain chain stores and j packing and other corporations, whose operations ran into millions of pounds. The Dominion Cabinet, by a bare majority, it is said, called on him to resign. Since then, Mr. Stevens has doubled his activities, and has drawn from the ; chief offenders promises that they will, mend their ways, and from the Prime [ Minister the declaration that has so j stirred the country. Grossing the Border . .... • ' ! The new year finds Canadian public men and business leaders in agreement as to the efficacy of British traditions, as compared with American practices, I which they have favoured for the past j quarter of a century. The high tariff I era threw British methods into the dis- j card in Canada. Empire preferential corpo-tariffs induced American corporations by the hundred to cross the border and establish branches of their plants, in which just sufficient Canadian fabrication and labour were utilised to earn the British preference.

Great Britain, Australia and New Zealand protested, but were silenced by the fears of Mr. Mackenzie King, then Prime Minister, that to increase the British content of American manufactures finished off in Canada would cause distress among Canadians. The Americanisation of Canadian industry and Canadian continued. The mass-production era completed their subjugation, and, more than the other two factors, led to the abuses that the Canadian Government is now determined to eradicate. Lessons from London

One has heard more commendation of British methods in the past few months than in ten years' residence in Canada. Gone is the old conviction that the American method was up to date and progressive, while the British method was slow and old-fashioned. Young Canadian business men, who formerly went to Ngw York to keep pace with ideas in commerce, will go to London, as well, in the future, especially if they wish to study success rather than experiment. t The supercession of high-pressure American practice for British business tradition is now held to be the cause of the abuses that have undermined the confidence of Canadians in their commercial and industrial leaders. One notes whole-souled envy in Canada, in these days of reappraisal of values, for the Motherland's standards of fair dealing and honest trading that have, earned for her the respect of the whole world.