MORALITY OF COMMERCE.

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume XLI, Issue 13428, 9 July 1914, Page 4

MORALITY OF COMMERCE.

, \' .-.-:•, ; ■ .: -^ LONDQN, May- 28. .While Sir Thomas Lipton was launching the English challenger for '%hd America Cup and telling a distinguished party' of the heaps of freak mascots sent to I ' him by keen' yachtesmen, the. Army Canteen oasey m which Liptdns, Limited, has figured so largely, was drawing to its close at Old Bailey. Amidst : such revelations of tiornmefcial immorality it is pleasant to "be able to say upon the assurance of the AttbrrieyGeneral that not a ■ shrei of evidence 'connected Sir Thomas Edpton with the charges that were investigated. English people have a habit\of talking of Americans as tremendous hustlers. If, you live m I^oncjtin'airy' time you find that the American may "hustle some" by mouth, .hut tho' busy Englishman is ahead of him iir deed.

This element of hustle is at the root of the .robbery, jobbery, and conniption disclosed m the Army Canteen case. Competition is so severe and secret commissions so rifo, that men have lost the old sense of fair and square dealing, and ha-vie become not" Bt> much immoral as immoral. To get on they must show big profits for their departments, and to do this they must be constantly finding new customers or increasing their orders. - When the first bribe was offered m .connection with the Army Canteens there was no organised campaign of X , corruption behind it. Tiie system grew, with the evil it fed on. All of th^'defendants have been punished ; but the hand of the law' fell heaviest on Colonel ! Whittaker, who has 'been ohv prisoned, and \vho has thus not only forfeited t his good name, '.Tbut his pension, which was 'his sole means of subsistence.; With tears of heart-rung distress m his'" -eyes, he assured Judge Darling that he was an absolutely inno* cent' ••■man.-' With all the facts public property, Colonel AVhittaker could not 3ue that he had done, wrong. .His naive arid }}nite; truthful protestation is ji startling- commentary on present-day English i customs -of trade.