Poverty Bay Herald. PUBLISHED EVERY EVENING. GISBORNE, FRIDAY, JUNE 11, 1926. RECIPROCAL DUTIES IN CIVIL LIFE.

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LII, Issue 17057, 11 June 1926, Page 4

Poverty Bay Herald. PUBLISHED EVERY EVENING. GISBORNE, FRIDAY, JUNE 11, 1926. RECIPROCAL DUTIES IN CIVIL LIFE.

Uoinpcfiiion is s:i«I in In 1 llio soul of modem business. Undoubtedly it is u mo. I ', \:ilunblo sjmr both lo in\en 1 ion nnd industry. So iniitdi is this recognised that local governing bodies

have io he supplied with very special reasons, which their members sire prepared to justify, if it private eonl rad is nisiile for any snbslii'nlin! work or material required. When tenders are entiled for, and I lie lowest is not accepted, trouble usually follows. The rule does not so rigidly bind business operations in private enterprise. The quote of a firm of good repute with which another firm customarily deals is often accepted. But, even in such cases, the quotation given, is given with the eye upon what other firms in the same line of business would be quoting to their customers. In all such cases a market rale gets roughly fixed by competition. Competition has supplied the public with better supplies of all articles they require, and, while net independent of uther controlling

causes, lias reduced cost. Competition has made the world n whispering gallery; it has annihilated distance; it has even threatened time. Our age is one of competition. Its worshippers can never reach, their ultimate, goal; what is often a will-o-ihe-wisp— an ever-vanishing .shadow of some greater, thing—is always in front. Competition, while thus an indispensable benefactor, is also a most exacting master. It demands the last mince of energy and the whole brain power of it's slaves. Business "men themselves say that "they are too closely occupied by thoughts of business and too much exhausted by its complicated and exciting vicissitudes to undertake other obligations which require leisure and quiet and painful reflection." Competition in its effect upon men, requires the giving out of all his powers, physical and mental. The objective is self-advancement, not by any means to be despised, or the advancement within its narrow environment of the business or enterprise which demands his service. Concentration upon the chase after success, or idealised perfection, is also stimulated by a haunting dread of failure, loss of independence, or anticipation of actual necessity. But after all that may be said in praise of competition, which in its simplest form, is the struggle for existence and the survival of the fittest, il is destructive of the spirit, of altruism which, when influencing the conduct of peoples and nations, softens the asperities of actual everyday life, and bridges over the difficulties caused by its inequalities. Where a man,

ft class, or a nation, ceases to consider the interests of others, strife musj .follow. Competition narrows in proportion to its success. The bees know riothing of competition, unless it exists in some form among rival queens, i Acaccording to Maeterlinck, and others, they display a triumph of co-operative work. Their short life is given to the swarm; they die in the performance of their duties to the hive and to their successors. We miss the wonder of the common-place of life when we pass if by as being merely caused and guided by instinct. The glory of men and their privilege is that being to a great extent free from the peremptory dictation of instinct, and having mentality and conscious responsibility their continued prosperity is subjected to the recognition of the- rights of others. They, too, have a duty to the hive, in employment, concentration upon that which is one's own, whether it be property or rights, to the exclusion of consideration for the property or rights of co-operators in the same industry. is responsible for lock-outs and,strikes. In the case of the nation, where the desire for tho .wellbeing of all is lost in the arrogance of a part, the path lies directly open, to revolution and cruelty. Competition is an artificial foe to a natural responsibility; possibly, because it has sprung out of an artificial necessity. In the pressure of business there is but little room left for the consideration of the rights of others. The pursuit of the means ot living absorbs all available energy. The business world excuses itself from responsibility for the maintenance anc tone of the civil life by passing on the responsibility' to the philanthropist 01 the church. A fatal cleavage is thus brought about which in modern days seems to lie widening. This cleavage is fatal to the best interests of both the church and the business world, while also the efforts of the philanthropist are much weakened. The recognition by the State of its duty through local bodies to eompulsorily provide for the sick and for the indigent poor has also inevitably helped to assure the men engaged in business life, that such matters are no concern of theirs. This drift apart from reciprocal duties in aid of others by the business world, has lowered the standard of business. It has become simply material. What has been callel "the elevating force of great ideals" is in danger of being lost, in the desire to accumulate the means of living there is a danger that in business the claims of life may be forgotten. Put more practically, the interest of the other fellow has to be consider-; ed, even though, at times, he may be unreasonable, or even vexatiously troublesome. It is much easier to note the hardening results of competition, and the cleavage, which is widening in modem days, in the sphere of all human activities, between the visions and ethics of the thinker, Hie idealist, the philanthropist and the church, and all forms of industrial enterprise which make for the prosperity am: wealth of the nation, than to indicate the emollient which would suffice to prevent shocks and abrasions. Suuiten remedies are often impediments. No law could transform the temper of tin 1 times. That temper, if it be too exclusive of the rights of others, recoils. We need, not leave New Zealand, or quote the cruel struggle now going on in. (treat Britain, on the coal liolds, to confirm this view. Where reciplocal duties in civil life are neglected and altruistic ideals become atrophied, the conditions, of industry must always be subject to volcanic disturbance.