To quote so universal an opinion and to proceed at once to question its value would no doubt be an unjustifiable audacity, if it were not for this,-that the opinion amounts to a theory. And where a theory is concerned, anyone, in spite of a complete ignorance of market-prices or the qualitites of goods, in spite of an obtuseness which in the last resort may be unable to distinguish meat worth tenpence a pound from meat worth twopence, or, to take a notable instance, catsmeat from a cavalry mount,-anyone, I say, who takes the trouble to think has a right to form his own opinion about the value of that theory. He has not only the right to form an opinion (which is of comparatively small importance) but the capability of arriving at a truth. For the consideration involved is not a technical consideration at all. It is a consideration of the precise meaning of some words which are in universal use, backed by a further consideration as to whether, judging from his practice generally, the English business-man can claim in those words to have described himself accurately. Briefly, it resolves itself into three questions: what do industry and method mean? Are they practical? And can they be considered at the present day the characteristic qualities of the best business-men?

At first sight that statement recalls the works of Dr. Samuel Smiles, which is absurd. Everyone is agreed that Dr. Smiles's theories are out of date; there is no discredit in saying it of one who was a great author in his time and constructed, out of an indefatigable imagination, an ideal business-figure who dominated the popular mind for many years. But, as I have said, it is agreed that this conception is out of date, and for that reason it is absurd to suppose that the business-man, who is always progressive, always a day ahead, should still cherish it. Unless

:

one is to assume (as must be done in the case of journalists) that the endeavor to keep half a day ahead in one's news involves the necessity of remaining half a century behind in one's ideas. And a journalist would be loth indeed to assume that the business-man, whom he reveres from afar, is in his own unfortunate predicament. Far rather would he try to believe that the business-man's self-estimate, as set out above, is a sincere and original

summary.

Let us examine it in what Bovrier called a plastic spirit. Business-qualities, then, are briefly to be described as consisting of method and industry, and of these industry can hardly be claimed as a prerogative of business and the business-man. Carlyle's much quoted definition of genius,-"An infinite capacity for taking pains"-though it has been rejected with contumely by more than one genius, can scarcely be monopolized by the city merchant. Industry is a thing common, or uncommon, to the whole human race, no matter what their avocation. Some farmers are industrious, and many artists; an idle politician is an unknown phenomenon, possibly owing to the infallible working of the Whip system. But it may be argued that industry is not less, and, if possible, is even more persistent in the business-man. Anyone who has had the fortune to walk into a merchant's office a dozen times might be considered a judge of that matter. I venture to say that such a person will have noticed, a dozen times, that half the clerks were sucking their pens. No doubt they were not idling; they were only waiting,-waiting for the mail very likely, or for the head of the firm to drop in and look through the mail. If they were idling when there was something to do, then the business-man might triumphantly assert that he had made good his claim, inasmuch that the one or two worthy clerks, who kept

writing diligently, were the real men, who would some day (to use Matthew Arnold's phrase) be at the head of that concern. It may be so; but there is a popular, if vague impression, that the firm of Jones does not become, as a rule, the firm of Jones and Robinson (the worthy clerk) but the firm of Jones and Son. And it would be difficult to persuade even the unpractical layman that the son of Mr. Jones, by virtue of his relationship, will always and inevitably be found to be the one solitary diligent worker in an office full of clerks.

cannot, as

If success in business seems probable, be attributed to industry, except in so far as industry is always a factor in every kind of success, it behoves us next to consider method. Now method is one of the vaguest things under the sun. It is doubtful whether anything ever was accomplished without method,-from an impressionist landscape to a representation of the unmethodical Hamlet -seeing that method means more or less the following out of a purpose in a reasonably suitable way. But the business-man would claim so much more of method than the ordinary man that it amounts almost, it would seem, to a difference in kind. Methodical in business-sense was the merchant who, observing that one of his clerks had affixed a stamp crooked upon an envelope, remarked: "Young man, there is a right way of doing things and a wrong way of doing things; bring me a kettle"; and he forthwith proceeded to affix the stamp straight. Yet, admirable though this is as an extreme example of method, it cannot be used to show that a business-man is in any true sense more methodical in his ways of thought than the man who may never have entered an office in his life. The methodical clerk writes copperplate such as the methodical artist could not write. The methodical artist

a

paints pictures such as the methodical clerk could not paint. The truth is that method is no more peculiarly the monopoly of the business-man than industry is, and when they claim these two qualities as making up practical business-habits, they, in short, delude themselves. There remains nevertheless a conviction that self-delusion in a business-man does not greatly matter. He is not concerned with selfanalysis, and if he is deluded in his theory of himself, it was only to be expected. So far from pluming himself on theory, he derides it, and his delusion is therefore a matter of no consequence. Also, beneath the words industry and method, there probably lies a conception of the business-man which makes him what he is, what he proves himself in practice to be. Let the verbal logic slip, and look at the business-man in action. Is he not practical? Is he not, to use a cant modern phrase, efficient?

At any rate he himself thinks that he is efficient. He has the belief in himself that goes with greatness. Faced with the decrease of English trade, he refers disparagingly, as I have said, to Trades-Unions, to cricketing clerks, and to eight-hour days for an explanation. He does not refer disparagingly to himself. On the contrary, nothing is more noticeable than the manner in which the English business-man has of late been vaunting himself at the expense of other men, particularly of Government officials. A business Cabinet, a business WarOffice, a bureaucracy of business-men generally, these are ideals for the lack of which he is compelled to see his country suffer, and to suffer himself not silently. He is not alone in his lamentations, it must be confessed; nor is he alone in imagining himself to be the only possible substitute. As they listen to him his unpractical fellowcountrymen are impressed, and even

statesmen give him their adherence. The fascination of the incomprehensible subdues them, until they also raise the cry of "Wanted, businessmen and business-habits!" It is the desire of the moth for the light. But what is the light?

I would not endeavor to minimize the value of the business-man by undertaking a defence of Government offices, which can afford to take a good deal of punishment and still come up smiling. But it does seem almost pertinent to point out that in many respects a Government office is conducted on principles far more conducive to efficiency than the principles prevailing among business-offices. Two in particular are easy of indication, and go to prove beyond any doubt that English business-men might have great difficulty in showing their own assumed superiority in practice.

To take the first,-the principle of nepotism.. The custom of parental succession in Government service was long ago condemned by business-men, as being one of the most fertile causes of inefficiency. Perhaps it has not yet entirely vanished, but what of the beam in the eye of the business-man? There may be a thousand and one sentiments, connected with the hallowedness of private property, to excuse the Englishman for making his business a family concern; but nothing surely could be more absurd than for such a sentimentalist to flaunt his own practical methods in the face of a Government service where nepotism, even though it may occasionally be encouraged, is on principle disowned.

The second matter in which the Government clearly proves itself more practical is in the tests it insists upon before admitting anyone to its employ. Business-men stand almost alone in seeming unable to appreciate the value of fitting the man to the task. What tests they do employ are of the most

elementary description, with the consequence that the merchant's clerk is the most untrustworthy worker to be found in any service. The amazing thing is that it is on this slovenly and antiquated method of arriving at their assistants that they are most apt to plume themselves. They pick their clerks as a gardener picks currants, and call themselves practical. Yet perhaps it is not so amazing as it seems, considering the opinion they hold concerning their own qualities; for if 1 have analyzed them correctly, they omit to allow for the one thing that economists have declared essential, the trained intelligence arising from education. Economists have set it forth; but everybody, excepting only our business-men, have seen the truth of it in its general aspect. The "unbusinesslike" Government service has gone further. Many decades ago Lord Macaulay drew up his famous Civil Service scheme, which is based on the assumption that to get to the top of a ladder, every man need not start at the bottom,-in other words, that there is quality of intelligence, as well as quantity of training, and that efficiency is best attained by putting the square peg in the square hole. It was not to be expected that the business-man of the time, serenely contemplating his own well-seeming portrait according to Dr. Smiles, should be able to discern such a refinement of the truth. Perseverance and method, he was being assured, would bring him to the top in any event. But business-men are supposed to move, however slowly, with the times, and it scarcely seems exacting to expect the present generation of them to divert their Narcissus-like gaze from their own superiority to what is not only truth but business. The British Narcissus fading away into an American is a prospect calculated to alarm more people than Mr. Stead.

I hope that I exaggerate in saying

that English business-men are not practical. Not for a moment would I suggest that they are in the habit of flinging themselves hotly after vain ideals. No, that would be paying the man who snores the compliment of calling him a dreamer. Our Equites have never been idealists, unless may be in the time of Elizabeth; the more reason then for their being sternly practical, which it is to be feared they are not. Let us look once more at this vital matter of education. Many philosophers hold that a general education is the best, because it trains a man to use his intelligence. To effect that training is the object of universities such as Oxford and Cambridge, and in the belief that such a training is effected it is among their members that Government recruits for the Indian Civil Service, perhaps the finest service in the world, and for the higher and more responsible branches of the Home Civil Service. the attitude of business-men? It is the precise opposite; they will have nothing to do with the universities. A man who looks for a post in the City on the strength of a university education is considered laughable. Can he keep accounts and manage a type-writer? If not, what does he mean by his application? The lad of fifteen who can do these things is of infinitely greater value. So, with a sneer at useless and unpractical knowledge, these men reject the "fine flower of Balliol." They know their own business best, they say.

What is

Unfortunately they do not know the business of the universities, which is not so much to impart knowledge, useless or otherwise, as to train the intelligence. It would be absurd to say that a man holding a university degree is necessarily a man of trained intellect. Indeed, the universities continue to make the mistake of stamping with the same ball-mark.-the degree of Master of Arts-alike those who have

worked for Honors and those who have lounged through the Pass Schools. It is a concession to the leisured classes, an assurance to anxious parents. that their young hopefuls have for the space of three years or so been as good as gold; but it is none the less a mistake. For it results in an impression on the general public that the immaculate young man is the best specimen of university training, which, from the point of view of practical ability, he is not, and stultifies the really trained man by apparently identifying him Iwith the other. Of course the city merchant cannot be expected to know that a university man who has taken Honors has had as practical a training as this country affords; and he certainly is not likely to arrive at the knowledge by enquiring if the University applicant knows bookkeeping or writes copper-plate. These are not tests of practical ability, of the capacity for mastering routine work; they are merely mechanical acquirements, and attest nothing except that a man has acquired the necessary mechanism. But business is not a mechanical matter, though it may require a certain proportion of human machines. Bookkeeping is an excellent requisite in the man who is going to keep books all his days, but to consider it essential to the business-man is to put business on the level of organ-grinding, which it is not. In other trades the fact of a mechanical acquirement is taken simply for what it is, namely, a fact. In journalism editors do not inquire of their future leader-writers if they can write shorthand, for they recognize that shorthand-writing is a thing in itself. Very practical men may acquire it, but the acquisition takes so many years that it finds its value as a speciality, leading to nothing but its own practice. Shorthand writers have been known to move on to some other branch of journalism, such as editing, but no editor

would hope to get a position because he once wrote shorthand.

But

But again, there is a kind of idea among business-men that there is something in the atmosphere of their offices that breeds practical ability. The youth who came in on the strength of his copper-plate at a tender age is supposed to have picked up a mysterious capacity that in after times entitles him to become, let us say, a managing clerk. It is a charming and romantical idea that from the persevering copying of letters in a good round hand springs a mind, the Business Mind. It lends a glory to the dusty office; it transfigures the high uncomfortable stool; it betrays an idealism worthy of the Golden Age. Alchemists were supported by no more ingenuous and delightful belief. then alchemists were mistaken; and it is to be feared that business-men are also mistaken. For why should a business mind spring from a practice of copper-plate? What is this magical creative power in the ledger? And how does it come about that the boy who was put into an office because he did no work at school, and could not there be accused of intelligence, has blossomed in ten years into a practical business-man, while his brother perhaps, who, being intelligent, was sent on to a university, is at the end of the same period,-a period of strenuous training as opposed to commonplace routine to be considered incapable and unbusiness-like?

Perhaps it is unfair to ask these questions. Why extort its secret from the rose, or nip in the bud the businessman's romance? It is sufficient to point out that the belief does not tally with any known facts concerning the working of the human mind, and is consequently untrue, or else,-a thing which no business-man would allow-that "business-like" means comparatively unintelligent. The dilemma, when it is presented in these terms, is usually, I

think, evaded by the production of a counter-dilemma, on the horns of which Government Service is impaled as a victim. Why, ask the businessmen, are Government offices, which exact these hypothetically excellent tests before engaging their employés, why are they so frequently mismanaged? How is it that these well examined officials are so blind as to mistake catsmeat for cavalry mounts? I think that there are three sufficient answers: (1) that a Government office, being subjected to publicity, has all its failings exhibited and exaggerated in a fashion that makes them appear worse than they really are,-that is to say, they are not so mismanaged as business-men make out, and considerably less mismanaged than many business-firms that enjoy a comparative privacy of liquidation; (2) that the heads of Government offices are still generally men who went in under the old system,-by accident or favor, on the business-man's system, in fact-in other words, that mismanagement is due to the not yet superannuated survivors of the old time and of the ever-green business-habits; (3) that the one advantage, if it be an advantage, that business-men have over Government officials, namely self-interest, the enthusiasm of the individual for his own success, is an advantage in the nature of things and cannot be criticised any more than a proposition of Euclid. That is why it is absurd to talk of a business Cabinet, if business be used in the ordinary sense. You may put business-men into a Cabinet or into any Government office, but they will no longer be business-men. They will be State officials, quit of the motive of self-interest, and possibly none the worse for that. Only that is another question. The point is that English business-men cannot defend their scorn of educational training by any proof of its inefficiency in the Govern ment Service.