CASUISTRY OF CHEATING.

Dunstan Times, Issue 258, 5 April 1867, Page 3

CASUISTRY OF CHEATING.

(From the " Spectator. ") j Fraud by fa'se weights is a very f.iirple i. matter, but them are cases ia business in which it takes m acute as vn l! as an honest man to fco on which e.de the riqhfc 3 lies. Jlov far bos a man a right to deprive another of his property by availing , himself of the other's ignore ce. Clearly, i | every moralist replica, "Kone at all."

Very good ; but put that proposition to ' the test, <; 1 know from minute .study j ami miu,h' with America, ' that tberjs is i 6 move chance of the reps-, j diatiou of America j Lunds, than of the! repudiation of Consols Am I not robbing Jjhn Smith, who has no such knowledge, whe*i 1 buy bonds which he is selling iu a panic at half their value]'' All business men will laugh at the suggestion, ai d insist diere is a tacit contract in every market that the purchaser may use special information ; which would be quite satisfactory, if the seller always, knew who the purchaser was. I3ut he doesn't, ar.d the buyer is really taking advantage of the other's ignorance, is playing with loaded dice, lie is still more visibly doing this if he- has organised means of information which no other buyer can possess, as many world wide firms undoubtedly have, Wheie is the limit in this case between honesty and dishonesty? Suppose a firm pays for piivate telegrams about cotton, hears that cotton has dropped, 'and so.ls its stick. That is considered fair. But s.ippoae it has private telegrams about- its ships, and insures them after they are lost, that is considered unfair—is indeed a theft. Where is the moral difference between the two cases'] It lies no doubt, in the tacit consent of the general market that any advantage obtainable through the fair use of brains, or energy, or money is part of the contract, as much as the judgment which enables one man to buy at an auction successfully where another one would fail. i>at the extent of this tacit contract is by no means always to be' recognised. Suppose a man knows that a bank in which lie is a shareholder is absolutely insolvent, has lie a right to sell shares to a man who dues not know it, and thereby nut only put off his own loss bat put on to the buyer and off himself a liability which he knows has been already incurred 1 We cannot see it. The tacit contract covers the use of a man's judgment, but not the concealment of positive knowledge. Vet the business world would consider tho 3alc rather an adroit! piece of business titan otherwise, is, we fre'ely admit, compelled to tolerate it, or suspend dealing i:i shares altogether. '1 ae I itly it affirms that tho morality of Christi-!

anity, find indeed of natural religion, is ; one tiling, and business molality quite a ; nother ; and the lecturer who attacks buy- j irschs frauds, Lao to ilea! with th;tt aSrma- I tion, and as a rule does not. It ia of lio j use telling a man who i. a tra- saction of this sort that he is breaking the moral code, without first convincing him : that there can be but one ; that he lias no ! more right to use aUsolutc knowledge to j j pillage another dealer than !.<• has to play j j whist while looki g i'.to a glass which re j ficcls his partner's hand, if the player : | old . ot put the glass there l:o would not j i be exactly a sharper, but if he did i ot in- ; ! form his adversaries he would be accused, ] ! very unjustly of unfair pipy. The r-tcrct' I a:;siv ; 'v cl business men is that bucine?s is j ! one thing and rcligio.i another, 'ike real j point ia to be settled before lectures can [ be of any use ia whether the Christian morality on '■ meum" and ,; tuuui" is bind iug in the operations of commerce. If it is, as we believe, let us all say so, heedless of .commercial ridicule, and bring our laws into some sort of accord with that; if it i s not, let us first settle what the law is before we denounce vaguely those who break it. Till that ia settled, we are all talking good things in one language to people who only in derstand another ; or at best doing as the missionaries too otic i do in li dia—abusing idolatry because there is but o e God, as if the idolater did not acknowledge that as an abstract proposition just a; fully as the.missionary himself. .Of all delusions, the belief that the professioi al code of morals may justifiably contradict the religious code is perhaps the widest spread and the most injurious, and until we.recognise alike its existenco end its falsity, we are but boating the: air.