GOOD MEN OF BUSINESS.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XIV, Issue 38, 13 February 1879, Page 4

GOOD MEN OF BUSINESS.

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"Let your pledge J word be sacred," says tie notorious Mr Barnuoi in b'is undeniable shrewd "rules for success." "Whatever jou do, do with all your might. . . . Ambition, eoer°y, ioduetrv, perseverance, are iudinpei^fll oly requisite for success in business. Do not scatter your powers, but enga^ in one kinJ of business and sink to it Do not depeod on others. Your euc cees must depend on your own Individual exertions," and fio on. Take (lie first hundred •• euccfssful men of business to be found in the city, and (he probability is that not ten of that hundred will even approximata to the standard here get up. The test of a successful man in the commercial woild is of course the wealth he manages to accumulate, and nothing cao. be mora evident than that in bueioesa the makioe of moaey is often the result ( f neither industry, nor energy, CO r perpereeverance, nor scrupulous adherence <o pledges given, nor to any other of the nomeroua virtues with which a lirar-rate man of bueineee ought lo be armed from head to foof, according (o mil writer?, ancient as well as modern. Anyone with a fair knowledge of the world and its business men would fiod no difficulty in bringing forward plenty of instances which aeem to aire the lie to all the old time-honored saws and maxima on the subject*— instances of men who are always in a muddle, always mokiog blunders, always behind time, never display the least energy or activity, and whose perseverance under discouragement could not be relied on for ten minutes, but who, neveitlielees, thrive and grow rich ; while the prompt and punctual, pereverine, anJ accurate man fails, and dies poor." In trying to make out tho secret of Hucceßa cr failurb in any businesa career it la necessary to bear in mind Ihat BhePr luck is often far more poient than a whole armory of virtues for all the purposes of money-making. The man whom fortune favora with a practical monopoly of the sale of indispensable goods, with the control of a market, with a position better than that of all competitors, or with a name lo conjure with, may, laugh and grow fat, und leave commercial virtues, such as energy and promptitude, to those who find the need of them. Many a man has been born to the inheritance of a great business, can figure passably as its head, who by his own exertions and abilities could not have established a ginger-beer stall. Many a man who site in a well-appointed city countiog. house with Lie bell before him wiih which to eummoDß experts, able to decide knotty points, disentangle accounts, orjdictate letter, gains credit for a front place amongst business men, whereaß, if he were judged by his owu individual initiative force, tact, or acutenees, he would be relegated to' tbe rear. A vaßt number of those who pace for good men of business are mere uutouiata, who act creditably because their wires are pulled by those who really are posaesaed of good commercial qualities. It is necessary to distinguish these automata if the old-fashioned iduus of business qualification are not to be discredited in the mind of a critical observer, and we Itarn to look behind them for the men who really embody Che iodispensible qualities of braiu and cbarecter. . Some meu— to parody a famous dictum— wonld appear to have an unusual share of good luck and no business qualification?. They succeed because their good fortune enables them to tide over the effect of mismanagement and blunders which would ruin leea favored individual?, or because they are in a position to command the services of (hose who can direct them. Some have good business abilities but aeem doomed to suffer

The ■Hoga and arrows of outrageous fortune. They sink or swim as fate will have it, or their own energy may be able to' determine. Other men one sometimes meets with in business who seem to have neither luck nor ability, and always remain at low water; while others, agaiD, apparently have both always at command, Fortune invariably fleenaß to befriend them, and they are endowed with just the faculties to enable them to take full advantage of her complaisance. They are the men who, as the Yankees a^e fond of expressing it, " lick creation"— become millionaries and merchant princes, and when they die often leave behind them some admiring biographer, who manages to make their story an altogether exaggerated and fallacious illustration of the power of human effort, of " selfhelp, ' and the force of character — the value of good business qualifications, that is to say. In pronouncing on any man's business cap icity, as indicated hy his achievements, it is necessary to take all these possible combinations of faculty and fortune or misfortune into account. Fortuitous circumstances have much to do with success or failure in business, and accident often places a man in a position into which no special powers ot'J his own would ever have conducted him. A superficial boservation of the business world discovers much that is calculated to discredit the aphorisms and maxims, which past generations have handed down to us. A closer scrutiny, however, is sure to reinvest them with all their force. The automaton at the head of a great concern may present no very impressive illustration of the importance of concentration, of energy, of punctuality, of prompitude, of self-reliance, and so on, but if we look to those behind him upon whom the actual working of the concern devolves, we shall be sore to

fla<l the time-honored commercial virtues pretty strongly represented. Entire devotion determined effort, ready action, accuracy, may be no match for Fortune in her most cantankerous moods, but all other things being equal, tbe man who cannot command these characteristics will have no chance in competition with the one who can.