The Stratford Evening Post. WITH WHICH IS INCORPORATED THE EGMONT SETTLER. SATURDAY, MARCH 15, 1913. IDEALISM AND BUSINESS.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXV, Issue 62, 15 March 1913, Page 4

The Stratford Evening Post. WITH WHICH IS INCORPORATED THE EGMONT SETTLER. SATURDAY, MARCH 15, 1913. IDEALISM AND BUSINESS.

Idealism and business are discussed in the Pall Mall of recent date in connection with the conferring of the Legion of Honour on Madame Paquiu, head of the renowned firm of Paris dross-makers, the writer holding that the knighthood of Sir Arthur Liberty supplies a sufficiently dose English parallel, to the distinction which has fallen upon the renowned French costumier. To the world generally a gieat business is simply a piece of machinery which sells goods, pays wages, and places its proprietor in a position of enviable comfort. There would be a certain amount of inconvenience if it were to stop, just as there would be if anything went wrong with the lighting arrangements of a town or city'. Put people remain practically indifferent to the owner of the great factory or stores. 1 he Pall Mall asks: “How far is this lack of recognition an injustice to the business man ? It seems to be very much a question of how far ho him-

sdf is a personality or a machine. The man who lives simply to make money, to see that profits flow into his own pocket instead of into his neighbour’s, has obviously no right to complain if ho is ignored. There are so, many million units of humanity, each absorbed in the task of ‘paddling his own canoe,’ that no reverence is due to those who are merely doing the same as their neighbours, though they are doing it more successfully. There must be an element of unselfish idealism, a distinctive impulse of creation, a motive in some way separable from that of material wealth, to interest' people hi tiio personality of those I "ho follow a ‘business’ career. Their work, so to speak, must bo ‘expressive’ of something over and above the

ac-fiumtive propensity. As everyone Ivnmvs, tliere are a very large number ot l,HS,ne »s men who are both generous and public-spirited. They gi ve and they work freely for the common pood. If the business man as a type con tin ups to encounter disparage/ ment, it is very likely because he lads to give these disinterested impulses a clearer expression in his pulse s a clearer expression in his business. We are not speaking of mere benevolence, but of that gen-

eral embodiment of personality which can he recognised in the work of the artist, the soldier, the professional man, or the handicraftsman.” Finally the proposition is summed up that the operations of business, however large, seldom impress the community as distinctive or make the public

think of the character and personality behind them. This is the barrier which commerce has to negotiate in its progress acl astra. Some manage to surmount it, and their example may show how it is done. One thing is certain—that every class must create its own standing in the community. The “dignity of business” must be the achievement of the business man.