The Question of Wealth-Getting

Te Aroha News, Volume VI, Issue 287, 4 August 1888, Page 5

The Question of Wealth-Getting

Rlv. Dr. How u;d Ckosuy points out some of the evils mining fiorn an o\ui haste to get rich. His style of discussion may be infeuecl from the following passage : Some of the .Evils. Andthi-biings us Ld anotlici evil \vi ought on the public by the haste to <iot licii. It evidently leads toctooked dealing, in so c:\citing a chaae an advantage is not to be missed bcca'JS'j ot ;i little question ot right and wiong. A lie here, a cheat thcie, these are the ever\-day oceuncuces by which to gob mound the neighbour, or the custom house or the stockholder. A biibe well placed i.« a stroke of genius. Employee- aie tiained in thedeecption,and the community is morally coaupted. Lcgi-latoib, whom we t usfc for our laws, boe.mic the paid servant^ ot the gold huntci-> and justice i-^ polluted in our court-. The madness that po a ?e.-f-ts the man who i<; chasing alter wealth knows no bounds. His moial code is completely set aside in the sphoie ol his money-making. l J iinciple> that he would count most impoi bant in a theoiy of moiah are wholly inoperabhe in Ins financial i career. i He slaughteis widows and oiphans with hi 5 riscal s«woid ; he lemoi'-elessly sen<'s his rival to paupeiism and suicide ; he maiiufactuies fal^e stock and seizes upon illt^al dividends, and he uses the contidence of the unsuspecting tor their niin. This system, i at/idly Growing upon us, is ]>oisonin^ the whole public body, and making lying and stealing and fraud, subjects ol merriment where they should be provocatives of indignation and letribution. So possessed is the public mind of this idea of our model n money-hunters that even the perfectly in° nocent man of wealth cannot escape the imputation that his money was gotten by ways that are dark. The people have almost come to believe that wealth implies great rascality. It is a very fa he judgment, and yet the icason for it is in the evident rascality with which so many have grasped their cold. The injuiy done to the family io also an injury to the State, for the fami y is the unit of the State. Whcie the men of a family aie in the wild puisuib of wealth the basis of family ailection and morality cannot exist. That basi» is mutual conference and intimate confidence. But the goldchase gives no time tor this. The man is a sort of boaider in his ou n house. He flits in and out like a stranger. His heait is elsewhere. Ho wife and children aie without their proper guide and stay. They seek for amusement in questionable quaiteis. They find othei centres than the home. The husband (house-bond, if that be the right origin of the wcid), is nob in his place, and the household is disintegrated. Disorders of every sort enter such -a family, and the inciease of wealth only intensifies the symptoms.