The Wairarapa Daily. WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 19, 1887. COMMERCIAL MORALITY.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume IX, Issue 2504, 19 January 1887, Page 2

The Wairarapa Daily. WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 19, 1887. COMMERCIAL MORALITY.

Two examplesof commercial turpitude have lately been paraded in the Wellington law courts and tend to Bhow that in the Empire City the present status of commercial morality is rather a low one. It is not only the instances .vhich come before the oourts, but ugly rumors which are constantly being circulated of trade defaulters, and of chicanery with public companies, confirm the more direct evidences. No doubt.th© rapid expansion of business in the Empire City during the last few. -ears has enoouraged the operations of adventurers, and opened' up a-wide leld'of speculation for men of straw, The', consequences of such conditions ■mist in the'long' run prove'disastrous o' the interests.of Wellington. ; In vain avo scandals hushed up, arid untrustworthy traders permitted year after year, to operate on the unwary, shielded" by a thin but •taansparent veneer of respectability.; -in time the i '.* rash comes, and tho delay which precedes it only increases the'magnitude of tho disaster. 'The torio of common rial moraUty.in .Wellington does not mm to be sufficiently high to chock j reckless trading, to discredit adventurers, to .expose fraud, or to protect •?-gitimatetrade. ■, There is a rgpresen'ative body, in tho shape of a Chamber d Commerce,,which once put its foot on questionable transactions, but which now appears almost indifferent to the, honor and fair fame of the Empirl City traders. Such a body ought to bisa vigilance committee, to purgo the flross from'the mercantile ranks of the ity, That it has been wanting in lis' respect is evident from the ill imputation the Empire City is fast ob. turning. The only excuse for such sandals as have recently gone the .' junds of the press, to theieirimerit yf the city, is the rapid andftlfflost

phenomenal • growth •of business. No other town in the colony has mado so marked a progress, and its prosperity has naturally attracted many persons who hayo become played out in other centres of population, and who, while they have,nothing to lose, can afford ! W take any kind.of chances.': If the. Chamber of' Commerce 'i3 top much ■permeated with undesirable elements to fulfil its proper f auctions, we trust the 'honorable and' unimpeaohablo traders of the Empire City ;viil disconnect themselves from it and constitute some piyer and.morejeliable commercial organisation. There are, we know,, ■sheep as well as goats in the EmpireCity, and the sooner a line of sepaia-. tion between them is drawn, the be'tter it will be for tho oommeroial interests of the capital of New Zealand.