How Smith Made His Million— —the Autobiography of the Hour.

Radio Record, Volume I, Issue 2, 29 July 1927, Page 11

How Smith Made His Million— —the Autobiography of the Hour.

This entertaining review-talk was given recently over the air from 4YA by Pastor W. D. More. It deals with the book of the moment-the peculiarly frank and self-revealing .confessions of Sir Joynton Smith, one of Sydney’s millionaires, who spent some of his early days as a steward on New Zealand coasts. The book itself is striking, and the review selects the high spots with excellent judgment. ~

Sir Joynton Smith’s book is an amazingly frank document, quite unlike any other biography or autobiography. It is the diary of a successful modern bustness man, and the means used to gait success are stated as frankly as anything the famous Pepys ever wrote And from cover to cover he book is full. of cynica} chuckles and_ ironic laughter, both at himself and other people. It shonld be said that Sir Joynton Smith is still very much alive, has the reputation of being the most astute business man in Sydney, is a’: member of the New Sonth Wales Legislative Council, and, although the book reveals enongh experietce to flavour the lives of a dozen ordinary men, seems likely to. go on joyfully gathering honey for many a long day vet ine: His Youthful Training. The writer was one of a family of twelve born in London. The, business shrewdness that has made him a millionaire seems to have been inherited from his father His father kept a shop near Whitechapel which was then, as..it is now, near the Jewish ghetto One day an ancient Hebrew ceme into the shop to buy a small sausage ma chine ‘for family use Smith’s father asked him 8s. 9d. Then the haggle be- . gah and he was beaten down to 3s. 6d At this point young Smith took off the selling ticket and fornd the real price was 3s. 8d. After the Hebrew left the bov pointed out his father’s mistake ‘That’s right, Jim,’ the father said. "But you see I thought he would beat me down sixpence, instead of .threepence.’ That seems to have been a lesson the boy who became Sir Joynton Smith never forgot. At the unlucky age of thirfeen he became a pawnbroker’s rouseabout. He worked from 8 a.m until 8 pm., excepting on Saturdavs, when he worked until midnicht. On Sunday afternoon he was allowed to visit his parents Added to which he was expected to sleep on the shop counter and_ work overtime as a burglar alarm. For all this he received half-a-crown a week and his keep. His career as a pawnbroker’s assistant ended, however, very suddenly. He fell down the spout. You have heard pawning things spoken of as "putting them up the spout." It appears the spout was a square funnel, like a lift-. well lined with pigeon holes, and risine the full height of the building. It was young Smith’s duty to carry the pledves up the spout climbing like a motikev, and, when wecessary, fetch them down again. One day his foot slipped, he fell down the spout, and that finished his job. Try Anything Once! At fourteen vears of age he went to sea as a ship’s cook. He didn’t know

anything abont cooking, but that didn’t seem to matter much because, in those days, there was very little in ships, anyway, to be cooked. And it seems’ to have*been a guiding principle m Su Joyuton Smith’s life that a man or boy should be always willing to try any thing once. Rut when he shipped as a cook the crew had to keep on trying his. cooking for a three weeks’ voyage He became famous, or infamous as you please, because he made pancakes ot flour and water paste, and, he says, the men who ate his pancakes were braver than the man who ate the first oyster I don’t know whether he is referrin’ to his own cooking, but he says the man who wanted a rea) shudder in those days had onlv to go'to sea. Per haps he was referring to the cockroaches that swarmed through the old boats. He tells the story of a second engineer wlio awoke one morning with the calloused skin of his feet-soles eaten down to the soft cuticle. The cockroaches had heen having a Lord Mayor’s_ banquet in the night. | It was as third cook on the Christian McAusland that he arrived in New Zealand, landing at Port Chalmers in Octo--ber, 1874. He was then 16 years of age, Some of my Scotch listeners-in will be interested in his first impressions of Dunedin. He savs: "You have heard of the Jew who lives in Aberdeen -because he can’t make enough to get out of it. Well, the difference between , | | } | . Dunedin and Aberdeen has always been beyond my power of discrimination. It anything, the natural thriftiness of the Scot has been increased by transplantation to the bleak end of New Zealand No beggar can live there If asked for saxpence he would die of pneumonia from the chilly reception of his request." You can add this to your collection of witticisms on the natural thriftiness of the Scotch, with the same light heart that Henry Ford collects anecdotes concerning his car Envy shows itself in many d:sguises. By paying half-a-crown to Skene’s Labour Agency voung Jovnton Smith got a job) at Dodson’s Hotel in Port Chalmers. From there, however, he went to sea again a$ a steward with the Union Steam Ship Companv. He becaine second steward on the little Maori when she was running between Oamaru, Timaru, and Lyttelton, with monthly trips to the West Coast There are some interesting stories of this period in the biography He says that he never knew what sea-sickness was until

he made the acquaintance of the storiny *oast of the South Island. He says: ‘‘l dossed on the transom behmd_ the steering column in the saloon I re meniber that, when we had a few passengers, we would have a boiled ham to make the menu more attractive. This ham would repose with me-having 4 dish cover over it some of the time On a rough night both the ham and | would be sliding about The mornine after I would arise with slining morn ing face, and have no difficulty in mak ing my hair stay put, so well-greased would it be." And, in the next sen. tetice. he tells us that such of the pas sengers as could eat would eat any thing. Needless information, of course, in the circumstances Another story worth repeating of these old days is of the strategy of the chief steward in keeping down the food bill in the old ‘Taupo " "The little scheme was that of sched uling the run so that the Taupo went through French Pass a few minutes _after one o’clock in the day. Through this straight Pelorus Jack, the famous pilot fish, would lead the ship No sooner were the passengers seated at their mid-day meal than the cry would be raised: ‘French Pass Come and see Pelorus Jack" By the'titwe the passengers came back everything would be cleared off the dining table — Jovnton Smith savs: "I have never known this trick to fail. and have always suspected a certain Steam Ship Companys of having a hand in getting the snecial Act of Parliament passed which protected the great asset it had in this fish." Money in Hotels. In the twenties Joynton Smith left — the sea for good. He got married, andat the same time realised what he savs_ is the ambition of every ship’s steward He became a hotel-keeper He boucht the Prince of Wales Hotel in Grey Street, Wellington for £1500. From that date he describes his life as ‘‘a story of apparent financial audacitv which will sound like a romance." And nobody who reads his book will care to contradict him. . It may interest vou to hear some of his business axioms. He says that if sou have vision, and don’t lose your courage, people will grant vou enof mous credit, and with these three, vis- ion, courage, and credit, all things are possible. . Ife savs that ‘‘no delusion is more en- ---

during than that the business hardness of a Scot may be softened by whisky He says again "Never have any money to your credit im the bank = 1ti’ yon have you will be apt to try and back winners at the races or to spent it tooléshly on all kinds of unnecessary things’ Always endeavour to make your financial engagements such that vou will be struggling te pay somethin. off, and thus increasing vour genera] as set. That 1s the way to acquire. It keeps you busy and thrifty, aud you are a better citizen tor beimg both" lt is fair to say that this latter advice 1s not his own, but was given to him by Mr. T. G Macarthy, of Wellington, to. whose friendship he .ives credit for hr | ainazing financial success. The same gentleman gave him this advice also "Always pay the little people in business They cannot afford to be out of their money, and the) make more trouble than the big cred tors. It is the small unpaid accounts that injure a man’s credit most, and credit is the greatest asset a business: man has" He defines credit as the sott of confidence the Irishman _ had who went to a debtor and said :-‘*Look here, I want my monev At least it you haven’t got it I want it, but if vou have got it any time will do" And this also: ‘If vou are doing well always pull a poor mouth." But Joyn ton Smith, being the genial egoist he is, says he has never heen able to fol low the last maxim himself How to Lose Systematically. After four years m his hotel, and at 28 years of age, he was worth £10,000 Then he sold his business and sailed for England with a perfectly infallible system for making a fertune on the Enelish racecourse His comment upon this part of his life is "One advantave about bettinz on a system 1s that von lose your monev systematically ’ In less than a year the sportine life haa soaked up £9000 of Ins fortune, and he was sailing back to New Zealand with £500 with which to start again From that date until now he has belonged tc the order of wise vireins who bank tn their own name the money the foolish virgins put on the "sure things " With his £500 very much the worse for wear-actually reduced to £40- -he arrived in Svdnev and started im busi ness aS an undertaker’s tout His par ticular line was to visit each funeral, stand by the graveside with the mourn -_-- — --

ers, make caretu) notes of the’ names of people in attendance, and the patson’s enlogy of the deceased, write all this down on a htthographed card, then call round at the fouse next day and sell the card for thirty shillings He says that im the twelve months this business existed h made between twenty and thirty pounds a week, and only had two os three retusals Several times durme the autobiography Sir Jovnton Smith hints at his own colossal nerve This last meident mav be takes as an wlustration of the tact. From -undertaker’s tout he became manager of the Grand Central Coffee Palace, Svdnev, at a salary of four pounds per week This is the beginning of a story of financial strategy that puts American high finance inte the infant class, and ends with Joynton Smith a Svdnev. mil‘ionaire a Kmeht of the British Empire, and a member of the Legistative Council of New South Wales. A Story Without a Moral. I have not time to tell the story here, except to sav it 1s written from an entirely original point of view It 1s geniallvy cynical-as Jovnton Smith says himself, "‘Anvbody searching for 4 moral in this biography will have to read one tito it If I were asked to supply one to adorn the narrative, I should probably break all the anons 0 conventional business. For I have found salvation m running into debt" But that is not to be taken too seriouslv 48 these two tast stories will show A voung man waited on foyntoa Smith recentl. and said that he had read his saving that to succeed in business one should alwavs be in debt Because of this he asked for a loan He was told that he had not properly zrasped the principle Jovnton Smith had never implied that anv man should vet inta bis debt On another occasion, as Lord Mayor of Svdnev, Sir Jovnton Smith had to pay an offictal call upon Sir Walter Davidson, the State Governor "My Lord Mavor," said Sir Walter, "T am informed that von are one of the most astute business men in the citv of Svdnev " ‘ "Well, Your Excellency," replied Sir lornton Smith. "1 have heard mvself so rlescribed before And, whenever I do, I invariably button up. because that ‘s how thev all start " The best summary of this b@ok is the one given by the author himself He savs: ‘‘These vagrant recollections are more a comic song of survival than a Psalm of Life Anvbody who expects to see me pickine my wav to higher things on stepping stones of my dead: ‘self is herehy toly warned that he wilt he disappomted J am proud to think that T have never been a dead one, nor "have T backed any but triers " -y SSL OTC STE CTC ETC EC ECE CE Ms