Conclusion.

It cannot be expected that a single pen, unaided, is powerful enough to effect so great a reform as the one which constitutes the subject of this paper. But all reforms have small beginnings, and I have faith enough to believe that these remarks will set a certain circle of readers thinking, with the result that perhaps a first step in the desired direction will soon be taken.

Let commercial men consider the question in this way:—It is only a question of degree; accounts may be paid for either at once or not at all. These are the widest extremes that it is possible to imagine. I maintain that it is better to liquidate them at the moment they are incurred than to allow them to run on and increase and become so old and forgotten that they stand a chance of never being paid at all. This is the text of my address. I invite the serious attention of men who occupy public positions in the colony to it, feeling sure that a reform of some kind is urgently needed, and that this is the best and simplest way of bringing it about.