Other formats

    Adobe Portable Document Format file (facsimile images)   TEI XML file   ePub eBook file  

Connect

    mail icontwitter iconBlogspot iconrss icon

The Pamphlet Collection of Sir Robert Stout: Volume 42

II.—Business Is Business

II.—Business Is Business.

Study to do your own business, and to work with your own hands."

1 Thess. iv. 11.

All occupations may be classified under Production, Manufactures, and Distribution. This division may be illustrated from domestic life—where the gardener produces, the cook manufactures, and the housemaid distributes. Clerks and professional men belong actively, though indirectly, to some or other of these classes. Bankers are mostly distributors; clerks must be ranked with the occupations of those they assist. To a large extent the same is true of doctors and lawyers; and here let me say that the help the medical and legal practitioners give to the poor is wonderful. Of course with them as with others business is business, but the longer they work and the larger their practice the deeper and readier appears their sympathy with the sick and the hampered poor. Teachers and professors—though the latter are often unfairly depreciated as almost useless ornaments—are occupied in distributing when they impart the knowledge acquired, in manufacturing when they draw out the minds of their pupils, and in producing when they contribute original materials of their own. The clergy are a class almost by themselves. Some will tell you they are mostly busy doing nothing, or spinning threads of speculation to catch the unwary who don't "think for themselves." I, at least, am not likely to concur in this opinion. Where there is no established church; the clergy as a rule are in sympathy with progress, and their hearts are warm to the common people. They do deal with things ethereal and invisible, but their office extends beyond and through the emotions they enkindle and the thoughts they suggest, about God, duty, and eternity to the affairs of common life. If a clergyman rightly knows his calling, he will bring the most awful and majestic truths to bear upon the simplest and most every-day matters. Whenever he commends a great principle to the reason, stirs some sympathy with it in the hearts of men, marks off clearly the lines of moral conduct, restores them that are penitent to self-respect, and moderates the excitements of joy or sorrow, he raises the efficiency and standard of men, and so contributes his share to the business of the country.

This review presents two important facts: all workers have to do with Production, Manufactures, or Distribution, and these three are closely dependent on and page 8 contributory to one another. Business is a means of communication of unity and strength. By remote ramifications and intricate reticulations it knits society into a vast organic whole. In this light business assumes an important place in the interests of mankind; it is a potent factor in human life, and Christianity cannot ignore it. Business is business.

This is very different from the condition of semi-barbarous people whose main occupations are fighting and hunting. Then each man's life was almost self-contained. In the words of a doggerel, children chant over their cherry stones. He was "Tinker, tailor, soidier, sailor, apothecary, ploughboy, and thief." At least he often stole some girl's heart when he did not carry her off by force. This custom is a very ancient one, and still subsists, though modified; nor is this kind of theft likely to be dropped so long as the prizes are so attractive and valuable. The delight in this freebootery, its accomplishment and issues, play a large part in the promotion and maintenance of business. There is an old story of a producer who was managing his uncle's sheep-run. For fourteen years the drought consumed him by day and the frost by night, and it seemed as nothing for the love he had to the squatter's daughter. It is often so; it is right it should be so; no girl deserves winning that does not stimulate the labour and control the efforts of her admirer. Nor does this influence on business close with marriage; it is greater. The snug home—its sweet felicities—the weanies tumbling in—the boys and girls growing up—all domestic ties in fact—keep men ever at work with a fond purpose. The well-being of society and the joys of family life make business business.

Business is also a means of personal culture. It raises the man by exercising and sharpening his natural faculties. No man can put an ox into the market with small head, straight back, heavy flanks, thick dew-lap, sleek coat, and with flesh tender, juicy, and sweet, who has not himself grown in the process. No man can gather and compose the materials of a boot—leather, sprigs, elastics, and whatnot—and turn out an article that fits to a nicety, has a spring in the sole, and turns the damp, without consideration of qualities, shapes, and so forth. In that consideration his mind grows firm and compact. The draper who stands behind the counter must have in memory what goods are in stock, where they are placed, what they are used for; and in addition, the ready tact which detects and uses for persuasion the character of everyone that comes to buy. There is scope here for a very high education. I knew a man once, who brought up all his sons through the drapery, "for," said he, "it is the best business training I know for a young man." You have heard perhaps of the graceful saying of a worthy man: "To have known her was a polite education." So a man may use, ought to use, his business as part and pared of the training and discipline of life—to look on it as such, and in that light to remember its value, "Business is Business."

Now in all I have said so far I do not think I have used the words money, wealth, riches, property. I have purposely avoided them. For it is the linking of business with money and money only that I want to protest against though I hope in a fair and reasonable manner.

Money is of no value in itself—only as a means of creating true wealth. Yet, so infatuated do men become in its pursuit that they think of little else than their gains and accumulations, and nothing of their own personal culture, the happiness of the family, and the well-being of the general community. It is usually in this spirit that men say: "Business is Business."

"Business is Business," says the Cape trader, and cheers Sir Bartle Frere on in the Zulu war. "Business is Business," says the Manchester man, and crushes the Hindoo with a taxation that helps Cottonopolis. "Business is Business," says the swindler who scamps his work. "Business is Business," says Mr. Gladgrind, who takes his breakfast with the city article, sticks to his desk till dewy eve, "goes back to office," takes no rest, gives none, and even on Sunday morning prefers a quiet hour in the counting-house to anything. "I've no time for the family—for books. I made a thousand last year; I shall not do less this in spite of bad times. I stick to work. I do. Business is business. That's my motto." What of the far-reaching and elevating influence of business? He never thinks of it to be glad in it. What of home? His wife gets her weekly allowance and partial desertion; his children schooling with paternal neglect. What of himself? The special faculties are trained to monstrosity. "Business is Business."

Christ never censured the honest occupations of men. He Himself had wrought at the gates, windows, and ploughs needed by his neighbours at Nazareth; page 9 Matthew was a custom-house officer; John was joint proprietor of a fleet of fishing smacks; Paul was proud to support himself by weaving haircloth. Christ never forbade money-getting; He taught that the labourer was worthy of his hire. But, as became the doctrine of one who would make man perfect by controlling his whole life, He counted money but means to an end, and businsss but a part of life. And the double charge we make against the men who adopt "Business is Business" as their sole motto, is that they ignore the social, domestic, and personal relations of business itself, and wholly exclude the claims of religion. Were this done solely at the cost of the delinquents alone, they might be left to their own folly; but it is done to the injury of commerce at large, the deterioration of families, the stunting of their own growth, and the damage of religion. By getting and by spending they lay waste their powers.

One manifestation of this narrow spirit is seen in the late hours prevailing in-certain quarters; clerks "go back at night" to Bond street, and shops are open in George and King streets till 9 o'clock or later. So general has night work been in brisk times that young men have made it the cant excuse for not being at home; and so common is it still that the usual reply to enquiries will be: "There are plenty of houses do it; so-and-so and so-and-so, but not our firm—except for stocktaking and mails." You may infer from this that "Messrs. So-and-so" occupy a large number of different warehouses and that stock is taken nearly every week The following figures show the extent of late closing on a Monday evening after half-past six, from the centre of the city to its Northern end:—

From Octagon to Knox Church. From Knox Church to Water-of-Leith
Open. Closed. Open. Closed.
Drapery 12 3 7 0
Millinery and fancy goods 12 2 6 1
Boots 16 0 9 1
Tailoring, &c 7 0 7 0
Grocery 3 8 14 0
Provisions 24 1 25 5
Furniture 20 6 17 2
Various 32 2 13 5
Hotels 11 0 7 0
Total, 278; open, 242; closed, 36.

It is sometimes argued in behalf of long hours that "They were longer when we were lads at home," and "If the young fellows were not back to business they would be doing something worse." But two wrongs do not make a right; we should strive to improve on "forty years since;" we came out here to be better off; and the system has much to answer for in the tendency it promotes towards sensational amusements. When jaded youth have short moments only for recreation, they will force into them as much excitement as possible.

This evil is increased in the warehouses by a bad organization of the staff and the books, by leading hands "going out" with customers, and by the juniors larking and skulking. In the shops, it is caused by want of good-will among the traders, by the almost uniform practice among servants and mechanics' wives of purchasing at night, and by the influx of country custom on Saturday night through cheap and late trains.

The evil can be lessened. When merchants are making over £3000 a year—and John Bright says a man is at a loss how to spend more—he is in a position to add a clerk or two to his staff without injury to himself: and some firms have made their £10,000 even in bad times. Two cases show that the matter is feasible:—A head of department always had his juniors back; during his absence for some months the principal was in charge and they were not required to return; on the re-appearance of the manager, the old practice revived. In another house a leading man was ordered by his doctors to stay at home at night. Before this though in health, he had always been back. After this, though delicate, he was able to do all his work in business hours. Let the governors have a sufficient staff and then insist on the work being done within the hours or dismiss the hands; and, in these dull times the hands will put the work through rather than lose a billet. In the retail trade, the purchasers are the chief sinners. Workmen, who get paid on Wednesday and have the evening to themselves, might have some page 10 thought for those behind the counters. Mistresses might easily arrange for their domestics to have an occasional afternoon in exchange for the usual "night out,", and then the shop-keepers might arrange among themselves to close at nine on Saturday, six on other days, and have a half-holiday on Wednesday or Thursday. Let the Early Closing Association be supported in their agitation and the movement will soon spread, though by degrees. For it is becoming known that good workmen in short hours turn over the best profits to the employers.

"Business is Business. Even in its widest sense this axiom, touching society, home, self-confidence, and wealth, does not cover all our relations. The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath; so business was made for man, not man for business. You must not sink your manhood in its pursuit, its objects, and occupations. This is often done to the neglect of the highest interests of a man; his relations to his Father in heaven and the future beyond the grave. Religion is Religion. We are told in one of those inimitable stories of Eastern life, which abound in the words of Jesus, how a feast was made, friends were invited, but at the time they all with one accord began to make excuses. What were the excuses the invited guests urged for their refusal? "Business is Business." For one said, "I have bought a yoke of oxen and go to prove them," He was making money. Another said, "I have bought a section and am going to look at it." He was in-vesting his money. A third said, "I have married a wife and cannot come." Well, he was spending his money. Is not that story true to-day? The feast is in the home of Divine Love; its pleasures are in the friendships of a Heavenly Father; and yet the getting, saving, and spending of money keep men from the marriage supper of the Lamb. "Business is Business" hustles out of life "Religion is Religion." The truest manhood is not with those whose investments are large, whose transactions are world-wide, and whose wealth is enormous. It is with those who, whatever their business and their gains, love God supremely and their neighbours as themselves. The old sentence—"The chief end of man is to glorify God, and enjoy Him forever," must not be forgotten though it is in a catechism. What glory can you render Him whom by forgetfulness, indifference, enmity, and wrong-doing you persistently leave out of all your calculations? How can you enjoy Him for ever who never begin to delight in His service and rejoice in His favour now? But God's own Son has come to reinstate you in your right position as a child of Heaven. Take him as your Redeemer. Make Him your Sovereign Guide. Money shall then take its proper place as an instrument of righteousness; your own character shall be developed all round; your home shall be more delightful; commerce shall be expanded and purified; while the vistas of eternity shall open broad, clear, and beautiful to the glance of your peaceful trust in the Redeemer. For He that died the just for the unjust to bring us to God, has opened the gates of Heaven to every believer.