Oct. 13.
No topic is calling for more attention in business circles today than commercial immorality, und unless we are much mistaken a good deal will be heard of it within the next two or three months. The world is unfortunately is a position where this particular form of immorality, seen principally in the direction of repudiation of contracts, makes a strong appeal to merchants not conspicuously overburdened with scruples; in fact it suggests an easy if not actually a pleasant way out of difficulties, and hence we find more and more reference to it in the world's business organs. The Osaka. Mainichi bestirred itself upon the subject a few days ago, but instead of uttering a warning upon the serious situation which repudiation of contracts is bound to create, it preferred to take up the cudgels on behalf of Japan. It concerned itself more with the position of Japan as an Ishmaelite among the nations then with reprobating the commercial immorality today rampant, and was more anxious to show that the country was only one among a number of sinners, in fact that it was sinning in quite good company, than to remedy the evil. What it did admit was that upstart traders were repudiating inconvenient engagements, but to offset this it pointed to the Japanese merchants of standing to whom such a course Would be essentially obnoxious. This we are quite ready to admit, but we feel that the Mainichi' would have done greater good had it preached a rousing sermon to backsliders on the sacredness of the contract.
The commercial fabric of the world is to-day being severely shaken by a spell of acute depression. We have just gone through a brief period of wonderful prosperity, and now that the reaction has set in severe hardship is imminent in many quarters. To diverge for a moment, we may take note of a new: sentiment in the world's markets that although the depression is here and is likely to increase, it will be of short duration and will be followed by a boom in trade, larger and upon a sounder basis than the one just concluded, But in the meantime these repudiations of contracts are taking place, and they are bound to make the depression worse than it would: otherwise have' been.
During the past two years in the Far East dealers have made notable profits, and now, when losses have to be faced, the first thing the people to whom we have specially alluded think of is sanctuary—a-. complete escape from shouldering their due proportion of the losses, a holding on to their gains and ignoring the fact that somebody else will have to suffer through them. It is a thoroughly bad frame of mind, and we regret to say that present reports quote the practice as being most in evidence in Japan and America. In both these countries there have been severe failures lately, there is evidence of overtrading in both, and in America, the situation is aggravated by the disturbance to business invariably associated with a Presidential election. The effect of these happenings will be that, given a revival. of trade, manufacturers will be indisposed' to deal freely with the centres where repudiation has been most pronounced, and a return to prosperity in these places will be consequently delayed. And considering the present situation Japan must not wonder if the rest of the world is strong in its criticism, _more especially in view of a previously announced piece of commercial immorality. We refer to the practice which the Japanese Consul-Generals both in Sydney and Calcutta had occasion to deplore, namely obtaining orders on sample and supplying goods of an inferior standard.
To-day more than ever, when complaints of this commercial im-
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