Immense pleasure was recently occasioned in a selec: circle by the receipt of a circular offering to reorganize it on a commercial basis. That reorganization of some sort or other was badly needed was not for a moment doubted. But whether it was to be on a commercial basis raised a very important question. In the first place, what was a commercial basis? It-is not necessary to be an expert to realize the importance of obtaining a correct answer to this question before deciding upon action. And nearly everyone consulted had a different answer. There were tedious economic definitions which had the disadvant~ age of being so complicated that the hearers had forgotten the! promises before they had come to the conclusions. So they were not very illuminating. Hardly more so was the definition of the other extreme, which some what resembled Harry Tait's definition of a zeppelin—something with two ends, you know, and (with a few vague waves of the hands) a zniddle, of course. The definer who pinned his faith to efficiency appeared to be nearest the mark. But it was not long before it was point-[ed out by some champion splitter-of-hairs, that efficiency is desirable in'other branches of life besides commercial. Doctors, for instance, must be efficient or they would' not be called in. Thus, in the end the discussion became so involved that the select circle decided to postpone decision. It was agreed for the moment that the commercial basis must be" something like rationalization—badly needed by everybody and to be widely welcomed, if only someone would explain what it was, is to be defined. There are two main schools of commerce. One announces that it is: commercial purely from a feeling of altruism. This is an industrial age. The human race is works ing like a huge machine. Every cog in that machine ehduld.bé doing its full share, Let it fail, and the whole machinery is weakened and instead of there being universal happiness as result, there is something horribly distorted, something which makes for misery as it exists everywhere in the world today. Exeepting in Bali, wherd the people are not commercial, 'The aim and object, then, of this school is simply to better the existing condition of the world. If millions accumulate in the bank balances of persons 80 charitably employed, while others plod dolefally' on, une employed, then is not' the labourer worthy of his hire?
The other eehoo! quite frankly admits that it is out for money, The frankness. is refreshing, For who should it be shameful to admit that a person is out for, what he can make, when the greatness of nations in measured. daily by Ministers of State in terms of hard cash? If the success of races la to be 30 measured, why not the success of the individual? The school acknowledges that there is much to be said in favour of good works, and not willingly will admit. that, reaching out for gold, it may tread someone into the mire. Natural tion. Survival of the Like the Jawa of the M
Persians, which cannot bechanged, though they can and do fall out of fashion and into disuse.
Of course, it is most natural and entirely in accord with these unchangeable that men should aceum Now, if the world badly needed something to better its healt or stop the devastating progress of a plague, there would immediately spring into existence a number of scientists who would dedicate their life to finding out what that something was. To the person whose scientific reading is confined to the patent medicine advertisements—and there are quite a number of them—it is amazing to. learn periodically that what he has been needing all these years vitamin X. He may not have known it, but some scientist has. just discovered it and it must be 30, Vitamins X are now offered to him at all dealers or direct' from the manufacture's at so any shillings a bottle, including postage. His lassitude during the summer months has not been due, as he imagined, to the fact that Rugby football is played in the winter and that hi tution this misses the periodical kneading-up which occurs when he falls en the ball at the feet of a wheeling scram. Science has come to his rescue, as it always does when the human race is in a tight corner of that description. Then why. does not someone come to the rescue over this matter of rationalization, or reorganization on a commercial basis? Is it because it cannot be sold for many shillings by all dealers or direct from the manufacturers, with postage thrown, nae To embark upon the definition of so abstruse a subject would, even if it were in the power of the average person, hardly be suitable in a Sunday paper. But enough may be said to illustrate the length and breadth of what which has been stamped and. altered until it is hard to believe that it is a prodvet of nature, And it is, if possible, even more so when financiers play about with paper credits. What could be more natura} than the opera tions of Bulls and Bears?
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.