The Sun.
London, England, 1869-12-08 00:00:00

JOINT-S7OCK ENTERPRISE.

Those whose plastic minds receive the impressions
given by the Times would suppose that Joint-Stock
enterpris .; had been crushed out in England through
the unwillingness of business men of position and
character to accept seats at the board of any new
undertaking►. Revival is said to be wholly out of
the question so long as the law remains in its present
c)nditi in, and there is evidence on all sides that this
state then will be permanent; hence, without an alte-
ration in the law, the national aptitude for combina-
tion will continue to be suppressed. While we
believe this to be only too true it is little less than
laughable to listen to the editor's reason. There is
not a merchant, ho says, of any standing in the
city who will now entertain for an instant an in-
vitation to join the board of a new undertaking;
and be puts these words in reply to a supposed in-
vitation into the mouth of the merchant of high
character :

" I think highly of the project, but in my business I
should not take a now partner without regarding it as one
of the new anxious and weighty acts of my life; and I
am not disposed, for the sake of 100 or £2,A a year, to
give my time and the influence of my character to a con-
cern in which I may have a thousand partners, each of
whom, although he may represent only a£s or a £lO
share, may, almost at his pleasure, drag me into Chancery,
or get up representations to summon me to the Mansion-
house."

Yet these are the very men who wrecked Joint-Stock
enterprise. When they
were placed on the direc-
tion of companie., they ran about from board to
board picking up guineas so as not inaptly to ba
nicknamed Guinea-pigs. Having for the ino.it part
conducted the business intrusted to them with a shame-
lees disregard to the interests of those whose money
they thus took,hav ing hurled all the sheep-like share-
holders who followed their lead, as a lamb does its Eno -
ther, into ruin, and having witnessed comparativeyl
uninjured themselves the destruction both of pro-
perty and character entailed by them on the country
—they are now prepared to utter the words attributed
to them by the Times. But the little knowledge
acquired by the sheep and the kinsfolk of these
shareholding animals causes them to turn in loath-
ing from such a lead, and when men flutter aloft
their gay and attractive prospectuses of new under-
takings they turn in disgust and contempt away.
It is not these bell-wethers, these merchants of high
standing, that are wanted ; they would be forth-
coming in any number if the guineas were forth-
coming too—but the sheep are nowhere. The -Spec-
tator, which often writes exaggerated rubbish, made
a true remark in its last number about. the Times.
It says it is a paper without any fixed principles,
taking its tone from the merchants and wholesale
dealers, just as the Telegraph does from the shop-
keepers and retail dealers. This, then, is the view
of the wholesale dealers, and this is what the mer-
chant of long standing replies to the eager appli-
cants seeking the influence of his name, which, it
might be supposed, was alone wanted by the pant-
ing sheep outside successfully to launch the new
undertaking. While we believe that the merchant
who does so reply acts judiciously, the words attri-
buted to him insinuate that the directors of com-
panies have been badly treated by the shareholders.
If this was what the writer meant, nothing could be
more untrue. What we have said, and what we
repeat, is that the laws of the empire were intended
to meet the circumstances of crime wholly different
from those of the present day. Although here and
there a cunning attorney then used the law as the
best implement for the robbery of his clients, for-
merly nearly all robbery was accompanied with
violence. highwayman trusted to hi. 3 pis-
' tol, the burglar to his tools, and the footpad to the
well-placed blow which dropped his victim setnie-
less at his Let. Thus law c,one to be enacted against
the brutal robber, and it scarcely contemplates any
' other. But chicanery is now resorted to, subtle,
cunning devices, unblushing lies, and all beauti-
fully covered by an Act, most likely by time very one
designed to protect the victims. The great safe-
guard of these robbers is the difficulty of putting into
nio:ion whateier machinery-
may exist for the pu-
nishment of such offenders. It is a costly, difficult
task, and as it is nobody's business in particular,
nobody undertakes it. Now and then may arise a
character like Dr. TiloU, but they are few, and
even when. as able and faithful to their work as
that gentlemau's friends assert him to be, still

they have little or no chance of imam Itened,
there is no safeguard, except the honour and sound
judgment implanted in the men entrusted with the
direction, and it is the utter annihil.ttion of belief
in these which has so crushed out Joint-stock en-
terprise. 'There never was a law more calculated
to do good, if men were honest, than the Limited
Liability Act of 18G2; yet there never was
enacted in England which in a shorter period did.
'1„
more material harm. Nor material only, for "
exposed in a way so as to appal mankind, the dis-
honesty pervading all classes, more especially the
upper classes, of a nation hitherto held to be
pre-
eminentlyupright. It destroyed all belief in the judg:
meat and discretion of men before paraded through
the Empire as models in business. It proved
the ignorance hot only of the masses, but of thes".
,
very persons to whom the Times alludes; it stripy a
the respectable of their respectability, and "I'o :
hours of the cloaks with which they disguised their
stupidity from each other; it exhibited, in a Pie-
ful degree, the cupidity and folly of the people'
as
well as the dishonesty of same hitherto held to be
above suspicion. This is what a good Act did 10
enlightened England when it threw open to every:
one the doors of trade ; that is, when it aPPealeci-
to the common honesty and common sense of her
MAJESTY'S subjects. And what was the conse-
quence ? Why, a general ruin ; a loss so stop four
ous, and so widespread, that though nearly fee.
years have elapsed, the depression at present 1!
greater than ever, and all appear to agree that there
is no prospect, at least, of any immediate change'
The suffering was universal ; it taught all the
les-
sons of caution and distrust, and however pro
ing an enterprise, however legitimate and advisable
the association of 'capital for the purpose, few' men
s
now can be persuaded to look at it, because there
are no names they regard as a guarantee `that
the enterprise will be honestly and judiciously con-
ducted. To whom but the class to which the Dales
alludes is this acknowledged result due? It `vas
the directors, not the shareholders, who Wieekfche
the companies. It was the shareholders, 11°t
directors, who were the chief sufferers; indeed) it
is asserted that some of these directors profited Dtl
the knowledge of their own infamous work o
,
" bear" the shares on the Stock Exchange, and it is
the dread of the burnt children which has ended the
limited liability dream. rhe remarks, however, put
to
into the mouth of one of those innocents appear
us to insinuate the reverse of these facts, to ter
the directors into innocent sufferers from the un-
justifiable proceedings of pig-headed shareholders'
but this is the Times way of putting things, and'
it writes thus of affairs progressing around rrie s
ing-house-square, our English readers may goes
what its accuracy is likely to be on Attune—
,1
topics.—Anglo-American Times.

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