The Sun.
London, England, 1858-12-28 00:00:00

MR. BLACK, M.P., ON TRADING

MO_RA_iI2'Y.

A meeting in connexion with the Scottish Trade
Protection Society was held in Glasgow on Wed-
nesday evening. Mr. Charles Cowan, M.P., pre-
sided ; and was supported by Mr. Black, M.P., the
Lord Provost, and many of the leading inhabitants
of the city.
After some introductory remarks by the chair-
man,

Mr. BLACK, M.P., delivered an address. He
commenced by adverting to the calling of mer-
chants as having ever exerted a greater amount of
influence for good or evil than any other class in the
community, and to the blessings of knowledge and
eivilisation, liberty and religion, as following in the
train of commerce. The true merchant, he said,
was but the true man illustrating a particular con-
dition in life. The morality which governed all
other relations should equally prevail in mercantile
life, and neither opportunity nor policy, nor the most
temptingprospects ofgain should allow the merchant
to deviate from the strict line of honesty, and the
same honourable dealing should guide him whether
in the sale of a yard of calico, or of an East India-
man. The true merchant will not try suddenly to
get rich by borrowing money and engaging in
hazardous gambling speculations. Suppose a man
should attempt to borrow a thousand pounds in
order to bet at a horse race, would any prudent man
furnish him with the means, or would any upright
man give him money for such a purpose ? Gamblers
can borrow money only from gamblers or from
fools. And if borrowing money to speculate on
the chance of a rise in any commodity be not
gambling, by what name shall we call it ? The
principle is ,just the same, whether we stake money
on the swiftness of a horse, or on the failure
of a crop, or on a rise in the funds. Suppose
a man should borrow money for the purpose
of buying a vast quantity of sugar, and awaiting
an expected rise in its price, and should, without
consulting his creditors, bet the whole sum on a
decrease in the next sugar crop, would not the
lenders be justified in charging him with a viola-
tion of faith in this reckless misuse of their money.
They would be scarcely a shade of difference be-
tween the morality of the two transactions. The
only difference between the commercial gambler
and the horse jockey gambler is this—the one
cheats rogues like himself, the other cheats honest
men ; and it is this unmanly impatience, that wil
not wait for the reward of honest industry—this
reckless hazarding of borrowed money—which
strews all the paths of commercial life
with the bleaching bones of bankruptcy, and
robs the unsuspecting poor man of his
small but well•earned substance. Well-directed
energy and enterprise are the life of commercial
progress ; but -if there is one lesson taught more
plainly than another by the great failures of late,
it is that safety lies in sticking to a legitimate
business. No man—merchant, trader, or banker—
has any moral right to be so energetic and enter-
prising as to take from his- legitimate business the
capital which it requires to meet any emergency.
The public-spirited merchant will be ready to assist
in the promotion of undertakings which are likely
to be generally beneficial to the community ; but
even here he must be limited by prudence. When
a crowd of creditors stand vainly waiting for their
dues, it is little comfort to them to be told, " Well,
one thing must be remembered, and that is,
that the money has been widely spread to aid
important enterprises." The old maxim, "Be just
before you are' generous," comes up at such
times with great force, and the creditor naturally
asks, " What right has this house to be enter-
prising with my money, apart from their legitimate
business ?" Apologies are sometimes made for firms
who have failed by recurring to the important ex-
periments they have aided, and the unnumbered
fields of enterprise where they have freely scattered
their money. We are told that individual losses
sustained by those failures will be as nothing com-
pared with the benefits conferred on the commu-
nity by their liberality in contributing to every
public work. Now, a man's relations to a creditor
are vastly 'different from what they are to what
is called the public ; and it is no excuse for any
house in their time of failure that if they have
wronged individuals it has been in serving the
public. Sound personal religion is the surest hosig
on which mercantile character can be founded; the

man whose conduct is regulated by the precepts
of Christianity has already adopted the soundest
principles of mercantile policy; he is taught to
be diligent in business, and to avoid those snares
which would involve him in excess, extravagance,

self-indulgence, and ultimate ruin. The religion of
the Bible will impress him with an abidini, sense of