The Irish standard., 1907-11-02
Confidence, Plant of Slow Growth as Defined
by Daniel Webster, Badly Shaken
in the Nations Metropolis.
A Strange Form Of Prosperity Exists, the
Likes of Which the Country Has
Never Before Experienced.

1t was, think. Daniel Webster who
said: Confidence is plant Of slow
growth II is the most important
plant we grow in modern times. In
form of trusting a man to keep the
oath he had sworn, and even then
there was not much certainty that he
would. Business was all in the form
of conveyances. You paid for what
you bought on the spot, and took 1t
with you if it was portable. You did
not trust the seller, and he did not
trust you: so that contracts were al
most unknown, as in them part of the
transaction is put off to the future,
and rests on the good faith of one or
both of the parties, says Robert Ellis
Thompson in the N. Y: Freeman's Jour-
nal.
1t was the Romans who laid the
foundation OF the contract system. and
tthus or he,3retsn OF commence: II
| is d. 81 ilIJSlohC W tuitlh I'll lLOIIlS
chiefly as d military and government
al center. II was the greatest trading
city of antiquity, buying and selling
with all the world, and lending money
to every country Of the great Orbis
Terrarum-the Circle of the Lands"
around the Mediterranean The Rru-
tus who helped to kill Caesar was A
money lender, and he was extracting
about fifty per cent a year out Of the
people Of Cyprus. when Cicero. as ru-
Ter of the Province which included that
island, interfered to scale the ac-
count.
| SO the Romans developed CONNER
cial law and one feature Of this was
the law of contracts, Of which Hindoo,
Persian, Greek, and Hebrew law knew
nothing. The worlds business took a
step upward when it came to be un-
derstood that the law expected men to
keep their bare promises, and would
punish them If they did not do so. The
lawyers resisted the innovation, first
declaring that nothing but conveyan-
ccs were legal. then that there must he
positive evidences of witness to. the
contract then that there must be some
sort of written agreement signed by
at last, accepting any sort of evidence
that such promise had been made
So the material in life came to he
rested on the immaterial, and the bus
iness resources of mankind were great
ly increased.
The development Of modern banking
marked another stage In the growth
Of confidence. In it's issue Of paper
money It, coined the public confidence
in mems honesty and solvency into
something as good as the mint gave
men In gold and silver. IT. docs the
same in it's grant Of credit on it's led
ger, creating the form Of currency
called by our American economists
"credit-money," and this is vaster vol
ume than both the coin and the pape,
in actual circulation. The hundreds
of millions Of this credit money, con-
stantly created and constantly renewed
by discounts and loans, is the chief
instrument Of Wholesale business, and
although it hardly can be said to be
regulated by any law. 1T is given and
; received in commerce with no more
hesitation than If 1t were gold coin
And alongside the expansion Of the
banking system of credits has gone a
system of mutual confidence in both
wholesale and retail trade, in the or
ganization and management Of corpor.
ations, and in fact throughout the busi
ness world. Only a very small per.
centage Of modern transactions can be
covered by material guarantees, and
these are less sought for with every
year.
Modern business rests upon the be-
lief that every man.. who Is a wheel IL
the great machine. is doing his shar,