The Birkenhead News and Wirral General Advertiser. — 1895-03-09 (Birkenhead, Merseyside, England)

IMMORALITY IN TRADE.  THE EVILS OF COMPETITION.  Speaking at the Birkenhead Unitarian Church on Sunday evening, on the subject of "Morality and Trade," the Rev. J. Crossley traced the development of social industrial life from primitive times, when every man produced nearly all his own physical roquiremente, to the system of division of labour necessitating " trade " or the exchange of goods. The basis of that simple system was perfectly fair and honourable, but in our modern complex society the system had failed in a thousand wit} a. It was becoming possible now for a man who produced nothing to become rich by levying e tribute upon both the manufacturer and the WPM Lower interests were considered more important than morality, and protest seemed useless. He was not a pessimist, but lie believed in 1 law of righteousness which inexorably punished wrong, and he was forced to the conclusion that the present industrial and comniercial system was doomed to failure, and it deserved to fail, because it taught men to stoop to fraud. Indeed, the practice of a particular trade was often determined by the most unscrupulous and dishonest men in it. The honest trader was compelled to choose between adulteration and ruin, and he was forced to choose the former. The results were immoral in two ways. They were • fraud upon the consumer, and they led commercial men to adopt one code of rectitude and morality in boldness and another for private life, because they would be ashamed to act upon their commercial code in their social life. A great deal of the selfishness of the present age was due to the low moral tone of the commercial world. Tricks of trade had become so common that they were accepted and defended as customs of the trade. Herbert Spencer, writing on the subject, had traced the great cause of commercial malpractices to the intense desire for wealth fostered by the indiscriminate respect paid to wealth. So long as that deference to the mere vulgarity of wealth continued, so long would men resort to any means to get wealth. It was the degrading worship of mammon that paralyzed their better judgment and made them acquiesce in a system which all upright men condemned. He did not suppose that all who heard him would agree with his views on the system of the competitive system of trade, but whatever might be said about competition regarded merely as a method of getting at the lest way of doing a thing, there was no doubt that when money was the result of succeeful competition, the prize to be striven for, it became a positive evil. No defence of it was possible on moral grounds It stirred ignoble passions in the beasts of the competitors; it gave pain to those who were beaten' it often raised vanity and a false self-estimate in the minds of those who won. The workers in a trade competed against each other for employment, and employers against one another for orders. Trades were beginning to lose their identity by competing with other trades, and the whole system led to universal advertising and lying, while the consumer paid the piper; if lie did not, the advertising would stop. Competition also led to the long credit system, injurious to buyer and seller alike; and shop assistanta were compelled to lie and cheat on pain of dismissal. It led to numberless bankruptcies. I had been estimated by an American that three-fifths of those W3O engaged in trade became bankrupts in the course of five years. Competition de-humanised men, and made them into mere machines. It was this heartless competition which was ever widening the gap between the rich and the poor. Competition filled the asylums with lunatics, and the newspapers with accounts of suicides. After this long indictment against the competitive system in trade, the lecturer commented on the leek of a sense of justice and feeling of unity among Englishmen. Southampton, he said, wanted to be richer than it was, and the only way it could think of was to rob Liverpool; and Liverpool was as jealous as possible ef Manchester. In these and many similar cases a bad feeling was created, the sense ef unity destroyed, and competing centres looked upon one another almost as if they were thieves. The system under which the interests of different centres or classes of the same community were opposed to that extent was self-oondemned ; it was the fruitful mother of envy, hatred, and malice. Another direction of evil-doing sanctioned by the modern commercial code was the forming of "rings" and " corners " in various commodities, and yet those traders had a recognised place in society, and if successful were honoured. The strong used their strength to crush the weak, and if a man was not able to take care of himself that was a reason why they should take advantage of him. Even if competition accomplished all or any the good things ascribed to it, it remained to be asked whether the same results could not be obtained in I some other and better way. At best competition was a method of overcoming evil by means of another evil but the Christian, the humane method was to overcome evil with good. It was nothing to the purpose to say that good men had acquiesced in the system. They could not so far help themselves and it was their presence only that made it possible to work it so long. It was precisely the men who wished to be honest and straightforward who would benefit most by its abolition. Only the roes would suffer. But the system had existed and been taken as inevitable for so long a period that the first and main business was to show that it was had. Until 1 that was done it was useless to discuss the remedy. ' The most painful thing about trade immorality was the readiness of so many to defend it, and the despair of many others of finding any remedy. But at any rate there were large principles of morality daily and hourly outraged by the present day custom of trade. To suppose that that could _go on indefinitely was to live in • feol's paradise. Retribution would surely come and the misery it would bring with it would he in no wins lessened by the knowledge that they might have escaped if they had only been wise in time.  WIRRAL CHILDREN% Hnterrat.. Medical report for the week ending March 2nd, 1895:—1n-patienta, admitted, 9 ; discharged, 10; died, 2; remaining in hm9ital. 30; daily average number of in-tionts,33l. Out-patieate, new oases, 156: number of adyjowi. 420. J. D. 11, Moat°, howl aurpon.