ration, but which is plainly both deliberate and malevolent, can
hardly be overrated. Sometimes it is due to a mere desire to create a
lucrative sensation, or to gratify a personal dislike, or even to an
unprovoked malevolence which takes pleasure in inflicting pain.

Very often it is intended for purposes of stockjobbing. The financial
world is percolated with it. It is the common method of raising or
depreciating securities, attracting investors, preying upon the ignorant
and credulous, and enabling dishonest men to rise rapidly to fortune.
When the prospect of speedy wealth is in sight, there are always numbers
who are perfectly prepared to pursue courses involving the utter ruin of
multitudes, endangering the most serious international interests,
perhaps bringing down upon the world all the calamities of war. It is no
doubt true that such men are only a minority, though it is less certain
that they would be a minority if the opportunity of obtaining sudden
riches by immoral means was open to all, and it is no small minority who
are accustomed to condone these crimes when they have succeeded. It is
much to be questioned whether the greatest criminals are to be found
within the walls of prisons. Dishonesty on a small scale nearly always
finds its punishment. Dishonesty on a gigantic scale continually
escapes. The pickpocket and the burglar seldom fail to meet with their
merited punishment, but in the management of companies, in the great
fields of industrial enterprise and speculation, gigantic fortunes are
acquired by the ruin of multitudes and by methods which, though they
evade legal penalties, are essentially fraudulent. In the majority of
cases these crimes are perpetrated by educated men who are in possession
of all the necessaries, of most of the comforts, and of many of the
luxuries of life, and some of the worst of them are powerfully favoured
by the conditions of modern civilisation. There is no greater scandal or
moral evil in our time than the readiness with which public opinion
excuses them, and the influence and social position it accords to mere
wealth, even when it has been acquired by notorious dishonesty or when
it is expended with absolute selfishness or in ways that are positively
demoralising. In many respects the moral progress of mankind seems to me
incontestable, but it is extremely doubtful whether in this respect
social morality, especially in England and America, has not seriously
retrograded