to gain standing and respect and make a
reputation.

Under these conditions, to return to our original point, in which
country, putting other things aside, would one naturally expect to find
the better code of business morals? Let us, if we can, consider the
matter, as has been said before, without preconceived ideas or
individual bias; let us imagine that we are speaking of two countries in
which we have no personal stake whatever. If in any two such
countries--in Gombroonia and Tigrosylvania, let us say--we should see
two peoples approximately matched, of one tongue and having similar
political ideals, not visibly unequal in strength, in abilities, or in
the individual sense of honour, and if in one we should further see the
aristocracy regarding the pursuit of commerce as a thing beneath and
unworthy of them, in which they could not engage without contamination,
while in the other it was followed as the most honourable of
careers,--in which of the two should we expect to find the higher code
of commercial ethics?

It does not seem to me that there can be any doubt as to the answer.
Other things being equal, and as a matter of theory only, business in
the United States ought to be ruled by much higher standards of conduct
than in England.

Before proceeding to an analysis of any particular conditions, there is
one further general consideration which I would urge on the attention of
English readers, most of whom have preconceived ideas on this subject
already formed.

I am not among those who believe that trade or commerce of ordinary
kinds either requires or tends to develop great intellectuality in those
engaged in it. Indeed, my opinion (for which I am willing to be abused)
is that any considerable measure of intellect is a hindrance to success
in retail trade or in commerce on a small scale. It is a thesis which
some one might develop at leisure, showing that it is not merely not
creditable for a man to make money in trade but that it is an explicit
avowal of intellectual poverty. Whence, of course, it follows that the
London tradesman who grows rich and retires to the country or suburbs to
build himself a statelier mansion is more justly an object of pity, if
not of contempt, than is often consciously acknowledged. Any imaginative
quality or breadth of vision which contributes to distract the mind of a
tradesman from the one transaction immediately in hand and the immediate
financial results thereof is a dis