his ways of
doing business. Even the Anglo-Indian refuses to subject himself, in
India, to all the cumbersome formalities with which he is compelled to
conduct any business transaction when at home. Mr. Kipling in one of his
latest stories has given us a delightful picture of the bafflement of
the Australasian Minister struggling to bring his Great Idea for the
Good of his Colony and the Empire to the attention of the officials in
Whitehall.

The encumbering conservatism which now hangs upon the wheels of British
commerce is no part of--no legitimate offshoot of--the English genius.
It is a fungoid and quite alien growth, which has fastened upon that
genius, taking advantage of its frailties. Englishmen, we hear, are slow
to change and to move; yet they have always moved more quickly than
other European peoples as the Empire stands to prove. And if the people
of Great Britain had the remodelling of their society to do over again
to-day, they, following their native instincts, would hardly rebuild it
on its present lines. With the same "elbow room" they would, it may be
suspected, produce something but little dissimilar (except in the
monarchical form of government) from that which has been evolved in the
United States.

When Englishmen, looking at the progress of the United States, doubt its
permanence--when they distrust the substantiality or the honesty in the
workmanship in the American commercial fabric--it might be well if they
would say to themselves that the men who are doing these things are only
Englishmen with other larger opportunities. Behind all this that meets
the eye is the same old Anglo-Saxon spirit of pluck and energy which
made Great Britain great when she was younger and had in turn her larger
opportunities. Above all, that pluck and energy are unhampered by
tradition and precedent in exerting themselves in whatever direction may
be most advantageous; and to be unhampered does not necessarily mean
freedom only to go wrong.

An American girl once explained why it was much pleasanter to have a
chaperon than to be without one:

"If I am allowed about alone," she explained, "I feel that I am on my
honour and can never do a thing that I would not like mama to see; but
when a chaperon is with me, the responsibility for my behaviour is
shifted to her. It is her duty to keep me straight. I have a right to be
just as bad as I can without her catching me."

The tendency of American business life is firs