L. A. Jessop

“ If the chief aim of the man of to-day is to be to make money—money as a means to sustain life, money to provide comforts, money to furnish luxuries, money to gratify a longing for artistic ostentation, money to deck our women with coloured crystals and costly fabrics, money to enable us to oppress and move our fellows as pawns on the chess board of life—why, let us face the music, and honestly admit not on six days, but on seven, that there is no God but Mammon, and Rockefeller is his prophet. ”

“ America has been called the land of effort, and if strenuous industry and an insatiable habit of accumulating count for anything, then she should be the richest country in the world, and not only that, but an object lesson in many, in fact in most, vital respects. A land of some 80 millions of people, absorbing a million aliens in a year; a land possessing an independent geographical position, vast and diversified resources, and a race of financial giants, whose methods we may condemn, but whose ability is convincing ”

“ We know that in Australia, there is a very strong party which sees in protection, almost to the verge of exclusion, a panacea for all or nearly all the evils from which we suffer. The feelings of the man who buys are studiously ignored by the extremists of this party. A desire for cheapness, natural in a commercial age, and too often created, or at all events fostered, by the peremptory claims of necessity, is greeted with contumely, and a craving for excellence of material and superiority of workmanship stamps its possessor as hypercritical and unpatriotic. ”

“ There was a time when the scientific student was a man apart. One pondering the phenomena of nature, floundering among first principles, groping slowly and laboriously from darkness towards light, wondering, guessing, but ever helping to solidify the slough for future generations to find firm foothold. There was a time when men wrought for the glory of God and the love of their craft, and under that sanctified inspiration did work so lasting, so beautiful; achieved triumphs artistic, architectural, of such supreme excellence as to make moderns wonder but despair of emulating. ”

“ I have known men to whom the feelings, the fortunes, even the lives, of their fellows, were as nothing in their struggle to gain the golden citadel. Some have succeeded, some have failed, but take my word for it, when settling day came none ever thanked God he'd been a rogue. I am too conscious of my own shortcomings to pose as a preacher, but I trust that you will credit me with sincerity when I express my conviction that no better, safer principle can be instilled into the youthful mind than that embodied in an old German motto, Thue recht und scheue niemand. Do right and fear nobody. ”

“ I feel apologetic once again for the introduction of King Charles's head, but I really cannot help thinking that our political pundits are on the wrong track when they seek not merely to guide, but to force, commerce in divers directions at the behest of an interested compact faction. And when it is considered that those in authority over us, those who "ride on the whirlwind and direct the storm," base their assumptions on inexperience, and too often draw their conclusions from a bottomless well of egotism, where the sceptic naturally asks the necessity for commercial education. ”

“ Nevertheless, experience proves that the generation of to-morrow is largely plastic in the hands of the generation of to-day, and were the provisions of the No-Liability Act gradually extended to trading companies, I believe that business would soon adapt itself to the change. I do not advocate such an innovation without cogent reasons, reasons which will appeal not to the arrogant, not to the selfish, but to the man of business who yet retains some human sympathy, and to such as recognize that foresight is not only not unlimited, but that its possession is limited to the comparatively few. ”

“ Do we recognise that reverence is a result of education, of environment, and, above all, do we recognise the immensity of the power as models for good and evil of those in high places? I am not one of those who contend that the world is going to the devil because I have experienced more of its kicks and gathered fewer of its halfpence than fall to the lot of some other men, and while admitting that the keen competition of to-day does not make for commercial morality ”

“ It is not our iron ships, it is not our celebrated regiments, it is not these things which have created, or really maintain an Empire. It is the character of the people. I want to know where that famous character of the English people will be if they are to be influenced and guided by a church of immense talent, opulence, and power, without any distinctive creed. You have in this country accumulated wealth that has never been equalled, and probably it will still increase. ”

“ The crystal face of conscience is too often made dim and obscure by the fetid breath of feverish competition, or the foul exhalation of insensate greed, and we can only hope to foil the demon pessimism by cherishing the conviction expressed by Carlyle that the world is not founded on falsehood and jargon, but on truth and reason. ”

“ Those who have to work all day for a living, if they possess the necessary physique and are pricked by the spur of ambition, must rely to a great extent on evening classes for such technical education as will conduce to an improvement in their position. But this means self-denial and an irrepressible determination to succeed; no golden gate welcomes the loiterer on the primrose path of dalliance nowadays. In every walk of life courage, endurance, and ready wit count. ”

“ The conditions of old and densely-populated countries, while possessing an undoubted interest for the Australian sociological student, should, it seems to me, be to him of merely academic importance. If the cry of want of employment be heard from a population such as ours, in a country such as this, one cannot help feeling that the cause is to be found in ineptitude, ignorance, deficient training, prejudice, want of enterprise, or some other source other than that in which the distressing wail finds its origin in the crowded centres of the old world. ”

“ I will say that I recognise no such potent earthly force for good or evil as the force of example afforded by our leaders, social, political, commercial. The lives of good, not goody, men and women, are now, as ever, the brightest beacons to guide inexperienced youth aright through this puzzling pilgrimage. ”

“ Primarily the cultivation and production of everything needful to sustain life, to gratify taste, and pamper luxury, with the necessary transport and manufacture. Commerce caters for the necessities, the tastes, the weaknesses, and the vices of the world's population, and we must not overlook the elements of increase and variation. Invention is always at work seeking to evolve what in its delicacy, intricacy, and absolute certainty of performance, may almost be regarded as sentient machinery. The fertile brain is ever striving to comprehend and utilize the forces of nature. ”

“ Some say that the pernicious abuse of their power by capitalists will convert America into the first purely socialistic state. I cannot believe it, for there, if anywhere, is a field where energy and ability can find due recognition and reward, and I cannot admit that energy and ability, even though exercised for the benefit of their possessors, have ceased to be the most potent factors in life. ”

“ Commercial ability is often characterised nowadays as smartness. Now I have heard that there is a saying in America that the smart business man is the man who knows how to keep out of gaol, which, from an ethical standpoint, seems to indicate the existence of but a very fine line dividing smartness from dishonesty. The clear inference to be drawn is that for the man of ordinary ability it is true now as ever that honesty is the best policy. It is an important day in a man's life when he discovers that he hasn't brains enough to be a rogue ”

“ This same question of education, in the broad and comprehensive sense, is one claiming, and which should claim, a large share of public attention. In these days, when printed knowledge is so condensed and codified, so cheap, so accessible, I, who am little but an item in the commercial world, with a strong natural leaning towards utilitarianism, cannot help entertaining the conviction that the most important principle underlying all others in a national educational system is the teaching of the teachers, the instillation of the delicate art of adapting the seed to the soil ”

“ Japan is said to be the hot-bed of perils innumerable to the white races of the world. The latest alarm seems to be the birth of a new mechanical science in Japan which will relegate all our old world machinery to the scrap heap, if we European engineers do not give ourselves a mental shake and educate ourselves up to the scientific standard of Japan in machinery. ”

“ Directors of companies are too often chosen, not for their commercial ability, high character, and experience, but because of successes achieved in a walk of life which gave them no title to aspire to the position, or occasionally, as in mining companies, for their willingness to work the share market in the interests of a clique of wire-pullers. ”

“ One result of protection will certainly be the production of more than we need, and possibly, under a faulty economic system, more than we can afford to retain for necessary home consumption. We are only beginning to realize the fact that while things are as they are the debtor, be he an individual or be it a state, must work for the creditor, and Australia, having for many years discounted her prospects in a somewhat light-hearted manner, can rehabilitate herself only by increased production, economy, or taxation, or a mixture of them. ”

“ The genius of man to-day revels in the utilization of natural forces and systematized records, which it should be the care of all governments to preserve, make of each age a stepping stone to higher things. Michael Faraday said he had no time to make money, and was content with a pension as a pecuniary recognition of his life's work in the cause of science. The more modern philosopher floats on the sea of high finance. ”

“ It seems an inevitable corollary that if a preliminary training is deemed indispensable to the successful conduct of a private mercantile business, then those who aspire to manage the commerce of the nation should in a greater degree be equipped by education and experience, unless indeed they trust, like the Irish pilot, to learn all about the rocks by running on them. ”

“ We shall have to realize that although population means responsibility, it means safety, if of the proper quality. Let us consider wherein lies the strength of the Germany born some 35 years ago. Call to mind the impressive pageant at Versailles, when the stately first William was hailed as the chief of the new empire. An empire then of under 41 millions of people—to-day, with nearly 60 millions, adding yearly more than 800,000 to its numbers, and a constantly increasing factor in the world's policy, history, and commerce. ”

“ My experience teaches me, however, that much disregard of the rights and feelings of others is condoned by the oft-expressed axiom, "Business is business." But we must be optimists in our estimate of human character as in other respects—we dare not be pessimists. Every thinking human being must be on the side of the angels. ”

“ In commerce, as in other walks of life, the all round man must give way to the specialist, and commercial education, whatever be the branch of commerce one desires to engage in, is a pretty serious matter. ”

“ Yes, life is a complicated business, a puzzle to the wisest, but to few more than to the aspirant for success in the commercial career. The youngster who goes into an office is somewhat at a disadvantage compared with the boy who proposes to make his living in a trade. ”

“ In our very legitimate aspiration to figure as a factor in the world's manufacturing, we must not lose sight of the vast and increasing value of water power, especially in electro chemical industries. In our anxiety to compete with such lands as America and Canada, it would be folly to ignore the fact that in the fall of Niagara river those countries possess the greatest hydraulic energy on earth, together with immense possibilities of this character in other directions. ”

“ A true man's first care is to make provision for his widow and children, always assuming that he is not sufficiently advanced to deride the titles sanctified by nature and hallowed by time of wifehood and motherhood. What better shape can the provision take for the small capitalist than shares in a reputable trading concern, and yet experience has shown us that this very provision too often means ruin for the unfortunate legatees. ”

“ When a trained and educated national government renouncing commercial empiricism leave to old and congested countries the task of settling the modus vivendi between rich and poor, and of reconciling the views of contented and discontented, in short, substitute for a policy of somewhat obstructive, even if well-intentioned meddlesomeness, one of enlightened statesmanship, patriotism, and honest endeavour for the good of all. ”

“ For strength and endurance count and strength and endurance are developed in the wholesome natural surroundings of a country existence and not in the artifical life of crowded cities. While we hear so much of physical degeneration in England, where four-fifths of the population live in towns, there are no similar complaints in Germany, and the fact that the rapid increase of that country's population is not accompanied by a falling off of the national physique is attributed by German statesmen to her prosperous agriculture. ”