Big business is impossible if allied with humbug and deceit or misrepresentation. If there were any thing mechanically wrong with Ford cars or with the Ingersoll watches, they could not have reached their present sales. Can Hart, -Schaffner & Marx clothes or the Westinghouse electrical products be anything else than full value? The limelight of publicity would immediately make havoc with sales if defects or de terioration were permitted.
Legally the buyer must still be on his guard to be sure that the „goods he receives are what he believed them to be when the purchase was made, but practi cally, because of the rising standards of business ethics and because of the increasing appreciation of the value of good-will as an asset, buyers of ahnost any article, not even excepting horses, can now find markets where they can place implicit confidence in the representations of the seller. In New York City today there are firms which do an international export business in commodities which they never see. They buy from catalogs and samples and they ship to all parts of the globe, machinery, automobiles, flour, oil, prints, lumber, cotton, grain and other raw materials. They operate in small offices. They have no ware houses and they handle no goods. They buy only from dealers in whom they have absolute confidence.
"Every man takes care," said Ralph Waldo Em erson, "that his neighbor does not cheat him. But a day comes when he begins to care that he does not cheat his neighbor. Then all goes well." 6. Standards enforced by lavv.—Since many goods are not sold by brand or firm name, legislation has sometimes been found necessary to reenforce the standards of quality set by responsible firms. Laws fixing the standard of sterling silver have been in effect for decades, as have laws for enforcing the use of correct carat marks for different alloys of gold. The "pure food" law passed in 1906 is not yet uni formly accepted or approved by dealers, and its en forcement is difficult. The food, drug and liquor trades are not solidly pledged to the reform. The ethical standards of these trades, certain successful firms excepted, is below that of the law. If the public were not so vitally concerned, the law would be im possible of enforcement at all. Honest manufac
turers support the law, for it enables them to market their wares without unfair competition from un scrupulous rivals.
It is not yet generally considered disgraceful to adulterate silk with tin and cotton, or to mix wool or linen with cotton and to sell the fabric to the public as pure silk, wool or linen. The public does not seem vitally interested in the passage of a "fabric law." High standards of ethics in -the textile trades as a whole are not yet permanently fixed, and the public must depend upon brands for protection. Certain manufacturers, however, are agitating for a "fabric law" requiring correct labeling of dry-goods.
Some years ago rebates were commonly granted by railroads to large shippers, but the practice led to such unfair discriminations that Congress passed a law acrainst railroad rebates. The beneficial effects of the law are now admitted by railroad men as well as by business men.
7. Unwise laws.-11Then Congress or the legisla ture of a state enacts a law which has not the approval of business men generally, many a business man breaks it without the slightest qualm of conscience. The laws against usury, for example, are in this class. A thousand 2,-ears ago it was thought sinful for the lender of money to charge the borrower interest. It was argued that money, being a dead thing, could not by itself earn or produce. The legitimacy of the in terest charge is now generally recognized, but many people still have erroneous ideas about the laws gov erning the rate of interest. There is a popular notion that no man should be compelled to pay over 6 per cent for borrowed money, and several state legisla tures in the United States have enacted this notion into a law. Lenders evade the law without com punction, by charging a commission. whenever the money market conditions warrant a rate higher than the minimum fixed by law. Until 1882, the rate of interest on call loans on the New York Stock Ex change was limited to 6 per cent, but lenders by means of commissions sometimes ran the rate up to 700 per cent per annum. Since the repeal of the law bor rowers in. Wall Street have fared better than when the law was in force.