known abroad than any similar firm—known, perhaps, better than any purely English firm. The partners had great estates, which had mostly been made in the business. They still derived an immense income from it. Yet in six years they lost all their own wealth, sold the business to the company, and then lost a large part of the company's capital. And these losses were made in a manner so reckless and so foolish that one would think a child who had lent money in the City of London would have lent it better.[1] After this example we must not confide too surely in long-established credit, or in firmly rooted traditions of business. We must examine the system on which these great masses of money are manipulated, and assure ourselves that it is safe and right.
But it is not easy to rouse men of business to the task. They let the tide of business float before them; they make money or strive to do so while it passes, and they are unwilling to think where it is going. Even the great collapse of Overends, though it caused a panic, is beginning to be forgotten. Most men of business think—"Anyhow this system will probably last my time. It has gone on a long time, and is likely to go on still." But the exact point is, that it has not gone
- ↑ More recent instances of amazing indiscretion on the part of great firms have been afforded by the collapse of Messrs. Baring Brothers and Messrs. Murrieta & Co.
