cannot get something for nothing and money-making efforts that are ethically valid thus coincide with those that are selfishly desirable, namely, the efforts to obtain the payment, the profit, that arises from a valuable service performed or commodity produced. Too often men who follow this rule in their regular occupation depart from it in the use of their saved surplus funds. They feel that their savings ought to make them money, as they say.

Now savings can be employed in one of three ways: They may be used as capital by the owner; or they may be put out in investments—that is, used or utilized as capital in the business of another; or, third, they may be wasted in gambling or speculation. As a matter of course, the employment as additional capital in one's own enterprise is generally the most desirable wherever applicable, but this is a use of limited scope, relating to but few of the people engaged in productive activity who earn and save a surplus. The main resource for such accumulations is in safe investments, in the bonds and securities of our own country and those of well established enterprises. Not many among our embryo capitalists possess the experience or skill requisite for the safe and proper investment of their funds, they must rely upon the advice of others. But whom can they trust? The demand for investment advice has not failed to call forth a supply of advisers, and elaborate are the schemes designed to lure the unwary. But, generally speaking, the man who falls into the clutches of these birds of prey has himself to blame, for the reason that the temptations they offer are appeals to the illegitimate desire to get something for nothing or to the foolish notion that one can get-rich-quick in some way whispered about by a stranger, and out of sheer benevolence. The fact is that the wise man will dismiss all thought of making money out of his investments; he will seek only the moderate return which alone is consistent with safety; and with this policy, will turn a deaf ear to any so-called opportunity which promises big profits. We can summarize the matter by saying that concentration upon one's business and service implies that one should not attempt to make money elsewhere.

This concentration on one's affairs therefore grows into a sort of practical system in which each member of the business community is looking after some function or activity to the exclusion of other things. And so the world's work is carried on to the best advantage, each function being filled by those particular men who have become relatively expert therein. From this system arises a business habit or method not always understood by the young and inexperienced, by the non-business person. We refer to the practice in trade of leaving to each individual, to each enterprise, to each organization, the responsibility for looking out for its own interests when having dealings with others. Caveat emptor—let the buyer beware—expresses an extreme development of this, and in its common signification, that each side is to be permitted and expected to take any advantage of the other side that it may be able to secure, it describes a state of warfare rather than of business. In buying and selling, in aiming to obtain the most favorable terms for each line of his activity, in meeting conditions of competition, in all these relations, the business man is endeavoring to better himself and may doubtless be tempted here and there to forget the interests of the other party to the transaction. But to yield to such temptation would merely be to abuse a principle which on the whole is sanctioned by the requirements of economic efficiency. This principle is that the nearest approximation to effective justice in business transactions is reached when on each side the parties devote themselves to their respective interests and points of view. If A has a house for sale and B is a prospective buyer, the essence of the possible transaction between the two is that A's idea of the value of the property is different from B's idea of that value; or at any rate that A sees less value in it to him than does B to B. This is of course typical of all business transactions—the seller desires the money above the commodity, the buyer prefers the commodity to the money. The seller and the buyer each dwells naturally upon his own idea of value. This is altogether desirable, not to say indispensable, and is characteristic of every relation of business, wherever two men buy and sell, employ one another, or have other dealings together. The situation is somewhat the same as in a law suit where the duty of the attorney for the plaintiff is to make every point that fairly can be made for the plaintiff, while the attorney on the other side must correspondingly make every point that can properly be made for the defendant. Each side is supposed to look after the interest of that side. Similarly, in a business organization, say a railroad, when some new project is under consideration it will be submitted to the engineer, to the chemist, to the attorney, to the practical transportation man, and in each of these departments it is expected that the wisdom born of experience in the particular function will be brought to bear. The engineer speaks with authority on engineering questions, the lawyer on legal questions, the transportation man on the practical working out of the project; and, normally, the criticisms and contribution of each are confined to his own function. In short, the régime of economic self-interest results in leaving to each the responsibility which he is most competent to assume, that in which he is most expert, which thereby receives the best attention that generally speaking it could have. Nor are correctives lacking for the abuses which may enter in through an overdevelopment of self-interest. Caveat emptor becomes discredited as an unmodified basis of human action. The golden rule is increasingly seen to constitute a foundation demanded by economics as well as by ethics. The trend to-day is away from indifference to the interests of those with whom we deal. The successful merchant will not attempt to make a profit through sales which he knows would not benefit the purchaser, for that would not measure up to the test, Will it pay? The value of a business depends largely on its goodwill and too much money and effort are spent in advertising and other means of building up a clientèle to make men conceive it to be to their interest to deal sharply with their customers.

In the efforts of scientists to seek out and establish new methods, new principles, the success of an experiment is to be determined, I suppose, by the test, Will it work? Does it yield effective results? Similarly, in economics, the science of mankind in its production, distribution and consumption of material things, the test of utility and efficiency is, Will it pay? that being the standard of workableness in the application of that science.

We have attempted, therefore, in this analysis of money-making to apply this test, because the practice or habit or influence that pays is that which is in accord so far with the principles underlying this branch of social science. We have seen, according to this standard, that it is the duty of all to adopt money-making as a conscious aim; that the money is to be economically used, the final object being net profit, that balance or remainder which is carried forward as created capital. Inability to increase a fixed income does not absolve one from the duty of doing one's part in the creation of capital through thrift and saving. The business enterprise, moreover, is required by economic necessity to aim at money-making—meaning, however, profits in the long run rather than immediate or temporary gains. Such permanent returns can only be sought through adherence to ethical principles and although this aim at profits becomes the power plant which drives the business machine, the latter gives its energies and attention more directly to the rendering of service.