I of tbo Iftw. They will rather use wool than shoddy M the same price. Hie officials of a railway commonly prefer to avoid wrecks and man■laoghter, even if there is no pecuniary advanUtge in choosing the more buniane course. More than that, it will be found true that the more prosperous of the craft, especially, take pride and pains to make the service of their roads or the output of their miiU ss efficient, not simply as the pecuniary advantage of the concern demands, but as the best pecuniary results will admit, lustances are perhaps not frequent, but they are also not altogeilier exceptional, where a piosperoDB captain ot industry will go out of his way to heighten the
BUSIiraSS EWTEKPRISE 43
grounds of action, and perhaps others equally genial and equally unbusinesslike, would probably be discovered by a detailed scrutiny of any large business deal. Probably in many cases the business strategist, infected with this human infirmity, reaches an agreement with his rivals and his neighbora in the industrial system without exacting the last concession that a ruthless business strategy might entitle him to. The result is, probably, a speedier conclusion and a smoother working of the large coalitions than would follow from the unmitigated sway of business principles.'
But the sentiment which in this way acts in constraint of business traffic proceeds on such grounds of equity and fair dealing as are afforded by current business ethics ; it acts within the range of business principles, not in contravention of them ; it acts as a conventional restraint upon pecuniary advantage, not in abrogation of it. This code of business ethics consists, after all, of mitigations of the maxim. Caveat emptor. It touches primarily the dealings of man with man,