Page:(Commercial character) The Joseph Fisher lecture in commerce, delivered at the University of Adelaide (IA commercialcharac00jessrich).pdf/19

15 defined. I recall the instance of an auditor of an insolvent bank who said he did as much as he was paid for; moral, don't underpay auditors. 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. While on the subject of joint stock companies, I will give expression to a fad of mine. That is, the abolition of liability on shares. I quite anticipate an outcry and a free use of such words as visionary and unpractical. History repeats itself, and I have no doubt but that the introduction of the Limited Liability Act was greeted with a similar outcry. 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. After all, what is a joint stock company? A number of co-adventurers agree to risk so much each. They pay a certain proportion, and they render themselves liable for the balance. In old days, as I have pointed out, there was a joint and several liability; every partner took on his shoulders all the obligations of the partnership. Legislation provided a means for limiting