Page:The Story of the House of Cassell (book).djvu/122

 high eulogies he had heard from statesmen and officials in Canada and the United States. His belief was abundantly justified.

Prosperity and profits continued to grow until the Great War came to check them. At the annual meeting in March, 1914, the directors had marked their gratitude to Mr. Spurgeon for the earnest and arduous work and the signal organizing skill which had so magnificently rehabilitated the Company by asking him to join the Board. The outlook was rosy; there would have been a record balance-sheet in 1915 but for the international upheaval, which threatened to shake down business of all kinds and was particularly trying for the publishing business. The feeling of loyalty and co-operation throughout the House was strikingly manifest shortly after the outbreak of war in August, 1914, when the entire staff of more than a thousand employees met on their own initiative in La Belle Sauvage Yard and resolved to work short time so that nobody should be discharged, and to stand loyally by the firm. The same spirit was shown in what the General Manager called "the outposts of the Cassell Empire"—the branches in Melbourne, Toronto, and New York. When the call for men for the Army came the staff was voluntarily and heavily depleted. It paid a high toll in life, as will presently be told.

Meanwhile the management struggled through the critical and difficult year of 1915, experienced a little revival of trade in 1916, and by 1917 had adjusted the business to the new conditions. In the next year, indeed, the profits reached with a bound the record figure of £50,000, and in 1919 were still higher. The wisdom of the conservative policy pursued in respect of the reserves and copyrights accounts was felt in those critical days of Treasury restrictions upon the raising of capital. Expansion continued rapidly. The printing department was unequal to the demands upon it. To meet this difficulty, in 1919 an interest was purchased in large works in the country, and in 1920 the mechanical resources of La Belle