Page:The humanizing of commerce and industry, the Joseph Fisher lecture in commerce, delivered in Adelaide, 9th May, 1919.pdf/15

 in 1917 £270,427,000. What would have been our production if all waste effort had been cut out and the number of middlemen, shopkeepers and agents, reduced to those actually required for the public convenience and the remainder employed as wealth producers? If we are to carry our immense war burdens we must get increased production. We shall probably be forced by necessity to transfer many people now engaged in distribution to the productive Industries. Our bad organization is due mainly to the fact that our business is a go-as-you-please method based on profit. If we systematized more, each individual would not be as free as at present to buy and sell as he pleased, regardless of whether he served the community well or ill. As the chief end of trade and commerce is to make money, we need not be surprised that in the struggle to snatch money out of our transactions we have often been blind to the human injury and injustice we have done. We have become the slaves of money. I suggest that in future, humanity will have to receive first consideration. If we are slow to act we may be compelled, like some other parts of the world to-day, to face the issue whether we are to be ruled by hatred and tyranny or by love and liberty.

Five short years ago the majority of us were simply money-grubbing. We wanted all the money we could get each for himself. The object of life was profit. All sections of the community followed the same principle. We knew that suffering and misery stalked among us, but so long as we individually escaped we did not really care. The churches wrung their hands and deplored the general selfishness, but were content to float down life's stream mildly protesting. The politicians, being no better than the rest of us, made a game of life and played one party against the other for office and pay. Economists and financiers with very few exceptions cheered our country on to borrow vast sums abroad, and were content to see a national orgy of wasteful expenditure providing great opportunities for private accumulation. The universities and educationists generally were powerless, almost voiceless, for few of us heard their warnings. The mass of us accepted conditions as we found them, and did not worry. The higher side and purpose of life were forgotten. We were content to feed on husks.

The great war awakened us. Our Empire was endangered. Our own homes and liberties were threatened. The call of the blood of our forefathers thrilled us all. Volunteers poured into the