HONESTY IN TRADE.

THERE are tricks in all trades but ours, is a common phrase, which, of course, is believed neither by him who uses it, nor by him to whom it is addressed. There are tricks in all trades. Such has always been and will always be the case, while trade is based on those selfish motives that impel men to exertion, and for which no substitute has ever yet been found as a motive power in the production of wealth and all the blessings of civilized life which flow from it. Socialism has tried the experiment of substituting the law of love, the desire of benefiting others, instead of the selfish motives that seek to benefit more especially ourselves and our own families, the ambition and spirit of emulation which prompts us to excel, and to outshine our neighbors. This experiment has proved a signal failure, and we may safely conclude that no wilder or more visionary scheme has ever entered into the human mind than that of Fourier and his disciples.

The constant spur of those passions of ambition and rivalry so deeply and so widely implanted in our

common nature, acting conjointly with our social affections, is needed to carry society forward in the accumulation of wealth. Although tricks or dishonesty in trade will always exist, from the very nature of trade, with its sharp and inevitable competitions, it by no means follows that all men engaged in business are equally dishonest. Integrity and uprightness in business distinguishes a very large class of all who are engaged in it, and we flatter ourselves that nowhere is that class more numerous than in our own city of Boston, which, from the mercantile profession, has produced some of the noblest specimens of honorable dealing in the accumulation, as well as the greatest munificence in distributing their wealth. Between such men and the most dishonest huckster there exists, no doubt, many grades of fraud, which seeks its own advancement in the injury and ruin of others.

To fix a standard of honesty in business is, of all things perhaps, the most difficult, and it must be left to each individual conscience to decide upon the line which separates fair dealing from that which is fraudulent. Tried by the highest standard of morality, hardly any one engaged in trade could escape. The clergyman finds it an easy thing to declaim against the vices of trade, but often forgets or overlooks the fact that trade has its own laws,-its common laws,— on which it is based, and by which those engaged in

its pursuits are to be judged when the question of moral accountability comes up. The highest standard of right might require that the seller should declare to the purchaser all he knows in regard to the article he is about to sell, disclose all its defects and the cost of it to himself, so that the purchaser could in no way be deceived in regard to it. But such a course makes trade itself impossible,-its occupation would be gone. Caveat emptor-let the buyer beware-is one of the oldest maxims of the common law, which is said to be the perfection of human wisdom. A wide difference exists between fraudulent misrepresentation or fraudulent concealment of latent defects, and the praise which every man is expected to bestow on the goods he offers for sale.

By the common law of trade, understood by those. who buy and by those who sell, every man is expected to speak well of his goods, and hence it is that no man is deceived thereby. When we go into a store we go with our eyes open, well knowing that we must depend upon them, and upon our own judgment and sagacity, not expecting that everything relating to the wares we purchase which the seller This is perfectly It is by this con

may know will be imparted to us. well understood by both parties.

ventional rule that the trader is to be judged, and not by the highest law of abstract right, as it may be supposed to apply to buying and selling, and before

which no man can stand, nor could the business of merchandise be carried on. It is by a confusion of ideas, and the failure to see and understand the necessary relations of buyer and seller,-the common law by which each consents to be governed,—that injustice is often done to those engaged in a most important pursuit, and wholesale declamation indulged in towards all who buy, and sell, and get gain, as though it was at the expense of others and at the peril of their own souls.

It is for want of this discrimination that moral distinctions are confounded, and a great wrong done, where the greatest good is intended. Men are sometimes sent away from church, confounded and puzzled, believing themselves to be great sinners perhaps, though unable to understand why, since they pursue their calling on well-known and recognized principles of uprightness and fair dealing. It is hard if they are to be judged by a standard unknown to the mercantile community, of which they form a part.

Tricks of trade, as they are called, lose their character of immorality when they are such only which every one allows and expects. The same tricks be

long to the professions of law, medicine, and various other callings in life. In all pursuits different from our own, there is something we do not understand or wish to understand. To a certain extent we expect and agree to be deceived; it is not, therefore, for us