BOOKS.

SUCCESS.*

" It would be a base idolatry of practical life to require every man to succeed in it as far as he could, and to devote to it all his mind. The world certainly does not need it ; it pays well, and it will never lack good servants. But I own I think a man ought to be able to be a Philistine' if he chooses ; there is a sickly incompleteness about people too fine for the world and too nice to work their way in it.”—WALTER BAGEHOT.

LORD BEAVERBROOK'S book on Success will not only cause genuine amusement to all lovers of irony, but will be found e%ceedingly good reading from many points of view. Its perfect candour, or, at any rate, air of candour, is refreshing ; and, though its author makes no attempt to assume the airs and graces of rhetoric or of literary flume, the style shows great ability. Indeed, a subtle literary expert working on Buffon's famous and much-disputed aphorism, the style is the man," might almost undertake to reconstruct Lord Beaverbrook from his phraseology. Curiously enough, the book reminds the present writer of one of the parodies perpetrated at Oxford in t he'eighties of the style of Jowett's worldly-wise advice to young

men on their entry upon their careers. According to the legends of the time—no doubt generally quite apocryphal—the Master

of Balliol was supposed to teach his favourite pupils the art of self-advancement, combined with a proper respect for the teachings of Religion and Morality. One of the parodies referred to Jowett's worldly type of college sermon in the following terms :—

" Thus thinking, we lived ever faster, Nor knew what to take or to leave, Till we heard the small voice of the Master In chapel, on Sunday, at eve.

In a world full of sin and of sorrow, Of turmoil, confusion and strife, It is best on the whole to be moral, And lead a respectable life."

Jewett, of course, never said this or anything really like it ; but, nil the same, it is quite a good " quiz " of the attitude which he went so near adopting. If we transfer the scene from the intellectual, political and professional worlds to the commercial world, it is a very good representation of Lord Beaverbrook's attitude in Success. Whether it is more than a pose we shall

• stares*. By the Right Hon. Lord Beaverbrook. London : Stanley Paul. Ire. ad. mt.]

not attempt to decide. We have Scriptural authority, endorsed by Bacon, that the heart of the king is inscrutable. Still more inscrutable is the heart of the millionaire, especially when he is also not merely a passive but an active newspaper proprietor.

But we have no intention of looking Lord Beaverbrook's gift horse, Success, in the mouth. We are quite prepared to accept it at its face value. It is not only capable, as we have said, of giving a good deal of entertainment, but may, indeed, be distinctly useful to the ambitious youth whose ideal it is to make money and to make it quickly and in quantities. As a " getting-rich-quick " proposition, Lord Beaverbrook's Success unquestionably has its merits. We say this not ironically, but franldy, because there is nothing in the scheme recommended as useful for " getting on " which, if practised, would lead to any- thing but good conduct and sound commercial morality. To put it in a concrete form, no one could successfully sell a broken- down horse at a fair on the rules of conduct in business recom- mended by Lord Beaverbrook. Lord Beaverbrook has probably forgotten Whately's addition to the famous proverb Honesty is the best policy." At any rate, he bases his scheme of conduct on that proverb as it stands. Whately, it will be remembered, made the proverb run as follows : " Honesty is the best policy, but he who is honest for that reason is not an honest man." No doubt many people will regard Whately as too subtle, and we are half inclined to agree. No harm, we may be sure, will be done by a sturdy belief that it never pays to be dishonest. After all, might one not counter the great Victorian dialectician by pointing out that a man who begins his life by being honest on the ground that it is the best policy is more than likely to end with a devotion to honesty based on sounder and nobler reasons than those which, in fact, made him an honest man at first ? There is a good deal to be said for the plea that it is bad in morals, as in trade, to insist on Certificates of Origin."

Lord Beaverbrook, in the first chapter of his book, begins by asking the question, " What are the qualities which make for success ? " He answers them as follows :—

" They are three : Judgment, Industry, and Health, and perhaps the greatest of these is judgment. These aro the three pillars which hold up the fabric of success. But in using the word judgment ono has said everything. In the affairs of the world it is the supremo quality. How many men have brilliant schemes and yet are quite unable to execute them, and through their very brilliancy stumble unawares upon ruin ? For round judgment there cluster many hundred qualities, like the setting round a jewel : the capacity to read the hearts of men ; to draw an inexhaustible fountain of wisdom from every particle of experience in the past, and turn the current of this knowledge into the dynamic action of the future. Genius goes to the heart of a matter like an arrow from a bow, but judgment is the quality which learns from the world what the world has to teach and then goes one better. Shelley had genius, but he would not have been a success in Wall Street—though the poet showed a flash of business knowledge in refusing to lend money to Byron. In the ultimate resort judgment is the power to assimilate knowledge and to use it. The opinions of men and the movement of markets are all so much material for the perfected instrument of the mind. But judgment may prove a sterile capacity if it is not accompanied by industry. The mill must have grist on which to work, and it is industry which pours in the grain."

Lord Beaverbrook goes on to the very practical point that health is the foundation both of judgment and industry and, therefore, of success, and says a great many shrewd things about health. Here, indeed, he gives practical proof that the Whig principle of following the dictates of moderation and of pushing nothing to extremes is as essential in Business as in Politics. For example, take the following :-

" The future lies with the people who will take exercise and not too much exercise. Athleticism may be hopeless as a career, but as a drug it is invaluable. No ordinary man can hope to succeed who does not work his body in moderation. The danger of the athlete is to believe that in kicking a goal he has won the game of life. His object is no longer to be fit for work, but to be superfit for play. He sees the means and the end through an inverted telescope. The story books always tell us that the Rowing Blue finishes up as a High Court Judge. The truth is very different. The career of sport leads only to failure, satiety, or impotence. The hero of the playing fields becomes the dunce of the office. Other Alen go on playing till middle-age robs them of their physical powers. At the end the whole thing is revealed as vanity. Play tennis or golf once a day and you may be famous ; play it three times a day and you will be in danger of being thought a professional—without the reward. The pursuit of pleasure is equally ephemeral. Time and experience rob even amusement of its charm, and the night before is not worth next morning's headache. Practical success alone makes early middle-age the most pleasurable period of a man's career. What has been worked for in youth then comes to its fruition. It is true that brains alone are

not influence, and that money alone is not influence, but brains and money combined are power. And fame, the other object of ambition, is only another name for either money or power. Never was there a moment more favourable for turning talent towards opportunity and opportunity into triumph than Great Britain now presents to the man or woman whom ambition stirs to make a success of life. The dominions of the British Empire abolished long ago the privileges which birth confers. No bar has been set thereto prevent poverty rising to the heights of wealth and power, if the man were found equal to the task. The same development has taken place in Great Britain to-day. Men are no longer born into Cabinets ; the ladder of education is rapidly reaching a perfection which enables a man born in a cottage or a slum attaining the zenith of success and power. There stand the three attributes to be attained—Judgment, Industry, and Health. Judgment can be improved, industry can be acquired, health can be attained by those who will take the trouble. These are the three pillars on which we can build the golden pinnacle of success."

We cannot part with Lord Beaverbrook's stimulating little book without giving him a salute for his chapter on " Depres- sion." It is full of sound Economic sense. After a very sensible, though necessarily somewhat conventional, summary of the inevitable alternation of boom and depression in Commerce, he says :-

" But this change in the sequence from boom to depression is not an unmixed evil. Prosperity spells extravagance in pro- duction. While the good tunes endure, there is no sufficient incentive either to economy or to invention. A concern which is selling goods at a high profit as fast as it can make them will not trouble to manage its affairs on strict economic lines. It is when the pinch begins to be felt that men will investigate with relentless zeal their whole method of production, will welcome every procedure which reduces cost, and seek for every new invention which promises an economy. Depression is the purge of business. The lean years abolish the adipose deposit of prosperity. The athlete is once more trained down fine for the battle. Men who realize these facts will not, therefore, grumble overmuch at bad times. They will, at least, have had the sense to see that those times were bound to come, and have refused to believe that they had entered into a perpetual paradise of high prices. In this respect free will makes the individual superior to the alternations of the market. He, at least, is not compelled to be always either exalted or depressed. If he cannot be the master of the market., he is, at least, master of his own fate."

There is, we believe, a profound truth in this statement. It is only through periods of depression that we get real improve- ments and developments—new processes and new inventions in industry. A community which is too easily satisfied with its condition soon sinks into lethargy. Occasional depressions are what keep the body politic and the body of commerce in health. It is the " divine discontent " which drives men on in every field of life. If they have not got that sense of divine discontent naturally, depression will soon give it to them. This, indeed, is only another form of the old aphorism of the Political Economists that the great thing is to raise men's standard of desire. To do so will make them work earnestly and resourcefully and get from them the maximum of output. Another facet of this great principle is the old saying that there is no better manure for a field than a high rent. A cynical Chancellor of the Exchequer might say that high taxation, if not carried to the point of total confiscation, is an excellent tonic. The more people are taxed, the harder they work at business, or at the loom, or at the lathe. Certainly the present writer has to admit that he has never worked harder than during the last two or three years, and that the spur is the need to meet the demands of the tax-collector.

With this salute to the Chancellor of the Exchequer, the compliments of the Income-tax and Super-tax season, and success to his Budget, we must take leave of Lord Beaverbrook's useful contribution to the making of better times.