LORD RUSSELL ON SECRET COMMISSIONS.
WE differ with the Lord Chief Justice and Sir Edward Fry in their crusade against secret commissions upon one point, and one point only. They seem to doubt whether public opinion will support a pretty sharp Bill for the suppression of the evil custom. We have little doubt about the matter. The feeling of the commercial world, as represented by the London Chamber of Commerce, is unmis- takable ; and our impression is that the general community which buys, though it is habitually indolent, and shuts its eyes to avoid trouble, is heartily sick of the practice. It has a notion that, it is constantly robbed—which is true more. or lessand though it will seldom prosecute, our system making that a matter of almost infinite worry and liability to' insult, it will be heartily glad to think that the robber in commissions is, at all events, liable to penalties like any other thief. The commercial man has, indeed, a reason for his annoyance.other than his considerable losses. He is liable to have his business unfairly reduced as well as his profits. There is a sharp competition about prices, as everybody is aware—a "mania for cheapness" the dealers call it —but there is sharp competition also in quality, and it is quality which is injured by secret commis- sions. The man who pays them does not do it out of generosity. He intends to get his money back either in meal or malt ; and as it is dangerous, in view of the sharp rivalries around him, to add the commission to his price, he is very apt indeed to recoup himself by small reductions of quality which he hopes will be unperceived, but which to the experienced hands and eyes that test his goods are quite clearly perceptible. All kinds of distributors, and especially professional buyers, acquire gradually a sixth sense, a perception of values which seems independent both of knowledge and taste—it is, we believe, a fact that auctioneers, who do not understand the goods they are selling, say pictures, can tell their market-value to a fraction —and the fact that the goods of Messrs. Close and Near have lost something of their quality is very soon generally known. The result is decline of trade, and especially of Asiatic trade, the Indian or Chinaman having a microscope in his fingers' ends, and reports from Consuls that some- how English goods are a little out of favour. Commercial men,' therefore, are quite ready to help Lord Russell, though they may have a lurking dread of the " fuss" there will be in their offices ; while the 'community at large, though inexpert as to quality, unless the article sold is eatable, have a hearty repugnance to the idea of being " done." They are by no means unsuspicious, and rather exaggerate than underrate their losses by the system. We cannot, therefore, share the apprehension which prompted the two Judges in their appeal of Tuesday to the public, and think that if Lord Russell's Bill passes the Lords it will pass the Commons without difficulty.
Who, indeed, is to fight it, and with what argument ? The bribe-takers will be annoyed, saying that the commis- sions are not really secret but are grants-in-aid of wages, and that they cannot give them up, but they will know suite well that they are lying,- and are not in the least likely either to swarm down to Palace Yard, or to appeal to the Press, or to summon any public meeting. If they do the burglars will jeer at them, and the blackmailers will ask why they should not "do time" like the rest. All they can do is to strike, and though they may in some instances do that, they will be most careful to do it upon some other and more popular pretext. The bribe-givers are in the same position, with this aggravation, that as they lose money by the prac- tice, and are, moreover, those who cause the evil, they will be even more ashamed of themselves than the bribe-takers. It is easy to say that the best gentlemen in the land used to buy votes and smuggle brandy, but in the one case there was no dirty element of cheating, and in the other—well there was, but men had become blind to it, and thought themselves only clever. It is a fact, we believe, that on the coast of Suffolk when smuggling was almost universal, a gentleman would smuggle all he and his guests could drink, but grow fiercely indignant if asked to sell any, even to his kinsmen. The smuggled liquor must be given to keep one's conscience clean. The only real resistance will come from a few doctrinaires who hold, as Mr. Bright used to hold about adulteration, that all laws in restraint of " business " diminish the volume of business, and the answer to them is perfect. There is, as Lord Russell was most careful to point out, no restraint.. If commissions are needed let them be given, but given openly like prices. Nobody will be forbidden by the new Bill to do anything, except to hide from his employer that he is taking a bribe. He has only to mention it, and the bribe becomes a fee, and he himself exempted from all penalties. Every- body knows that he will not mention it, and that in truth he is not taking a fee, but is robbing the employer who trusted him, just as much as if he pocketed his spoons. The fact, which we quite acknowledge, that the same man will take a secret commission and be horrified at the idea of pocketing a spoon, is no defence, but merely proof that the conscience has in the one case gone to sleep, while in the other it remains active and inconvenient.
The last argument with which we shall deal is the cynical one that if the taker of secret commissions is punished, secret commissions will abound, for secrecy will thereby be assured. The bribe-giver will hold his tongue because he has attained his object, and the bribe-taker because he is afraid of penalties or prison. That sounds very true, but it is not true, as we may see in the constant punishment of the receivers of stolen goods ; and, moreover, the law will bring a new motive into play. The English, having been governed by just laws for ages, have contracted such a reverence for the law that it positively and directly affects their con- sciences. It does not generate conscience in them, of course, but it sharpens and illumines it. It solidifies a fluid impression into a concrete decision, and makes of acts which were indifferent, offences not only in the eyes of the police but in those of the offenders. Mr. Waugh in the course of his crusade for the suppression of cruelty to children dis- covered the strangest evidences of this fact, one being that punishment rarely increased the parents' antipathy to their children, but rather converted it into a sort of liking. They had, in fact, been cruel because the law had never awakened their consciences, which, once aroused, did not sleep again. The moment Lord Russell's Bill passes thousands will give up seeking for secret commissions, and the remainder will degradation and dislike to the practice which is not felt now, and which is entirely healthy. They will see the truth that it involves a treachery as well as a theft, and treachery in England is repugnant even to bad men. We believe that the Bill, if it .is not so severe as to rouse pity for the offenders, will greatly strengthen English commercial morality, that wages will readjust themselves within six months, and that in five years traders will have difficulty in believing that illicit commissions were ever tolerated by the law. There will, to begin with, be a final end of the really horrible cases which-both Lord Russell and Sir Edward Fry assert to be so frequent, cases in which men pay commis- sions contrary to their consciences under compulsion of the conviction that if they do not pay them they will speedily be bankrupt. They yield to the temptation of a dishonest custom, but they will refuse to break the law.
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