THE IMMORALITY OF CHEAPNESS.
MR. JOHNSON, the President of the Manchester Chamber of Commerce, made on Monday an admirable speech on commercial morality, the effect of which was impaired only by the usual defect of such speeches. The key-note was pitched a thought too high. All that Mr. Johnson said was admirable, and probably all that he meant to say, but the interpretation placed on his sentences by the public is open to some cavil. His notion was that nobility of purpose was compatible with com- merce, and that he desired manufacturers and tradesmen to recognise the compatibility with more distinctness. They use their wealth well, says Mr. Johnson, but they often forget that they may seek an ideal purpose even in the method of getting it. It is not sufficient merely to use money for the encouragement of art or science, or civilisation or religion ; there should be a resolve also to acquire the money nobly, by doing in the business selected by the trader the absolute best that can be done. Justus Perthes did this, and did it from motives which every British tradesman ought to make his own :— "It was Perthes's peculiar excellence that he succeeded in being a great citizen because and in virtue of the fact that he was a great tradesman. His life might well be sum- marised in the noble words of one of his early letters,—it was the life of one who desired to bring about all that is possible and desirable,' but of one who knew also how to confine his attempts to the limits and circumstances of his position. They thus found him throughout his life perpetually putting to himself the questions,—' How can I, a bookseller, as a bookseller, pro- mote in every best way the independence, the progress, the well- being of Germany? How can 1, a bookseller, as a bookseller, promote to the uttermost the cause of true art, of true literature, of true religion? How can I, not in addition to, but in virtue of, my profession, be in my own measure perfect as a citizen and as a man ?' " The Englishman too often accepted a lower ideal than that, and prided himself in his business upon "observing the measure of sufficiency rather than the measure of excellence," and therefore supplied an article rather apparently sufficient than one really fit for the purpose for which it was intended.
We need not say how thoroughly we sympathise with these words in their obvious and probably their intended drift, but an interpretation has been placed upon them upon which we wish to say a word. It is supposed that Mr. Johnson meant to con- demn the cheapening processes now employed in Manchester, to attack shoddy, to rebuke "sizing," to insist upon the artistic doctrine that all work should be as real as it can be made, as a moral proposition. We do not know that he did mean this, but the majority of those who are perpetually lecturing tradesmen cer- tainly do mean it, and as it seems to us, they are radically wrong. They confuse an artistic truism with a moral truth. It may be quite true in art—we think, with certain limitations, it is true—that an
effect should not be gained by deception, that in furniture veneering is bad, however well designed, that in decoration reliefs should not be imitated by paint, that in architecture the material em- ployed should be manifest, and not hidden away by stucco. But morally there is only harm in veneer, paint, and stucco when they are sold or described as the articles they are intended to represent. Not only is there no harm whatever in producing inferior articles, provided they are frankly described as what they are, but there is distinct good, for there is distinct benefit, to the larger number of mankind. The only effect of insisting on perfect reality as well as perfect work in manu- facture is to confine all pleasant things to the limited class who can afford to pay great prices. We will take the very worst instance, the instance which tells most against our argument, and defend it upon that. Nothing can be more vile than sham jewellery. With the exception of the pearl, no jewel can be so imitated that the imitation is pleasing to the expert ; and with the exception of the diamond, no precious stone can be imitated so as to be pleasing at all. The very best precious stone of the Palais- Royal kind is ugly, and wearing it is a bit of barbarism worthy only of an uncivilised race. But neither the manufacture of sham jewels, nor the sale of them, nor the wearing of them is an immorality. They may be evidences of bad taste, but they are not wrong acts, provided there is no lying in the matter. This is a crucial instance, for false jewellery is of no use whatever ; and the case as regards useful articles is in- finitely stronger. Take shoddy cloth, for instance, imita- tion broadcloth, made of material which has been used before, and therefore will not wear,—where is the harm of manufacturing shoddy ? The great majority of mankind cannot buy broad- cloth. They desire, however, not to be conspicuous by avoiding broadcloth, and therefore seek a material which looks as like broadcloth as can be sold at the price they can afford. Where is the harm of gratifying that per- fectly natural desire ? If the manufacturer sells his shoddy as broadcloth he is a swindler, and if the wearer of shoddy says it is broadcloth he is a liar ; but supposing both to be frank, where is the moral wrong in either? To read some of the diatribes which appear daily about English goods, one would imagine that the production of cheap articles was a crime simply because they are cheap. We hear, for instance, constantly that English merchants are losing the Central-Asian trade—that wonderful delusion, deli- berately kept up because it is convenient both to the English and the Russian Foreign Offices—because they will not make the long- lasting cloths in which the barbarians up there delight. Let us admit that to be true, and what then ? The English manufac- turers, in seeking, as they always seek, for a great but cheap trade, instead of a limited dear trade, are making a blunder ; but how, if they correctly describe their goods, are they committing an immorality? "Oh, they are pan- dering to the passion for cheapness." Stuff, why should there not be a passion for cheap piece goods as well as for cheap bread ? The motive in either case is precisely the same. The manu- facturer who weights his calicoes with " sizing " is very often a rogue, because he thinks that he is helping his customer to deceive the ultimate buyers ; but if he tells the truth, and happens to know what is the fact, that a native of India can no more be taken in by false calicoes than by false coinage, that the shrewdest housewife who ever drove a shopman crazy by spending an hour in comparing calicoes is a fool to a ryot, why should he not sell sized calico ? The article is bad, but if manufacturer, and middleman, and buyer all know that, and know it equally, where is the moral wrong? Be- cause calico ought to be good? Why should it be good, when it is wanted bad ? Suppose Justus Perthes to have sold bad books, he would have been doing wrong, because bad books injure people, but calico has no moral effect. If Justus Perthes had sold his good books badly bound, and carelessly printed on smudged paper, for the sake of selling a million instead of a thousand, he would not have been doing wrong, but unusually right, because he would have been aiding the diffusion of knowledge. From the artistic point of view he is wrong, no doubt, but not from the moral one. It is asserted with great indignation that the sale of a poor article destroys the commercial reputation of the country, but surely that is a mere question of expediency. If a reputa- tion for cheapness pays better than a reputation for perfect goods, where is the moral evil in preferring the former reputation ? It is just as possible for a "Cheap Jack" to be honest and truthful, and the rest of it, while selling his rubbishy deli, as for Messrs. Copeland while selling artistic china. It is just the same with building. Builders are scolded because they build badly, with thin walls and unseasoned wood, and so on, and of course, if they risk a crash or take advantage of the buyer's ignorance, they deserve punishment ; but thousands want space in their houses who cannot afford to pay for both space and good work, and who know perfectly well that they buy what they want, at the cost of thin walls, and bad wood, and slatternly painting, instead of at the cost of money. Why should they not have what they want ? Take another instance, about which one day there will be a good deal of writing. The passion for cheapness has got into the Carpet trade, and carpets are now manufactured that are as bad and as cheap as carpets well can be. The man who, being able to afford better, buys them, is a fool, for they will cost three -times their price in renewals. But suppose the buyer is a man, like the majority, who can afford ten pounds every three years more easily than £20 all at once, why is he to be forbidden to use a carpet ? He might just as well be forbidden to live in any house not his own freehold. That it would be better for the Alt education of the world that 911 carpets should be hand-made and dyed in the wool, that the poor should varnish their floors till they can afford the good article, and that every carpet sold should be perfection, may be admitted, and still the question remains,— bow much are men bound to sacrifice for an advance in msthetics the -value of which they are unable even to understand. Morally, we should say, very little indeed, and certainly not the daily comfort without which they, being uneducated, would lose their own self- respect. Frankness once granted, it seems to us that a trades- man may lead a noble life quite as well when selling cheap as when selling dear articles, whether the article sold be called shoddy, or sized calico, or veneered furniture, or anything else. It is art, not morality, which is in danger from cheapness. The thing which is only " sufficiently " good is just as worthy, if only it is truly described, as the thing -which is perfectly good, and rather more beneficial to the mass of mankind. Nobody has a right to sell chicory as coffee, but what with " ideals " and "art truths," and high-falutin' gener- ally, we seem all to be coming gradually to a conviction that selling coffee as coffee is noble, and selling chicory as chicory is immoral, which is the merest nonsense, owing its circulation much more to the pride of wealth than to any better impulse. It is not the manufacture of inferior articles, but the habit of lying about them, which is sin ; and the habit of confusing the two offences now so universal simply demoralises the moral sense of tradesmen. They have a right to sell shoddy, if they say it is shoddy, and to abuse them for selling it is simply to pay them for saying it is broadcloth.
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