WISDOM AND "BUSINESS."
[To THE Earns or THE Sescriros."].
Sia,—In reference to your citation of the famous passage from " the Greek Hebrew Preacher " in your issue of June 23rd, a passage to which I have frequently drawn attention, may I venture to suggest that your comment implies a complete misunderstanding of the text? By the term " business " Ecclesiasticus means (as your quotation in extenso clearly evidences) not what the word implies to a reader of the twentieth century, but manual labour, and nothing else. The genuine working man, he argues, engrossed in his special occupation, skillet at his craft, and usually incapable of wider outlook, ie a necessary pillar of the social fabric, and worthy of all respect in his true place; but he is not at all likely to possess the " wisdom " necessary for the guidance of public affairs, and therefore is unfitted as a rule for political or judicial power. One may well doubt if anything has happened in the last two thousand years to discredit the Preacher's very sober statement of an important element in social philosophy; but it has no application whatever to the "business man," as we understand him, the director and master of industry, the capitalist, financier, and wealth creator, of whose utilityin politics surely abundant examples could be cited. A Sir Frederick Banbury may not represent Aristotle's ideal statesman; but if the choice lay between him and Mr. Ramsay MacDonald, is there much doubt which the English people would go for "bald-
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