l basis of free trade. But, in common
with most economists, he has failed to carry this consideration far
enough. It is generally admitted that the increased publication of
accounts and quotations of stock, springing out of the extension of
joint-stock enterprise, the growth of numerous trade journals, the
collection and dissemination of industrial facts by government bureaux
and private statisticians, are serviceable in many ways. But the
extreme repugnance which is shown towards all endeavours to extend the
compulsory powers of acquiring information by the state, the extreme
jealousy with which the rights of private information are maintained,
show how inadequately the true character of modern industry is
grasped. In the complexity of modern commerce it should be recognised
that there is no such thing as a "self-regarding" or a private action.
No fact bearing on prices, wages, profits, methods of production,
etc., concerns a single firm or a single body of workers. Every
industrial action, however detailed in character, however secretly
conducted, has a public import, and necessarily affects the actions
and interests of innumerable persons. Indeed it is often precisely in
the knowledge of those matters regarded as most private, and most
carefully secreted, that the public interest chiefly lies. Yet so
firmly rooted in the business mind is the individualistic conception
of industry, that any idea of a public development of those important
private facts upon which the credit of a particular firm is based,
would appear to destroy the very foundation of the commercial fabric.
But, although in the game of commerce a single firm which played its
hand openly while others kept theirs well concealed might suffer
failure, it is quite evident that the whole community interested in
the game would gain immensely if all the hands were on the table.
Many, if not most, of the great disasters of modern commercial
societies are attributable precisely to the fact that the credit of
great business firms, which is pre-eminently an affair of public
interest, is regarded as purely private before the crash. As industry
grows more and more complex, so the interest of the public and of an
ever-wider public in every industrial action grows apace, and a
correspondingly growing recognition of this public interest, with
provision for its security, will be found necessary. So far as the
natural changes of industrial structure in the private business