If, on the one hand, there are fewer of those old-established firms in which strict traditions of honour descend from generation to generation, so, on the other hand, the smaller size of the towns gives less scope for barefaced swindlers.  And thus, if the standard of commercial morality is lower here than at home, people are not taken in so easily, or to so great an extent.  Everyone is expected to be more or less of a business man, and is looked upon as a blockhead and deserving to be cheated, if he does not understand and allow for the tricks of the trade.  In Melbourne the heavy protectionist tariff has brought about an almost universal practice of presenting the customs with false invoices so skilfully concocted as to make detection impossible.  Within my knowledge this practice has been resorted to by firms of the highest standing.  Sharp practice amongst respectable firms is also very common, and verbal agreements are less trustworthy than in England.  You are expected to be on your guard against being ‘taken in;’ and if you are taken in, no one has any compassion for you, the general opinion being that a man who trusts to anything less than the plainest black-and-white is a fool.

Liberality to employes and in the details of business is little known or appreciated.  Exactly contrary to the prevalent idea in America, the Australian merchant is most averse to casting bread on the waters with a view to its return after many days.  He distrusts courtesy and liberality as cloaks for the knave, or as the appurtenances of the fool.  Loyalty is a phrase little understood, and the merchant leaves as little to his clerks’ honesty or honour as he can possibly help.  In business he holds that ’Every man’s hand is against his neighbour, and his neighbour’s against him;’ and he pushes the aphorism to its fullest logical conclusion, i.e., not merely to ’Believe every man to be a knave until you find he is honest,’ but ’Believe that when a man is honest it is merely the more successfully to carry out some rascality.’

The old-fashioned English prejudice against bankruptcy has been improved out of existence by the speculative nature of all business, and the consequent frequency of insolvencies.  Some of the largest merchants have ‘been through the Court,’ as it is termed, more than once; and provided there has been no open swindle in the case, no opprobium attaches.  Even when there has been swindling, it is soon forgiven and forgotten.  A man who has been caught swindling is denounced at the time with an exaggerated ardour which would make a stranger think that swindles were almost as rare as the cases in which they are discovered; but it is only just to recognise that the exposed swindler has a fair chance given him of retrieving his reputation, and perhaps of setting himself up again.  The fact is, that so much sharp practice goes on, that the discovered swindler is rarely a sinner above his neighbours:  he has simply had the bad luck to