Part 11 (2/2)

”Exactly. That is to say, if I am right about my visitor.”

”But how did they--how could any one know about Tim Gorman's invention?”

Ascher shrugged his shoulders.

”Surely,” I said, ”Gorman can't have been such a fool as to talk to newspaper reporters.”

”We need not suppose so,” said Ascher. ”My experience is that anything worth knowing always is known. The world of business is a vast whispering gallery. There is no such thing as secrecy.”

”Well,” I said, ”the main point is that this man did know. What did he want?”

”He wanted us to sell the patent rights,” said Ascher. ”What he said was that he had a client--he posed as some kind of commission agent--who would pay a substantial sum for them.”

”That is just what Gorman said would happen once it was understood that your firm is behind the new company.”

”Gorman is--well, astute. But you understand, I am sure, that we cannot do that kind of business.”

”I always had a suspicion,” I said, ”that Gorman's scheme was fishy.”

”I do not say fishy,” said Ascher. ”Gorman's plan is legitimate, legitimate business, but business of an unenlightened kind. What is wrong with Gorman is that he does not see far enough, does not grasp the root principle of all business. We have a valuable invention. I do not mean merely an invention which will put money into the pocket of the inventor and into our pockets. If it were valuable only in that way Gorman would be quite right, and our wisest course would be to take what we could get with the least amount of risk and trouble, in other words to accept the best price which we could induce the buyers to give us.

But this invention is valuable in quite another way. The new machine, if we are right about it, is going to facilitate the business of retail sellers all over the world. It will save time, increase accuracy, and, being cheaper, make its way into places where the old machines never went.”

”Ah,” I said, ”curiously enough I looked at the matter in that way when Gorman first mentioned it to me. I said that the world ought to get the benefit of this invention.”

Ascher nodded.

”I see that,” I went on. ”I understand that way of looking at it. But surely that's altruism, not business. Business men don't risk their money with the general idea of benefiting humanity. That isn't the way things are done.”

”I agree,” said Ascher. ”It's not the way things are done or can be done at present, though there is more altruism in business than most people think. Even we financiers----”

”I know you subscribe to charity,” I said, ”largely, enormously.”

”That's not what I mean,” said Ascher. ”But we need not go into that. I believe that business is not philanthropy, finance is not altruism.”

”Then why----?” I said. ”On strict business principles, altruism apart, why not take what we can get out of Tim Gorman's invention and let the thing itself drop into the dustheap?”

”On business principles,” said Ascher, ”on the strictest business principles, it would be foolish to do that. From time to time men hit on some improvement in the way of making things or in the way of dealing with things after they are made, that is to say in business methods.

Every such improvement increases the wealth of the world, tends to make everybody richer. This invention which we have got hold of is a small thing. It's only going to do a little, a very little to make the world richer, but it is going to do something for it is going to lessen the labour required for certain results and therefore is going to increase men's power, a little, just a little. That is why we must make the thing available, if we can; in order to add to the general wealth, and therefore to our own wealth. Those are business principles.”

Ascher paused. I had nothing to say for a moment. Business principles as he explained them were not the business principles I was accustomed to, certainly not the business principles on which Gorman acted. After a minute's silence Ascher went on.

”The mistake which is most often made in business,” he said, ”is to suppose that we grow rich by taking riches from other men, or that nations prosper by depriving other nations of prosperity. That would be true if riches consisted of money, and if there were just so much money and no more in the world. Then business and finance would be a scramble, in which the roughest and strongest scrambler would get most. But that is not so.”

”Isn't it?” I said. ”I should have thought that business just is a scramble.”

”No,” said Ascher, ”it is not. Nations grow rich, that is to say, get comfort, ease, and even luxury, only when other nations are growing rich too, only because other nations are growing rich.”

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