Mr. Carnegie's St. Andrews Address

Abstract

MR. CARNEGIE'S rectorial address at St. Andrews V-L is an interesting study in the psychology of the typical business man of modern times, as well as a memoir on the conditions of great business, which people must read for the sake of the shrewd and acute remarks themselves, such as no statesman or economic student can afford to overlook. The address is written exclusively from the point of view of a. great industrial chief who has availed himself to the full of the conditions of business in the most favoured and wealthy community which the world has yet seen-that of the United States. He has observed and seized the great opportunity for the concentration and development of industry on a large scale which the United States has afforded. A large area of complete internal free trade, and an active, yigorous and rapidly growing population throughout this area, have given the United States manufacturer for many years an unrivalled opportunity for colossal arrangements, involving the cheapening of cost by means of subdivision of labour and the institution of mechanical and automatic processes wherever hand labour could be superseded. This opportunity, properly used, has been the occasion of Mr. Carnegie's gigantic fortune, and it is accordingly natural that he should speak of all business as conforming to this type, so that a community like the United States supplies the model for great manufacturing business in future. The cheapness of production once established, it is assumed, will enable the United States to. be the most successful competitors internationally, and Britain accordingly will take a second place in future, if not a third place, with Germany second. Naturally also, Mr, Carnegie regards the protectionist policy of the United States as having contributed to this result and given the United States manufacturer the monopoly of his large home market. Nor is it surprising to find the ordinary American idea about the economic effect of military armaments put forward by Mr. Carnegie as explaining the backward state of Europe compared with the United States. The ideas come from his environment and history, and the result of their combination with Mr. Carnegie's own shrewd observations is the present most instructive address.