THE TRAGEDY OF A MILLIONAIRE.
IN the current number of the Young Man we have the first instalment of a discussion which, judging by he names of those who propose to take part in it, excites good deal of interest. The theme is the misery of being eh, or, as the author of the paper which opens the ubject prefers to call it, "The Tragedy of a Millionaire." hose of us who are outside this unhappy class naturally erive pleasure from contemplating its sad condition. 0 be very rich is to be the object of universal envy, nd there is solid comfort in the reflection that this nvY is wholly uncalled for. The millionaire, it is true, s free from the troubles that specially belong to poverty this much must be conceded—but look what a price he ays for his exemption. Think of all the simple pleasures hat are denied him ; number the worries which his ealth brings in its train ; reckon up the suicides of rich en, and all the degrading methods by which their oney is first made and then kept,—and be thankful that, nhappy as we may be in a hundred ways, this last and ern form has in mercy been denied us. This is the drift Mr. Clarke's interesting paper, and we can easily under- and that, holding these views, he was shocked not long ago a speech of Mr. Chamberlain's, in which the foundation a University at Birmingham was recommended on the ground, among others, that by stimulating invention it might increase wealth, and so add to the nation's happiness. It may be pointed out in passing that Mr. Chamberlain's remark is not fairly open to Mr. Clarke's criticism. To make a nation richer does not of necessity mean to increase the number of millionaires. That would be a form indeed of national wealth, but it would be the poorest and the least desirable form. Why should not Mr. Chamberlain be credited with having in view not the few capitalists whom a new invention might benefit, but the many workmen whom it would equally benefit ? Has not this been the most conspicuous result of previous inventions ? If the discoveries that have made manufacturing England what it is have enriched the employers who have provided the buildings and the machinery in and by which these discoveries have taken practical shape, they have also enriched millions of work- men. Any scientific discovery of real value leads to a large - development of manufacturing industry, and so gives employment to many men who without it must have starved or emigrated. This is an increase of national wealth which surely Mr. Clarke must view with satisfaction.
When Mr. Clarke speaks of the " tragedy " of being very rich, he seems to us to confound the possession of wealth with the use to which it is put or with the means by which it has been gained. The " tragedy " of the selfish millionaire,—if you will. The " tragedy " of the dishonest millionaire,—if you will. The " tragedy " of the millionaire who, in order to gain money, has de- liberately put from him every other interest,—if you. will. But money may be made honestly, and with only a reasonable devotion of time and thought, and when made it may be spent in the promotion of great public objects or in the exercise of great private beneficence. Whereis the " tragedy " here ? Only, we imagine, in this, —that great wealth, like every other condition of life, has its special temptations, and that when men fall beneath these temptations they fall very conspicuously. The " tragedy " that Mr. Clarke is thinking of is un- doubtedly enacted by some millionaires, but it is equally enacted in other classes. The professional man who makes a modest income and spends it all upon him- self may have his " tragedy " just as truly as the man who has a hundred thousand a year. The difference is that his selfishness will pass unnoticed, while the selfishness of the other is on too great a scale to be concealed. A man may break all the Commandments in the effort to get rich, but he may equally break them in the effort to earn a decent competence. It would be easy to paint an. imaginary millionaire whose whole life should be sobered by a high sense of the responsibility which the expenditure of great wealth involves, who should be as careful in the choice of the objects on which his money is laid out as if his income were only a hundredth part what it is, who should live in the constant sense that ownership means stewardship, and that for riches, as for everything else, he will have to give account. Would Mr. Clarke speak of the " tragedy " of a millionaire in connection with such a man as this ? and if he would not, why should he speak of the " tragedy " of a millionaire at all ? He will answer, it may be, that such instances as these are of rare occurrence, that though great wealth brings special opportunities of usefulness, it brings also special temptations to neglect them, and that, as a matter of fact, they commonly are neglected. It may be so, though we do not know on what authority such a statement would rest, or whether it could be- made with proper allowance for the fact that the millionaire who fails, fails in the full gaze of the world. But even if we accept the statement, what does it come to ? To little more surely than this,— that great opportunities are always in the nature of great trials. It would be just as reasonable to speak of the " tragedy " of the athlete because a man may misuse or waste his bodily strength, of the " tragedy " of genius because a man may have great intellectual gifts and employ them unworthily. We do not pity the possessors of a healthy appetite, though it may lead them to eat more than is good for them, or the possessors of a musical faculty, though it may lead them to spend time over the pianoforte or the violin which would be better employed in ether ways. We recognise that all these things, small as well as great, are in themselves positive advantages, that a man is the better for having them, and that the possibility that they may be perverted
is a reason not for wishing them away but for striving the more earnestly to turn them to good account. It is precisely the same with wealth. It carries with it exceptional opportunities, and exceptional opportunit%s imply exceptional liability to let those opportunities slip. That the position of the millionaire is a position of unusual danger we shall all admit,—and if Mr. Clarke means no more than this, we are quite agreed. Only in that case he has surely chosen his title ill, and he has matched his argument to his title. We prefer to say with Canon Barnett that the " tragedy " lies not in the fact of being rich, but in the misuse of the occasions which that fact brings within reach. Men waste advantages of every kind —strength, talent, interest, friends, all the numberless good gifts which Providence gives to them—and among these wasted advantages wealth holds a high place. But the difference between it and the others is only a difference of degree. Our objection to Mr. Clarke's view is that he seems to make it a difference in kind.
The taking of interest for money has not much to do with the subject, but as Mr. Fletcher has brought it into his commentary on Mr. Clarke's article, we may be per- mitted to say a word on it here. If there is one thing more than another that would multiply the evils against which Mr. Clarke is so anxious to guard, it would be the prohibition of interest. For these evils mostly exist in connection with the making of fortunes. It is in the hurry to get rich that men lose sight of their higher selves. But as things are, there is at least a chance that they may give over the pursuit of wealth while they are still capable of something better. The very phrase, He has made his pile," shows that there are those whom such-and-such an income satisfies. When they have made money enough to ensure them this, they do not care to make any more. Let us imagine a state of things in which there is no such thing as realised wealth, in which the millionaire cannot withdraw from the race because as soon as he does so his capital ceases to bring him an income. In that case, however rich he may be, it is hardly possible for him to stop short and say, 'I have made enough.' So long as he goes on making money he is at ease, but the moment that he stops his income is at an end, and he has nothing left but a capital from which there is no return. In these circumstances, what will a rich man be likely to do ? Inevitably, we should say, he will go on making and spending to the day of his death. Mr. Fletcher will have deprived him of his one chance of retirement while he is yet young enough to have higher tastes than are summed up in a banker's pass-book.
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