THE PROBLEM OF PROFITS I55

How, it may be asked, can such a result be promoted?
One method is to develop as fully as possible all latent
capacity, which may be assisted by efficient general education.
 Of methods whereby able men may be assisted or
encouraged in establishing themselves in business, in spite
of not owning any considerable capital, nothing further will
be said here. The aid which they might render in establishing
 a competition between those possessing ability is
sufficiently obvious. But such competition brings up the
question of who is to survive, or how those worsted in the
struggle are to be eliminated. Whatever provisions of law
check men from trading with the funds of others after they
have become insolvent, covering losses due to their own
inadequate capacity for management by using funds the loss
of which cannot add to their personal losses, must aid towards
this. The continuance of such people in business is not
merely a loss to those whose funds provide the means to
cover their deficits, but it is a loss to the community as a
whole, inasmuch as it means that some of the resources of
the community are being used for purposes where they do
not reproduce themselves in their use. A destruction of
capital is in progress. Trade secrecy aids substantially in
enabling losses of this kind to remain hidden long enough
to become serious, and the increasing publicity of business
may do something to check such loss. In view of the growing
 complexity of business affairs, as a result of which
publication of periodical balance-sheets fails to reveal the
real standing of the business to which they refer, too much
must not be expected of publicity as a restraint on the
continuance of an enterprise after it has definitely entered
on a career of failure.
A good deal of discussion has taken place as to the
nature of the services for which profits form the remuneration,
 So long as a man in business was, in large degree,
owner and manager at the same time, his remuneration
naturally covered the return to capital and to organising
effort. The growing use of capital by others than its owners,
leading to the establishment of systems of hire and loan of
capital, required the separation of the remuneration of the