Principles of western civilisation

506 WESTERN CIVILISATION

(often though not perhaps always without reason) that their entire failure to obtain orders has been due to the want of a bribe.

8. The second class of cases are those in which the recipient extorts the bribe from those who have established business relations with his principal. This practice is rendered more effective and oppressive by a combination between the blackmailers. The servant or agent who demands a commission and fails to receive it, not infrequently warns his fellows in the same position in the trade against the honest trader, who thus finds himself shut out from dealing with a whole circle of firms.

g. In stating the result of the information received in relation to the several trades, and also to some professions, your Committee do not wish to suggest that these practices are by any means universal in any trade or profession.

10. The bribes given naturally take many forms ; most generally they are given in the simple form of a money payment, the worst form of which is a fro rata commission on the business done ; sometimes in the shape of a loan, which places the borrower at the absolute mercy of the lender, who, if he be dissatisfied with the amount of custom he receives, can call in, or threaten to call in, the loan; sometimes the bribe consists of presents of plate, wine, or other things, and not infrequently it is administered in the form of lavish hospitality and treating.

1z. One frequent practice with those who venture to put their offer of bribes on paper, is to describe the sum offered as a “discount,” though the offer is made, of course, not to the principal, but to his agent. .

12. The mass of corruption which the evidence before the Committee shows to exist may appear to some persons so great and complex as to render it hopeless to struggle towards purity. Your Committee do not take this view of the matter. They believe that the discussion of the subject and the publicity of some cases before the Law Courts have already done some good ; and they recall the undoubted fact that corruption formerly existed in this country in regions where it is now entirely unknown; that there are cases in past times in which bribery threw a stain upon occupants of the Bench; that at one time a large number of the members of the House of Commons were in the pay of the Crown; and that commissions and other secret forms of bribery abounded in Government Departments. Your Committee accept the improvement which has taken place in these directions in the last fifty years as a fact full of encouragement for the commercial community of Great Britain. The