One visits a mercantile office
where a number of men are working at different desks in a large room,
and marvels at the quiet and systematic manner in which
they perform their tasks; or one goes to a big bank and is amazed
at the large number of customers ever going in and coming out.
It is difficult to calculate the enormous amount of business
transacted every hour, yet all is done with perfect organization
and a proper division of labor, so that any information required
is furnished by the manager or by a clerk, at a moment's notice.
I have often been in these places, and the calm, quiet, earnest way
in which the employees performed their tasks was beyond praise.
It showed that the heads who organized and were directing the institutions
had a firm grasp of multiplex details.
We Chinese have a reputation for being good business men.
When in business on our own account, or in partnership with a few friends,
we succeed marvelously well; but we have yet much to learn
regarding large concerns such as corporations or joint stock companies.
This is not to be wondered at, for joint stock companies and corporations
as conducted in the West were unknown in China before the advent
of foreign merchants in our midst. Since then a few joint stock companies
have been started in Hongkong, Shanghai, and other ports;
these have been carried on by Chinese exclusively, but the managers have not
as yet mastered the systematic Western methods of conducting such concerns.
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