This narrower circumstance of extenuation is supported by a broader
one. The whole theory of modern commercial enterprise involves using
other people's money, getting the advantage of this use for one's self
and paying to the owner as little as one can.
A bank or a finance company is intrusted with sums of money belonging
to outsiders on condition that when required, or upon agreed notice,
they shall be repaid. Any intelligent clerk in such a firm may be well
aware that the profits of the firm are earned by a doubly speculative
use of this money which belongs to other people; it is employed by the
firm in speculative investments which do not essentially differ from
betting on the turf, and the cash in hand or other available assets
are kept at a minimum on the speculative chance that depositors will
not seek to withdraw their money, as they are legally entitled to
do. In a firm which thus lives by speculating with other people's
money, is it surprising that a clerk should pursue what seems to him
substantially the same policy on a smaller scale? It may doubtless be
objected that a vital difference exists in the two cases: the investor
who puts his money into the hands of a speculative company does so
knowingly, and for some expected profit; the clerk who speculates
with the firm's money does so secretly, and no possible gain to the
firm balances the chance of loss. But even to this objection it is
possible to reply that recent revelations of modern finance show that
real knowledge of the use to which money will be put cannot be imputed
to the investor in such companies, and that, though some gain may
possibly accrue to him, such gain is essentially subsidiary to the
prospects of the promoters and managers of these companies.
[Illustration: (Group of gamblers commuting)]