Good Business Men

1899

Richard Cadbury, who died in Jerusalem in the spring of the present year, was one of those hard-working men who build up their own fortunes, and in doing so make the fortunes of many whom they employ. When his father died, thirty-eight years ago in Birmingham, England, Richard and his brother George found themselves the proprietors of a grocery business, one of the features of which was the manufacture of cocoa and chocolate. In it were employed a dozen men.

The sons determined to devote themselves entirely to the making of chocolate and cocoa. To-day the firm employs twenty-four hundred people in its extensive works on the outskirts of Birmingham, and the populous little town of Bournville is wholly dependent on the Cadbury enterprise for its existence.

It was, however, in relation to his workmen and workwomen that the best side of the successful business man was manifested. As prosperity came to him he allowed a share of it to fall in their way. And he not only showed by his conduct that he believed master and men to be one in aim and interest, but also that he recognized a higher Master of the business than Richard Cadbury.

The day's labors were always begun by gathering the people together for a few minutes of quiet acknowledgment of dependence on the goodness of God, and His ever-mindful care.

Richard Cadbury and his brother had a personal interest in every worker. When the women left the firm to get married, — the only thing they ever left for, — the brothers knew just where they went and how they were getting on. Such simple friendliness between employer and employed is the best check to the spirit of suspicion that in the present day divides the worker from the capitalist. — Youth's Companion.