4 THE LAW AFFECTING ENGINEEES 



professional ethics. But what does it avail the engineering 

 profession to set up a standard which can be set at naught by 

 any outsider who chooses to enter the lists as a consultant ? 

 That rules of professional conduct would be honoured in the 

 observance may be admitted ; but that there is any prospect 

 of their becoming so universally honoured as to lead the public 

 to attach a special meaning to the word " consultant " is too 

 much to hope. 



Sir Alexander Kennedy according to the speech above 

 referred to would inculcate these excellent principles in 

 the minds of all those who are entering the profession. 

 Witness the following passage : " If you are consulting 

 engineers also you have absolutely no business and no right 

 to be interested in any way whatever in any manufacturer's 

 firm from whom you can possibly buy anything. Many of the 

 manufacturing concerns are limited companies, and sometimes 

 it may be very tempting to take up shares in them when you 

 know that their work is good ; but clearly it would not do for 

 anybody who was going to specify work to be a shareholder in 

 a firm who might possibly tender to his specification. How- 

 ever free from prejudices your mind might, in fact, be, it is 

 necessary for you not only to avoid wrong, but also to avoid 

 even the appearance of it. There is yet another matter which 

 perhaps I ought to mention. There is a very strong temptation 

 to a young man conscious not only of his own merits and 

 abilities, but conscious also that he wants to get married 

 and to make money, and that as yet he is known to but few 

 people, to tout round for business. That is a thing which 

 must not be. There is, unfortunately, no definite rule, as in 

 the legal and medical professions, against it ; but everybody 

 who does so will be sorry afterwards. It is, of course, a very 

 undesirable thing that business should not come your way, 

 but should go to some other fellow who is not nearly so clever 

 or virtuous as you are. I hope that such experience will not 

 be yours ; but, even at the worst, you will find it the best 

 policy in the long run to put the matter on the lowest basis 

 to do nothing in your own profession which would not be 

 tolerated in any of the other great professions with which we 

 wish to feel ourselves on an equality." 



4. Engineer owning patents. With regard to an engineer 

 owning patents, Sir Alexander said (in the speech above 



