Albert Ballin was a born business man if ever there was one. To him the noble words of Schiller’s lines apply: “The treasures which his ships carry across the oceans spell untold blessings to all who receive them.” His whole mind was drawn towards the sea; his inborn inclinations and the surroundings amidst which he grew up had destined him to be a shipping man. To the boy Ballin the Hamburg harbour was the favourite playground; and the seven seas were just large enough to serve as a field of action for the youth and the man. There was his real home, and there he felt at rest. How often, indeed, has he assured us that the sleeplessness to which he fell an unfortunate victim whenever he was ashore left him as soon as he was on board ship, and that a miserable river barge was sufficient to have this effect on him. He was proof against sea-sickness, both bodily and mentally. Thus he became a shipping man, because it was his natural vocation; and in this chosen profession of his he became one of the greatest and most brilliantly gifted rulers the world has ever seen.
Whenever there was a problem to be solved he attacked it in a spirit of boldness, yet tempered by the utmost conscientiousness and caution. No task he encountered was so big that his daring could not tackle it and overcome its difficulties; nothing was so insignificant that he would not attend to it somehow. Whatever decision his infallible instinct intuitively recognized as right, and to whatever idea his impulsive nature had given practical shape, had to pass muster during the sleepless hours of the night before the tribunal of his restless mind when, as he used to say, “everything appears wrapt up in a grey mist.” At such times his reason began to analyse and to criticize the decisions he had reached during the day. Then he would often shudder at his own boldness, and the torments of doubt would be aggravated by the thought of the enormous responsibility which he bore towards his company. For it must be understood that from the day he joined the Hamburg-Amerika Linie his interests and those of the company became parts of an inseparable whole.
The company’s affairs absorbed all his thoughts at all times; the company’s well-being was the object of his constant care; he devoted himself exclusively to the service of the company, and the opinions which he formed in his mind regarding persons and things were instinctively coloured according to their relationship to the company’s affairs. The gradual progress during its infancy, the later expansion, and the final greatness of the company, were as the events of his own life to him; when the proud structure which he had raised collapsed his life was ended. His thoughts incessantly converged towards this very centre of his being. All his work, all his words and deeds, were devoted to the furtherance of the company’s interests. He identified himself so completely with the company that he actually was the Packetfahrt, and the Packetfahrt was he. Even his love and hatred were rooted in the company. He remained a grateful and lifelong friend to anyone who had been of service to the company or to him as representing it.
This highly subjective and indissoluble relationship between himself and the company—which it had been the dream of his life to raise to the highest pinnacle of prosperity—is the key to the fundamental principle which lies at the root of his whole complex personality. But however well-defined his personal individuality stood out, his subjectivity was nevertheless animated by a strong sense of duty. His views, for instance, on the essential principles governing the most perfect organization which modern capitalism has produced—i.e. the joint-stock company—were free from any tinge of personal considerations whatever. He was himself the responsible head of a big joint-stock company, and instinctively this fact exercised such a powerful influence on all his thoughts and feelings that it is quite impossible to arrive at a just appreciation of his character unless this circumstance is borne in mind. His character which appears so complicated to the cursory onlooker, but which is in reality of singular simplicity and consistency, is best illustrated by his reply to a question of one of his friends who had asked him why he did not allow some piece of scathing criticism which he had just expressed in private to be made public. “My dear friend,” he said, “you forget that you are not the chairman of the board of directors of a joint-stock company.” What he meant to convey was that the enmity which he would incur by expressing those views in public would adversely affect the firm of which he was the head, and that the interests of his company compelled him to impose upon himself restrictions which he could ignore in his private capacity.
Although he had nothing but scorn for the very suggestion that this company should receive at any time any subsidies from public funds, he made it to the fullest extent subservient to the needs of the public and of the nation at large. He often remarked that such gigantic concerns as, e.g., the Hamburg-Amerika Linie, are no longer private ventures purely and simply. The ties that bind them to the whole economic life of the nation—and, for the matter of that, to the world in general—are so close and so manifold that it would be disastrous to ignore them or to sever them. Hundreds of industrial, commercial, and agricultural enterprises were lavishly supplied with work through the orders they received from the Hamburg-Amerika Linie in connexion with the building and the equipment of its steamers and with the needs of its organizations on shore. Its hundreds of thousands of passengers and emigrants, and the huge volume of German-made products and manufactured articles carried on board its vessels, spread the German name and German fame throughout the civilized world. Hence, to Albert Ballin the national flag and that of the Hapag were two symbols expressive of but one idea.
A man who, like Ballin, was at the head of the biggest German shipping company and therefore also, by implication, one of the leading spirits in the economic life of Germany, could not very well hold himself aloof where high politics were concerned. The more the economic problems gained in importance, the greater became their bearing on the course of the country’s politics. Ballin, however, would never have become a professional politician from inclination, because he invariably refused to be mixed up with the strife of parties. He never officially belonged to any political party; and although he made friends with members of all the non-Socialist parties, his general outlook on politics was mainly coloured by Liberal views, and he was a firm believer in Free Trade. Whenever questions dealing with the interests of shipping and trade were involved, he had no difficulty in making the responsible people listen to his claims and to his suggestions, but he never tried to make his influence felt on purely political affairs unless they affected the country’s vital international interests. His lengthy and extensive travels to the countries of Europe, to the North American continent, and to the Far East, had broadened his outlook. His profession as a shipping man not only brought him into frequent contact with the heads of the big shipping companies all the world over, but also with a number of the financial magnates and industrial captains of Great Britain, the United States, and other countries of economic importance. He took rank with the greatest economic leaders as an equal, and this unchallenged position of commanding authority was reflected by the esteem in which he was held by the principal statesmen and parliamentarians. He was familiar with the essential and vital needs of other nations, and he therefore not only stood up for the national rights whenever they appeared in jeopardy, but he also raised his warning voice against a policy provocative of conflicts whenever he thought it possible to avoid them. Whoever is conscious of his strength is also aware of the limitations set to his power.
In politics as well as in business he held that “a lean compromise was preferable to a fat lawsuit,” as the German proverb puts it. It has been mentioned elsewhere in this volume that Ballin was essentially the man of compromise. It is very probable that the experiences of his early life had helped to develop this outstanding feature of his personality. It may be assumed that he, a young man of unknown Jewish family, found his path beset with difficulties in a city-state like Hamburg, where the influence of the wealthy patriciate of the merchant classes was supreme, and that he was looked upon as an upstart even after he had reached a prominent position himself. The casual observer is far too much inclined to underestimate the conservative character—both politically and socially—of the three Hanseatic cities. Still, evidence is not wanting that Ballin’s unusual gifts were occasionally recognized and appreciated even in the days of his early career. An English journalist, for instance, who met him some time about 1895, characterized him by the following words: “He struck me as a great man; otherwise nothing so incongruous as such a type of man at the head of a big steamship line could be imagined.” That Field-Marshal Count Waldersee honoured him by his friendship at an early period has been mentioned in a different chapter of this volume. And even in patrician Hamburg he found an immensely powerful friend and patron shortly after he had entered the services of the Packetfahrt. This was no less a man than the shipowner Carl Laeisz, the most eminent representative of the “House of Laeisz.”
The firm of F. Laeisz, which was successfully owned by its founder, Ferdinand, his son Carl, and his grandson Carl Ferdinand, has stood sponsor to all the more important shipping companies established in Hamburg, and through its great authority helped them all to get over the critical years of their early youth. The sound principles by which the firm was guided might sometimes lead to much disappointment on the part of the shareholders, but they proved to be of unsurpassable benefit to the companies concerned, and nothing illustrates them better than the oft-told episode of the shareholder who went to see Carl Laeisz, complaining that the Hamburg South American S.S. Company did not pay any dividend. “The object of the company is to carry on the shipping trade, and not to distribute dividends,” was the blunt but characteristic reply. Being thoroughly unconventional in his habits, Carl Laeisz—no less than his singularly gifted son, who was one of those rare men whom it was really impossible to replace—nevertheless did invaluable service in connexion with the establishment of new firms in Hamburg, and with the encouragement of existing ones.
It was a great compliment to Ballin that in 1888, when he had only been associated with the Packetfahrt for a couple of years, and when the directors asked for authority to increase the joint-stock capital of the company from 20 to 25 million marks, Carl Laeisz informed them in advance that, at the general meeting of the shareholders, he would move an increase of 10 instead of 5 millions, and that this motion was unanimously carried. Those who have known Carl Laeisz personally will appreciate what it meant to Ballin when, by way of giving him an introduction to the London firm of Messrs. J. Henry Schröder, Laeisz scribbled the following note on the back of one of Ballin’s visiting cards:
“It gives me pleasure to introduce to you the bearer of this card, whom I am proud to name my friend, and to recommend him to your protection and to your unfailing kindness.