SPEED RECORDS AND SALESMANSHIP.

Hawera Star, Volume L, 11 February 1931, Page 6

SPEED RECORDS AND SALESMANSHIP.

From the sporting angle, British people everywhere were pleased by the news that Captain Malcolm Campbell had achieved his long-cherished ambition to set a- new motor car speed record. Not even every Britisher, however, is convinced in his own mind that these "speed merchants” achieve any real good; there must have been many a New Zealand housewife who longed to give the gallant captain ‘ ‘ a piece of her mind” when she read the stories sent through from time to time recounting the impressions of the racing driver’s wife while waiting the outcome of the test at Daytona. There is another, and a national side to the picture however. England, though she may be a nation lof shopkeepers, is not a nation of salesmen. In our youthful arrogance, we, the youngest members of the British Commonwealth, often become impatient, irritated and even contemptu; ous of the Old Country’s selling methods. If she does a good job of work she does not know how to commercialise it, w t c complain, often with good reason. The Mother Country is only now, after years of agitation a,nd urging, beginning to set out afteT American car-selling records in the Dominions. She is doing a good job of work in that respect, but has still, it is agreed, a good deal to learn in regard to selling, which includes advertising. The British people’s love of sport is traditional, and it is helping them through some phases of the industrial war, as it helped them through the grim business of 1914-18. It is a matter of history now that British troops kicked a football across No-Man’s Land. There must have been dour people in the world who thought that was a silly, irresponsible action, but it served the British temperament well enough. Since the war Britain, with all her troubles, has been straining | every nerve in every branch of sport to excel, with no very great amount of success. A cricket Test can overshadow an industrial upheaval in England as a news item; the Empire waits with interest news of the success or failure of British polo teams, British racing yachts, motor-boats and so on. Out of it all the Old Country has certaintly gathered all the world’s speed titles, on | land, in the air and on the water. Money has been poured out and men have risked, and lost, their lives in the effort to win. Their sportsmanship is unchallenged, but what is the good of it all, may be asked? There is one outstanding reward, and that is that Britain’s sportsmen have proved to the world over and over again the preeminence of British engineering. The firms which build boats and cars and aeroplanes are not, of course, blind to the value of the advertising sides of these speed record ventures. Indeed, they can be given credit for undertaking such tests for the two primary purposes of design improvement and advertising the merit of their wares. But it is mainly because the British, as a people, like to compete, and win if possible, that the nation as a whole agitates for the nomination of a British team in the Schneider Cup races, contributes money in largo sums- to relieve the Government of its last excuse for non-entrv, and cheers lustily when the news comes through that a car driver has established a new speed record. Captain Campbell has done something more than give the people of Britain and America a thrill; he has enabled British engineers to prove to the world that- they "can deliver the goods.” The driver is the idol of the public, but the nation’s real benefactors are the engineers. Maybe it is not too much to hope that British salesmen, too, will qualify in the noble roll of benefactors.