THOUGHTS OF LEADERS

Otago Daily Times, Issue 21987, 23 June 1933, Page 6

THOUGHTS OF LEADERS

PRIME MINISTER ON SLUMS ORIGINALITY IN ADVERTISING PRINCE OF WALES ON LEADERSHIP. (From Odh Own Correspondent.) LONDON, May 12. The Prince of Wales, in a message to the British Association for Commercial Education, whose object is the furtherance of British trade through the improvement of the personnel employed:— “To-day, if ever, we need a high standard' of efficiency in all ranks of commerce to enable us to compete successfully in the Markets of the world; and upon our success depends in no small measure the solution of our tragic unemployment problem. In wishing all success to the work of the association, let me emphasise the need for close co-operation between those responsible for the conduct of our commercial enterprise and those directing all brandies of education. The value—the vital importance—to business of trained intelligence and of training for leadership, as well as for the rank and file, needs to be constantly remembered, and we can only secure this through complete co-opera-tion.” PRAISE OF HIKING. The Duke of York, at the annual dinner of the English Country Societies: — “ Let me say a word in defence ox the hiker. The motorist who drives at 00 miles an hour on great concrete roads from end to end of the country rarely knows or cares whether he is in one county or the other, and rarely enjoys the loveliness of England. It is those who stride away through woods and over hills, who sleep under the stars in meadows, and who hear the nightingale in its own home, who really understand England. “They learn to love its beauty, and, because of that, I appeal to them, and to those who feel like them, to do all in their power to prevent those disastrous fires which are so easily started through carelessness, but ■which destroy so much of the finest scenery this land possesses. ... “ The societies represent the desire oi people whose homes are in rural districts to preserve all that their counties mean to them —memories of tones of voice, tricks of speech, and the scenery and climate which helped to mould their characters. I can claim a special interest in this subject for both personal reasons and family traditions. One of my ancestors, George 111, was called ‘ Farmer George,’ because he was so much attached to the soil. And it is to my country house in Windsor Great Park that I return when I want to find a little peace after, the bustle and turmoil of public life.” TRIBUTE TO ADVERTISING. Prince,.Arthur of Connaught, at the coming of age dinner of the National Advertising Benevolent Society, at the Guildhall: , , “ I have marvelled at the skill of wording and drawing and the originality of wit I have often found in advertisements. “ 1 am not sure, indeed, that our newspaper publishers ought not to feel a certain degree of embarrassment in allowing advertisers to pay for advertisements which are so considerable a joy to the reader, as well as a source of revenue to the publisher. But entertainment is not the only advantage that the public get from advertising. Economists attest that, by virtue of money spent in advertising, the public can get a better deal, that distributive costs can be greatly reduced, and that mass production, and all the advantages of cheapness that it implies is possible only with mass selling. This in turn can be achieved only by advertising, and that advertising is a guarantee of quality, since to advertise a bad product is to damn it only the quicker. In short, that advertised and branded goods are the best.”—(“Hear, hear.”) PLANNING FOR NEW TO-MORROW. Sir William Crawford, on the same occasion: “ While it would be unwise and premature of me to say that the depression is at an end, you cannot stop me believing that it is. Though an advertising man, I confess that one of the qualities I like so much "about this country is its reticence in advertising. We are - not a nation of high-powered salesmen, and I am glad of it, for excessive advertising and high-powered salesmanship tends to destroy the individuality oi the people. Nevertheless, in a new and harder world, the hour has come when England must speak up, both within these islands and in the outer world. In this work we are fortunate in the possession of a press that is beyond compare the world’s best. From the columns of the newspapers we must drive home ever more deeply the merits of British merchandise. “In the new economic era that lies ahead of us, new ideas and new methods must be adopted. Manufacturers and_ advertising men must go up together into the watch tower, and put the telescope of foresight to their eyes. They must examine the ground ahead, and give full infornyation of the changing conditions before us. Major Astor has already been up into that watch tower. And under his generalship we are organising this July an advertising and marketing exhibition at Olympia. “ This exhibition will give the kindling touch to new enterprise in trade, in market-making, and in advertising. We ’realise that this year commodity prices may be more firmly raised and the volume greatly increased by international agreements. Tariffs also we may expect to see on a more equitable basis. But such arrangements will only make competition more severe and more open. At this hour we must spread throughout the world a strong consciousness of British industrial supremacy, of British inventiveness, craftsmanship, thoroughness, and finish. We must call advertising into service, to project across the world the soundness of British goods. Economics are never the same thing twice. If we will pass safely from the economics that are gone to the economics that are coining we must advertise. Instead of fighting the phantoms of yesterday, let us plan for the new to-morrow.” POWER OF A BAD WOMAN.

Sir Ernest Wild, K.C., Recorder of London, at the annual meeting of the Middlesex branch of the Holloway Discharged Prisoners’ Aid Society: "There is a great deal too much sentimentality regarding prisoners. You see it in court. The whole of the sympathy seems to be concentrated upon the criminal, and nobody ever gives one thought to the victim. "You get some horrible murder, and it is always the murderer or murderess who is considered; nobody seems to think of Mr Jones or Mrs Robinson, or to mind in the least that they have been sent to eternity suddenly. It is the simple swing of the pendulum. I do think we are running a risk of false sentiment in this matter. You have to remember you are not dealing with good women, and when a woman is bad she is bad, and when she is had she would drag you down- to hell. There is no half-and-half about women.” "A DISGRACE TO ALL.” * Mr Ramsay MacDonald on Slum Clearance: — “The state of our slums and the large areas covered by them are still a disgrace to all of us. We are too much inclined lo accept the existence of our surroundings. What we nil want is to be occasionally taken away from our surroundings so that we become spectators of them, critics of them, and can pass ! judgment upon them. Passing slum pro- j party day after day makes no impression . upon us at all. It becomes part and | parcel of this weary life. It is something we have inherited, something that has dug its roots so deeply into our social system that we take it as though it was as eternal as the hills themselves. "It is an essential moral and mental exercise—certainly a moral exercise—that occasionally we should draw ourselves away and look at these slum areas as though we were new arrivals from a different State, and pass judgment upon them as though we had never seen them before. Think what it would mean if wo could have, even if only for 10 minutes, that separaton between habit and objective fact! It would be one of the greatest services that could be rendered. The slum problem has been before Government after Government. No Government of which f have been a mem- > her has been indifferent to the slum problem, and I can say the same thing of every Government of which my esteemed and valued friend, Mr Baldwin, has been a member. It is not indifference. It has been hopeless. I “ Governments are very humane. ! Against their will very often they have to pay attention to things that have become the subjects of great agitation or apparently great interest for a week.

while subjects that are of far more im portance and of far more vital conccrr to the human beings which constitute the world are not made the cause of_ agitation and apparent interest. That lies at tin root of the reason why slums have existed as they have existed up to 1933 Let us form a fellowship to make these slums a memory and not an existing evil And to succeed the first thing that lias to be done is to bring home to local authorities and local communities their responsibility to back up tiie Minister of Health to carry on the programme of slum clearance.” LUNACY AND DIVORCE. Dr O’Donovan, Conservative M.P. for Mile End, moving the rejection of the Matrimonial Clauses Bill (which adds to the grounds on which a petition for divorce might be present that of the incurable insanity of the husband or wife, who must have been certified as a lunatic for at least five years before the presentation of the petition):— “Wc have had quite enough divorce in this country already, and this proposition, to me, is most Bolshevist. Marriage is much more than a contract. It is a status as much as fatherhood or sonship. The Bill will add to the quantum of human misery. The husband or wife afflicted by incurable insanity has broken no contract. He or she is there through misfortune. Children, too, have the right to be considered in this matter. They are part of the union, and they should have some voice as to whether it should be dissolved or maintained. It is distressful to me that my profession should be called on to commit those who, having been unhappily married once, are desirous of entering that state afresh. I hope our work will be divorced from that responsibility. It is common knowledge that in the Divorce Court certain practices are not above suspicion, and I would look with some distress to the possibility that the weaker members of my profession might be tempted to give certificates in the same way in which those who keep hotels and boarding houses are asked to furnish evidence for divorce cases.”