VALUE OF OPTIMISM

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LII, Issue 17154, 2 October 1926, Page 18

VALUE OF OPTIMISM

A BUSINESS ASSET. Tile old marching song, “Rack up your troubles m your old kit bag, and smile, smile, smile,” should not lie forgotten in times of peace, judging by some recent remarks by Sir Harold Bowden, of the Raleigh" Motor Cycle Co., Ltd. Jn a recent interview in the Daily News, Sir Harold said: “1 have just returned from America, where optimism is regarded as an indispensable commercial asset to a country overwhelmed by a pall of industrial gkom. One of the fundamental differences between American business methods and our own lies in the fact that, while the American manufacturer acts on the maxim that supply creates demand, here the tendency is first to make sure of the customer.” Sir Harold, later in tlie interview, after referring to the effects of the coal strike in England, said : “If the individual worker eared more for his personal possessions lie would, like the American worker, aim at buying his own car and his own house, and have no time for the rhetoric of his political misleaders.l Optimism is inlectious. Let our employers cultivate it, and thereby break into the vicious circle of economic and psychological depression that is weighing us down.”