A Good Name Is Priceless

Putaruru Press, Volume IX, Issue 417, 26 November 1931, Page 1 (Supplement)

A Good Name Is Priceless

i | [ Britain’s Prime Minister said : “ They can take the | label from my back, but they cannot take the label from I my mind.”

Everything must be labelled, for a label is merely a name by which one thing is distinguished from another. Without names we should be obliged to spend hours in describing the things or persons we were speaking about, and even then uncertainty would be possible. The use of names saves endless time, and in that manner lengthens life. It is easier to say “ wool ” than to say “ that which grows on the back of a sheep”; easier to say “ turncoat ” than to say “a man who is continually changing his opinions ”; easier to say “ monkey ” than to say “ a quadruped with arboreal habits.” Think of the contents of a departmental store in which not one article had either name ox* number. So important is classification and so essential is naming that rational life would be impossible without them. According to the Scriptural narrative, one of the first duties the original man had to perform was to name every living thing. It was a difficult task, but absolutely necessary. According to Mark Twain, our progenitor called a fish by that name for the reason that it looked like a fish. As the race progressed and higher organisation meant finer distinctions, new labels were needed and pigeon-holes multiplied ominously. People had to be spoken of in respect of nationality, religion, politics, philosophy, occupation, and all the other relationships in which they stood to the accidents of life and faith. Nomenclature is growingly difficult. The old problems of genus and species are increased tenfold, and foreign languages, dead and living, are compelled to provide names for new discoveries and inventions. Many of us shrink from being labelled. We may as well protest against being called men or women. Every point of difference calls for a label. We may refuse to be thrown into a pigeonhole where certain persons whom we greatly dislike already slumber without protest, but very probably we have earned our fate: Most human judgments are only approximate, and so it comes that labels which embody them are to be taken in a broad sense. That, however, does not make them valueless.

Our first and bounden duty is to be honest with our labels. We must not label blankets as woollen when they have a good admixture of cotton. “ Made in Britain ” is said to be sometimes attached to goods made mostly in some other country. Legislatures have found it necessary to take steps to punish those who put wrong labels on their wares. If it is an offence to do so, it is much more serious to label one’s fellow citizen wrongfully. There is no danger of calling a Labourite a Nationalist, or vice versa. It would be wrong to call an agnostic an atheist, or an idealist a pragmatist, and very great harm has been wrought through ignorance or malice affixing labels that were quite inaccurate. This is due in some cases to the habit of imputing motives other than those which actually determine one’s conduct. There are people who put the worst possible construction on what others do. Out of several labels which might suit the case they affix the one that is the least complimentary and probably almost libellous. A label is sometimes meant to be as nearly a libel as it could be within

the limits of the law. Of all the miserable wretches in the world that man is most to be pitied who is never happy unless when vilifying someone else. His forte is what was once called “ the giving of characters,” the gleeful narration of all the failings and vices of his neighbours. His delight is in “ winking a reputation down.” There is, alas! in every country a gutter press whose evil occupation is to expose and bespatter, and in some cases to add to its income by something indistinguishable from blackmail. A slanderer is a man who has only one kind of label, and tries to fasten it whenever opportunity offers. He revels in garbage and c£trrion. Some not very remote relations find pleasure in belittling good men by means of sneer, gross caricature, and shrug. Fortunately, the community soon learns what kind of label to fix on these gentry.

The prime duty of every citizen is to be true to what he professes himself to be. Mr Ramsay MacDonald was taunted recently with speaking for his opponents, and his reply was: “ They can take the label from my back, but they cannot take the label from my mind.” He had eonvictrdhs and knew that he had never swerved from them. After all, others will label us wrongly. “Be thou as chaste as ice, as pure as snow, thou shalt not escape calumny.” Jesus Christ was called a drunkard and charged with being in league with the devil. In the degenerate days of Rome it is said that one augur used to laugh in the face of another augur when they met. They were both frauds and they knew it, and their hilarity was over the simplicity of the dupes who trusted them. There are such people still both among officials and non-officials. “ They wear the livery of the court of heaven to serve the devil in.” They label themselves honest and patriotic when all the while they are but serving themselves. Wherever a Roman citizen went he claimed the protection of the empire but sometimes forgot that the privilege implied a corresponding duty. There are men who label themselvEs British but ale in their inmost hearts hoping that Britain will be humbled in the dust. There are men calling themselves democrats who refuse to let others speak in public meetings or vote in a secret ballot. These sejfstyled defenders of freedom tolerate and countenance “ basher gangs,” and have been known to tell a fellcovcitizen that if he went into a meeting and voted as he thought right he would not come out alive. These .be your democrats, ye Communists ! No nation can ever be great whose leaders have no high and noble convictions encouraging liberty, education, and honour. A label is a challenge and should be an inspiration. EnemSes may put false labels on us, but tl®re is no need to worry. To every mhn comes the trumpet call to choose the high road and refuse to leave it either for threat or bribe. Having tal&n our stand for the true and the beautiful and the good, and boldly jßoclaimed our faith, all that is needed is that we be true to label. For such men the reward is not the plaudits pf t the mob but the approval of intelligent citizens and the higher guenon of a good conscience.