The Wanganui Chronicle. "Nulla Dies Sine Linea" THURSDAY, JANUARY 13, 1921. THE GOLDEN RULE.

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume LXXVI, Issue 18075, 13 January 1921, Page 4

The Wanganui Chronicle. "Nulla Dies Sine Linea" THURSDAY, JANUARY 13, 1921. THE GOLDEN RULE.

Men of commerce openly and enthusiastically devoted to the. moral and spiritual regeneration of their race are in these days by no means as numberless as the sands of the sea shore. “Business is business” is the prevalent motto, and the common assumption is that other things cannot be associated with it. Now and then, at rare intervals, some man of business steps out of the ruck in an attempt to shatter the fallacy of exclusive materialism and to stimulate the dormant moral instincts of his fellows. Such a one is visiting Wanganui just now, the principal of an Auckland firm of manufacturers and importers, whose dominant purpose in life appears to be to demonstrate that the sale and use of ordinary every-day necessities—such, for instance, as soap and candles, writing materials, and school requisites—can be made an effective medium for the widespread inculcation of higher and nobler ideals based on the fundamental teaching of “the golden rule.” Hence he has made this rule the trade mark of all the wares handled by his firm, and every wrapper, carton and label carries a “seed thought” suggestive of our common brotherhood. “Soap,” he argues, "is none the poorer for being encased in such a wrapper, good candles burn none the less brightly because they come to you bearing a message t 6 your better self. The power of thought is inestimable, as Shakespeare has said ‘there is nothing either good or bad but thinking makes it so,’ and therefore if from every factory, warehouse and shop the products of trade and industry were made to carry the teaching of ‘the golden rule’ into the home of the people we should soon witness a wonderful change for the better in the relationship of man to man and class to class, such a change as 1 believe would put an end to wars and make impossible the perpetuation of industrial strife.” There is at least a grain of wisdom in this man’s novel propaganda, although it is to be feared that humanity has a long way to travel ere it can reach the niillenial goal. Propaganda of the kind he suggests is much to be desired, and there is certainly nothing morbid or irrational in the suggestion that it should be distributed in the manned indicated. Nowadays it is coming to be, more and more widely recognised that the science of successful advertising is founded on truth. Good advertising keeps on selling good goods; but the best advertisement ever printed will not win repeat orders if the goods advertised are not good. And that, after all, is the sum and substance of this Auckland business man’s humani-

tarian idea: to make the trade label a guarantee of good faith on the part of the seller and an inspiration to the purchaser to "do unto others as you would that they should do unto you.” Suppose everyone were to work along these lines, is 4t unreasonable to suppose that there would be tremendous power in the aggregated influence of a neverending stream of moral inspiration? Our Auckland visitor’s answer to this question is an emphatic negative. He, for one, is optimistic enough to believe that the current of thought so set would run into one great reservoir and we should all draw from its fullness.