ROTARY

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume LXXXII, Issue 19443, 31 October 1925, Page 14

ROTARY

NOTES ON THE MOVEMENT. THOUHTS OF ROTARIANS “I believe in trade associations. They can make for stability and economy in industry; their two great fields of usefulness lie in lifting standards in tho trades and in the increased efficiency of production and distribution.” —Herbert Hoover. How New Zealanders Look At It. Dr. Herbert, Governor of the 53rd District (comprising tho Rotary Clubs in New Zealand) says: “In New Zealand we believe that if Rotary is going to live, if it is going to spread, and if it is going to last, it is going to do so through business methods aud business methods alone.” Whether or not one shares Governor Herbert’s conviction, is brings one up sharp w r ith the question, “Are you spreading and perpetuating Rotary through your business transactions? ’ 1 A Good Test “Take your Rotary Code of Ethics in one hand and your cash book in the other, and see if you can make every transaction stand up under the test of the Rotary Code of Ethics. Wo arc Rotarians just in the proportion that our code and cash book work together. If they are working together, we are really doing the world some good.”— Rotary Club of Harrison, Arkansas. The Way Rotary Is Going The groat mass of people in the business world are thinking deeply, and want peace in business, in commerce; they want national and international peace. The way they can get it is just tho way Rotary is going, by putting their principles in the business and letting them disseminate throughout the country. (Lady Astor, M.P., in “Rotary” for June, 1924.) If The Shoe Fits A business man who neglects to support the association that has been organised for the good of his line of business neglects a real duty. The man who will not co-operate with his competitors in their effort to raise standards, enforce laws and prevent unfair practices, is ethically recreant. Cooperation among business men in devising and maintaining sound standards of business conduct, and asquiring and disseminating knowledge essential to tho intelligent conduct of business under such restriction as will prevent abuses, is in the public as well as the private interest.—Mr Sterling M. Baker, in Kiwanis Magazine, Anri, 1925.

The Answer? “Has any one of us ever tlakcn the time and pains to actually put down in writing our personal code as our ideal for the conduct of our own business and private life? Unless this is done actually done—land written large, so that there can be no mistake about our ‘taking it in,’ and possibly not ‘getting the thing right,’ is there not a great chance that we are only drifting along the current of Rotary by the luncheon contiact with those, who, either designedly or by accident, happen to be living acording to the precepts of Rotary?”—Rotarian Willard Burr, Hayward, California. Fair Play In International Trade The “World’s Work” for September, 1925, has something to say about fair play in international trade that empha-

sises Rotary’s opportunity land the individual responsibility of Rotarians. “Treaties of commerce” it says, “provide some principles and more rules by which international trade is carried on in times of peace, but the science of maintaining commerce upon a just, and therefore friendly basis is not very far advanced.

“It miay be, of course, that immediate self-interest is the only basis of commercial relations. On the other hand, it is conceivable that there arc principles of fair-dealing which might in tho long run be more profitable all around. Any largo improvement in commercial relations is more likely to bo biased upon principle than upon present practice, because at present any government that should compromise with immediate gain would bo dubbed unpatriotic. “There was much evidence to show that tho Germans subsidised their foreign trade before the war in the hope of crippling their rivals, that they might then monopolise tho field. The United States Government has hlad a long and honourable record of aspirations towards a fairer system. But these aspirations are tinged with dollar diplomacy and must bo until the principles governing fair play are moro fully developed. These principles tare now so indefinite that the fairness of trade activity is more likely to be judged by its nationality than by its character.

“Studies of how to live in peac.c so that there would be fewer causes for war aro likely to be much more fruitful of results than schemes for outlawing war after the causes for war have developed. For no scheme to maintain peace is likely to be effective that has no higher aim than that. Peace is but a negative virtue. Fair-deal-ing is a positive virtue. A plan that really increased tho commercial fairdealing between nations would produce that positive advantage and increase the chances of continued peace as well.” Not Alone The Hon. Herbert Hoover, United States Secretary of Commerce ,addressing the National Distribution Conference at Washington, D.C., declared that the great advance seen in the field of business ethics in the last two decades was chiefly due to the effort of the better trads associations. This fact tilone is enough to convince apy Rotarian that his greatest opportunity to put into actual practice those principles he stands for as a Rotarian is through

active membership in the association of his trtido or profession. Nothing Half-Way About It. The Rotarian in tho spirit of altruistic service not only engages in those activities which make for the better* ment of himself, but he uses his influence to induce higher standards of business among tho members of his craft. His obligation to Rotary does not end with purging himself and his business of low ideals and questionable business practices. Ho must /eel a responsibility to use his efforts fcn establishing liaudablo motives and honI ourablo business procedure among tho members of his craft. To bo satisfied with individual rectitude is selfish and

static, but to project one’s convictions into the ethical code of his competitors in business is Rotary, unselfish and dynamic.—Past President Guy Gundakcr. Our Of The Picture It is not as a member of a Rottiry Club that you and I. are to give expression to business ethics. It. is more as members of our trade or professional organisations or asociations and in our businesses that wo give that expression. A Rotary Club is not to function primarily as «a club at all. The idea is, as you know, that wo as individual members shall got into us the Rotary spirit so that as we go into tho various walks of life land as we become members of our trade and professional associations, wo will instil that spirit in others, land Rotary will be functioning through us and expressed through us.— Rotarian Emory L. Coblentz, Frederick, Maryland.