IS YOUR TOWN ALIVE?

Hokitika Guardian, 29 April 1920, Page 4

IS YOUR TOWN ALIVE?

-MAKING THE,PUBLIC THINK. (By P. It. Climic). Very few towns or cities would agree to-day to remain just as tliej' are at pre'sent until sav 1030. Streets will be paved, lighted, cleaned anil regulated better in 1930 than now; schools will more nearly meet the needs of real life; factories will grow; population will multiply, and citizens will learn in increasing numbers, that business exists because there are human wants that must be served. In any normal New Zealand town some of these changes will take place whether anybody looks after the public interest or not. The upward push of enterprising individuals will achieve some general advance. Hut, if there is to be progress without discouraging delays, the active men of the town must organise themselves into a modern community organisation of some kind in order to' make the public, think. Your town in 1930 will look and be what the average man of to-day wishes. Mind you, the town will not make the progress that one or two broad-visioned men can imagine. Far-sighted leaders are held back by the indifference and ignorance of individuals who can’t see. A town is like a fleet of war ships—the progress of the entire fleet is restricted to the speed of the slowest boat. So it is necessary for the men who want progress—who want to see the prosperity and conveniences of 1939 brought into use as early as possible—to organise to the end that ’‘the slowest boat” may be speeded up and the whole community carried forward.

In .most modern towns or cities pub-lic-spirited men have handed themselves together in a more or less intelligent effort to ascertain what things will be of advantage to the community, and, having fixed upon the things worth while; to seek and strive for them unitedly. The primary function of these citizens organisations is to make the public think. When the public begins to think, the first step towards bsuiness prosperity has been taken. The fundamental fact that must he kept clearly to the front is that all property values, all business values, and all professional values, that exist in any town are made by the spirit of its citizens. Spirit, according to Webster, means “vigour of intellect, temper, disposition of mind, sentiment, desire, perception, animation.” In short Spirit is the propulsive element in mankind, and it is the unfolding of spirit in a community that attracts and develops the kind of men that build empires. Values of all kinds—-business or otherwise—arise when a community or group evince the “disposition of mind” and the “vigour of intellect” that is constantly reaching into the future for what it may bring.

Business exists solely because there are human wants to be satisfied, and the word “business” is the name that is given to the organised machinery of satisfying them. Business is not a thing by itself, divorced from every day 'life, it is a part of life, and every appetite of tin' day creates business. If it rains frequently, the sale of goloshes and umbrellas increases because people want dry feet and clothes. If the sun shines too fervently, the effect on the arms, face and neck of the weaker sex, brings a discernible increase in the'sale of cosmetics. It will be seen by this simple illustration, that the whole intricate machine of business has come into existence, part by part, to serve human wants as they arise.

It must be quite clear then that expansion of business may come in only three ways.

1. —By multiplying the number of people who buy in a certain market. 2. —By increasing the wants of the same number of people, or

3.—By a combination of the two foregoing conditions. It will be perceived, in a flash, the crudity of the thinking of the commercial prophet who cries for ‘‘more payrolls and more people” as the only road to community prosperity, when the fact is that the expansion of business in the world for the last half century lias come chiefly by multiplying the wants of the normal population. The mere in. -crease in population alone would not account for one-tenth of the increase ol business. The real business progress comes from an intelligent endeavour to steadily raise the plane of living. It is a spiritual advance—an increase in enterprise, in resourcefulness, in inventiveness, in courage, that brings economic prosperity.

Community progress is a problem of leadership. Right community leadership aims at the making of citizens with vision. “Where there is no vision the people perish,” said Solomon. There should be posted up in all factories, public offices and other prominent places in the town the one word “Think” in bold red letters so as to command attention. As soon as men really “think” they become creative, optimistic, earnest arid efficient. A man’s head should be something more than merely a parking place for his hat. The Westland I'rogress League is being established to provide a civic centre for the community and an agency for the making of good citizens and loyal residents. -The movement embraces almost every object- that- makes for the hetterineiit of town and country life, and the advancement of the residents to a new and higher sense of the responsibilities of citizenship. It tends to bring about unselfishness, the mending of better feeling through frank discussion and mutual understanding between the various units of the community.