WHAT ADVERTISING MIGHT BECOME
[To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.] SIR,—Recent tendencies in trade organization remind us that there is more than one object in advertising. At one stage an individual will advertise in order to take custom from other individuals in the same line of business, or to 'prevent others from taking custom away from him ; to this can be added the efforts of the newcomer to establish himself The public demand is a fixed whole, and the suppliers enter into open competition as to its subdivision. But this cagy- going relationship between supply and demand is an invitation to more and more producers and distributors to take a band. Then begins the second stage, and to-day we are coming into the thidi of it. Producers must abate their internecine warfare ; they realise that it is time to unite against a common danger—the inertia (or economy) of those for whom they would produce.. The trusts, combines and selling corporations which we see growing up around us suggest that it is upon the .t.econd consideration that a judgment of advertising should be based. When differritilrms, Well known to be members of a common trading organization, are Conchicting independently -extensive advaitisifig campaigns, one can only conclude that the real object (through an ungpoken appearto the popular love of a
battle between giants) is to persuade everyone to eat more, drink more, smoke more, wear more, wash more, travel more, stay at home in comfortable chairs more, and so on.
Hence the problem is in part a problem of political economy : is this a legitimate attempt to increase the speed and range at which a given quantity of wealth can be made to circulate, or is it indeed mortgaging the future under the stress of over- production ? There is also a social side to the problem, for it is certain that the more the public's wants are artificially stimulated the more apparent and unsettling becomes the disparity of wealth. In olden days, when wants were fewer, the squire could enjoy his horses, and the villagers would take a pleasure uncontaminated with envy in seeing him ride out for his day's hunting. But if all the horse-breeders, jobmasters, corn merchants, saddlers and doctors had conspired to tell the general public in no uncertain voice that they must ride more, circumstances might have been different and present discontents anticipated.
Whether this last consideration justifies or condemns modern tendencies in advertising is a matter for personal political conviction. But at least it is clear that a discussion of the problem should embrace the morality of stimulating wants without reference to the limits of the means of
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