Quotations from Chairman Matsushita

Some tycoons confronted with massive taxes might be tempted to move to another country, turn reactionary or consult a Swiss banker. But not Konosuke Matsushita of Japan. In 1946, convinced that his high taxes resulted from World War II, and that the war had resulted from the sad state of society, Appliance Magnate Matsushita founded an institute to "improve the human mind." A year later he launched a magazine to spread the institute's word. Today PHP (for Peace and Happiness through Prosperity) is the most popular magazine in the Japanese language.

What is the secret behind PHP's sales of 1,500,000 a month? Why do some young Japanese workers carry it around much as the Red Guards of China clutch copies of Quotations from Chairman Mao Tse-tung? Americans, among others, will soon get a chance to decide for themselves. The first issue of an English-language version of PHP is arriving from Japan this month, the newest import from the man who gave the U.S. Panasonic radios and TV sets.

Like its Japanese parent, the new PHP is similar in size to Reader's Digest. But in other ways it resembles no journal of the Western world--with the possible exception of Benjamin Franklin's old brainchild, Poor Richard's Almanac. Devoid of ads, news, politics religion, sex, its 108 pages brim with simplistic sermonettes, warm remembrances and fervent hopes. Texts, which seldom run over 500 words, are sprinkled with bland heads ("One-Man Production" "Dynamics for Survival"), beguiling sketches and bylines of the famous and the unknown.

In one of the longer inaugural pieces, historian Arnold J. Toynbee observes: In science and technology, man has been brilliantly successful; in morals he has been a tragic failure." In an item entitled "Thank God for Music," Composer Jule Styne rhapsodizes: "Music reaches the lefts and the rights with the same good emotional impact." Matsushita, who spends several hours a month delivering his own thoughts to a panel of scribes, provides some "Notes for World Prosperity." Sample: "Peoples from every corner of the earth must get together to launch an Apollo of the spirit." Other contributors include Anne Smol, 8, of London, who offers 108 words on how she enjoyed being a brides maid at her auntie's wedding. Priced at 50-c- a copy in the U.S., the international PHP needs a circulation of 250,000 to break even Its first press run is only 80,000; obvi ously, Matsushita is prepared to lose money initially. He can afford to. At 75, and still chairman of the board at Matsushita Electric, he has a personal income of $2,500,000 a year. Even his taxes do not bother him any more When a mountain is high," he con cluded some years ago, "the valleys must be deep."

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