MONEY SYSTEM.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVI, Issue 243, 14 October 1933, Page 11

MONEY SYSTEM.

SYNOD DISCUSSION.

"FEARLESS ACTION" DEMANDED.

REV. MR. AVERILL'S VIEWS

"Fearless and immediate action oil the part of those in authority, with a view to relieving the conditions under which a large section of the community is at present existing," was demanded by the Rev. Walter Averill in a motion placed before the Anglican Synod last evening. "In tlie opinion of the Synod, the present policy of destroying or curtailing the fruits of industry while millions remain in destitution and want is a crime against God and against humanity," continued Mr. Averill's motion. 'The true solution lies in a more efficient system of distribution. The root cause of the present obvious maldistribution of God's gifts is the retention of an obsolete money system. An adequate and effective money system must be congruent with the principles of God, as laid down by Jesus Christ; it must be just to all classes of human society, imposing no penalties on one class in order to confer benefit 011 another class; it must be under the control of a national authority, whose responsibility shall be to the people as a whole, and not to private shareholders; it must create money, not according to any arbitrary standard, such as gold, but according to industrial and economic requirements; it must ensure that the money created shall find its way into the pockets of members of the community, as consumers, in quantities adequate to gain for tlieni full access to what they make as producers."

Commerce Strangled. Speaking to his motion, Mr. Averill said that definite action was needed. Over 78,000 unemployed in Xew Zealand were receiving only enough to keep body and soul together. Relief pay might be justified, were it only a temporary expedient, but unemployment continued to increase. It must not be allowed to become permanent. Xot only were relief workers suffering, but landlords could not get their rents, mortgagees could not collect their interest, and the commerce of the city was strangled. This poverty was man-made and unnecessary. Unemployment had brought a return to sweated labour, declared Mr. Averill. In his parish a girl was making boys' trousers for .3/0 a dozen. What the country needed was more purchasing power. It was the duty of the Church to speak out on the subject. They would fail in their duty if they kept silent from fear of a little ridicule or the displeasure of a few wealthy members of the community. If the Church left it to some other section of tlie community to attempt reform by revolution, the Church would merit the same fate that had overtaken the Church in Russia. Banks' Duty to Depositors. Mr, T. X. Smallwood said that he did not see how the Synod could deal in a brief hour with a problem that was .puzzling the best brains in the world. Although the banks had been subject to a lot of criticism, he would like to remind the Synod that the banks owed a duty to their depositors, many of whom had accumulated savings by their own self-denial. He thought that the Synod could call upon the Government to study the present system from the aspect of Christian principles, but the motion as framed would make them look ridiculous. In answer to the Rev. 11. K. Archdall, Mr. Averill said that he had 110 intention of committing the Synod to the Douglas Credit system. o Au amendment by Mr. J. B. Lusk, that all except the first part of the motion be deleted, was seconded by Mr. E. D. Wilkinson. Effects of Under-nourishment. Asking that the question be not shelved, the Rev. A. J. Greenwood said that he knew families 111 Auckland in which the parents had only one small meal a day so that their children could have two. Of 5700 men, women and children passing through the City Mission clinic, 80 per cent suffered from malnutrition. A week or two ago a man collapsed in the Dock Street Mission through starvation, and the following night a woman was picked up in the street and taken to the clinic also starving. The discussion was adjourned.