MONEY AND WAR.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIX, Issue 99, 29 April 1938, Page 15

MONEY AND WAR.

DRAMATIC CHARGES.

SPEAKER AND INTERJECTOR.

MUNITIONS FIRMS ATTACKED.

"I would suggest, Mr. Speaker, that that is a damned lie!" Interrupting thus, a man in the packed body of *he Town Hall Concert Chamber last evening, provided further drama to a dramatic address given by the Rev. C. l>. Bradley, of the Xorth Shore Presbyterian Church, Sydney. Naming the present financial system as the cause of all the unreet in the world to-day Mr. Bradley had stated that he had been told by British and Australian officers that Germany could not have carried on in 1918 if it had not been supplied with anus and munitions from British and Allied munitions firms. It was then the interruption came •If they did, it is no worse than what they are doing to-day/' continued the speaker. . . . The interjector was calling something eke, but his voice was Iot«t in that of the chairmen, Mr. W. J. Lyon, M.L\, calling him to order. "Put him out." came cries from all over the hall. The interjector continued. "I am in control of the meeting; while the. speaker is on his feet . . ."began Mr. Lyon, coming to the front of the stage; then, ae the interruption continued: '•Listen to me. or get out!' . For a moment there -was quiet and the speaker continued pointing out that he had been given his information bv army officers. ... Need For Reform. "I repeat what I said," came the voice again . . . hut the speaker's words drowned his voice, quoting the charge that Italy and Japan were )>eing supplied with arms by firms in which British armaments firme had interest*. He then addressed the interrupter, quoting books that he should read, "if he wes sincere."' If he had not read both sides of the case thp term "liar"' was much better applied to him. There was no further interruption.

A strong, and eloquent speaker, Mr. Bradley attacked the financial system and a little group of Kuropean financiers, -with n greed and hi*t for power." Ho said the nation had a right to manufacture its own money. The only alternative to a reform of the financial system was for the nations to eink deeper and deeper into debt.

The speaker pointed tr> the hujre quantities of foodstuffs that were beinsr destroyed by various countries, to the control of production, and the control of inventive genius that would increase production. Experts had little to say to-day of the economic law of supply and demand, f»ir they knew that (supply wa« Ivcing interfered with. Tt was the Church's hounden duty to fight for economic reform and social justice, and not merely to wait for "a change of heart."