DOUGLAS SOCIAL CREDIT.

Bay of Plenty Times, Volume LXII, Issue 11346, 16 February 1934, Page 3

DOUGLAS SOCIAL CREDIT.

Sir, —We know Major Douglas i; in New Zealand, and unfortunately for some of us it is hard to heai much of him and his doings. Per t haps you would be willing to publisl 3 a few of his words taken from th< book "Major Douglas Speaks." I air L sure quite a few of your readers wil! , be interested. Such of his words as , I will quote must create discussion I from which good must arise. W« . that study the D.S.C. proposals believe that quite a few people in thie country do not realise to any great i extent what disadvantages we work , under when we try to make industry [ and finance run side by side. It is [ impossible, as they have both proved . to us. We believe that Major Douglas has shown, us a way out, definite- . ly, permanently and easily. ! I quote the following from "Major Douglas Speaks":— "The actual and potential wealth of the world is demonstrably beyond all the requirements of the highest standard of living for the whole population." "That the world is 'rich and getting richer' (which jg the claim of the engineer and scientist) and 'poor and getting poorer' (which is the claim of the financier and the orthodox politician) cannot both be correct." Again: "In spite of every hindrance to the formation of an instructed opinion, the man in the street has arrived at the correct conclusion. The' scientist is right, the financier is wrong." A rrnln ■

Again: "Suppose you grow a ton of potatoes, and I wrote you out a cheque for £5 and took your potatoes. If you were willing to accept my cheque indefinitely, it is obvious that as, fast as you grew potatoes I could come into possession of them by writing out cheques for them. It is also obvious that if your only method of getting the goods and services which you require was by obtaining cheques from me for the purpose of handing them on to someone else, that so long as I retained the monopoly of writing cheques I should be potentially the owner of everything you and your neighbours could produce. "Although banks have the monopoly of the creation of money, no bank has ever been known to give money away. It lends money; that is its business. It is this volume of money, and not the amount of available goods, which govdrns the purchasing power of the people. Again: "When a bank makes money, it makes money out of nothing, it gives nothing and lends everything. It has, as we say a 'monopoly of j credit.' " Again:— "This business of a money system, or a barometer, is to indicate, not control.. .But it is just as sensible to suggest that the money system ought naturally to control the industrial (system as it would be to suggest that the barometer should control the weather." Speaking again of the money system Major Douglas says:— "It is a man-made system, and it can be altered to any extent by its makers." Again:— "Either I am deluded in telling you that there is plenty of oorn, coffee, rubber and many materials, or else, a set of financial figures, which says that we must economise because there is not enough, must be false." . C. S. MOFFATT.