JAPAN AND SOCIAL CREDIT

Press, Volume LXXII, Issue 21710, 18 February 1936, Page 16

JAPAN AND SOCIAL CREDIT

TO TEDS EDITOR OF THE PBBSB. Sir,— My reply to “Junk” is that imports which have been obtained in exchange lor an equal value of exports are a proof of wealth. Imports which have been obtained by means of an overseas loan are a proof of poverty, while a surplus of exports, which is not a loan, a payment of interest, or repayment of debt, is a proof of insanity. The main principle or axiom of our present system of “sane and sound finance” is that every nation must have a favourable balance 61 trade. This means that every nation must give to the foreigner more goods than it receives from the foreigner. In their attempt to achieve this Impossibility all nations, by means of rationalisation,- mass-production, lowered wage rates, subsidies, and depreciated currencies, endeavour to force their goods into the foreigner’s markets. At the same time, by means of tariffs, embargoes, quotas, and what not,, each nation discourages the entry of the foreigners’ goods into its own markets. The object of every nation is to give away more than it receives. And Japan, by offering her goods to the foreigner at less than their cost of production, has achieved this object. Social creditors contend that asocial system which compels each of its units to strive after an impossible ideal, i.e., a universal “favourable balance of trade,” is insane, and that this striving to attain an impossibility must inevitably result in a universal decreased standard of living, universal unemployment, and the last and greatest' insanity, which is universal war. I cannot tell “Junk” how dreadfully he misunderstands me, for on this matter of surplus exports I. do not think a misunderstanding is possible. Regarding his suggestion that I claim my. opponent has misunderstood me when “something Inconvenient crops up,” let me say that I have never suggested nor claimed that Japan is a social credit state. Neither have I ever “twisted” or shifted my ground when something “inconvenient; has cropped "Junk” has no proof that the “ ‘Economist’s’ correspondent in Japan has never detected this financial trick” for, if such a financial trick exists, publication of it would be taboo in the columns of the “Econoriiist.”— Yours, etc,, „ F. G. THOMAS. February 17, 1936.

TO THE BDITOS OP' THE PEES 9.'

w w< aua ma»aa» . Sir, —Mr F. G. Thomas, who has taken it upon himself to defend the social credit faith from the attacks o£ the infidels, denies that he has ever : claimed'that Japan is a social’ credit state. Apparently-he does not agree: with some of the other prophets of the movement, who have suggested several times in your correspondence columns that Japan’s apparent pros* perity is due to the application of credit principles. It was they •who brought the matter up—no One else. Even the cautious Mr D. C. Davie, who I understand is the local secretary of the Douglas credit movement, admits that Japan is practising '“inverted”' social criedit—whatever that (‘may mean. - Perhaps some other protagonist will undertake to . explain the answer to my original query. If social credit principles (inverted or otherwise) have been such a howling success for Jap-; apese secondary industries, why have' they not been, applied to the languishing .primary industries in the same (Country? - ; j By the way. I-did not suggest that Japan was a "social, credit state'ViMr. Thomas’s mistake.-rrYours, etc'., ! . BUNK;* • 7, ■ ' •.