DOUGLAS SOCIAL CREDIT

Press, Volume LXXII, Issue 21714, 22 February 1936, Page 7

DOUGLAS SOCIAL CREDIT

TAXATION, DEBTS, AND CURRENCY There was a large attendance at the Chamber of address given by ards, of Palmer«ton ject was sent Economic: Crisis;* V J^T 1 J*!^' Mr Richards stated, that insajbite of what returning?: countries said to was little signs ol a prflaperity, and such prosperity-as v#aS'a«Mdent was due, solely* to the increased expenditure on armaments throughout the world. . ' , ' , This increased expenditure, Howeyer, meant that the national debt ox i each country was added to, and consequently taxation became • more and more burdensome. Debt; he said, was the cause of the economic troubles which afflicted the world, and as al|. money had its origin as a debt to the* banking system—increased expenditure inevitably meant increased debt. ' The solution to the national econo-j mic troubles, said,the speaker, coftr sisted in an issue of debt and interest free money, and he believed that the*, present Government realised this was" the'solution, and would reorganise the financial system ' along these lines. • '- Mr A. C. A. Sexton, member of Parliament for ."Franklin, addressed* the meeting, his subject, being "SocialCredit and the Present-Political Position.". Mr Sexton showed, thai there were only three ways in whiclv ,tJ\e present Government could "fulfil Its election promises,- &e^flm r "being.fcy means of taxation, add to the already, intolerqbleibUrdenj sec-* ond, by borrowing money, /which

would add to the national debt ami n»I terest payments; and. third, tw the erei ation of new money, sufficient in quan* tity to fill the gap between the total . purchasing power of the people in New Zealand and the collective prices of goods for sale in New Zealand! we, believed that the latter method.was the present Government's policy, and this would mean neither inflation nor deflation, but equation. He argued that the export farmer was compelfed to accept world parjty prices for Ms*, products, which to-day stood.at*a SgSte of 800 (the 1914 prices index beW 1000), and was forced to buy ras requirements at to-day's New Zealand price level, which stood in "the same ratio:at 130 Q. . .' . -, ~: The only'solution, he said, .was; fn» bringing about of a system sirallac to> •that proposed by Major C. H. Douglaa, .And usually known as Douglas social credit '*" " - j "-'i r -- i Rrdfessor F, Sinclaire praside^vfs^ the; meeting. '"'•"