BANKING AND THE STATE

Press, Volume LXXIX, Issue 23858, 29 January 1943, Page 6

BANKING AND THE STATE

Sir—Paul Dombey astonished his father by asking, “Papa, what is money?” Mr Dombey would have liked to tell his son about currencies, depreciation of currencies, bills of exchange. and the price of precious metals, but realising the futility of doing so, he replied, “Money, Paul, why you know what pounds, shillings, and pence, guineas, half-guineas, and halfpence are.” To which Paul replied impatiently: ‘Yes, yes, but what is money? What can it do?” To which Mr Dombey replied: “Money, Paul, can do everything.” “That means anything,” said Paul. “Everything.” Controlled by Hitler, Mussolini, or a Mikado, it can create unparalleled aggression, controlled by a Lenin or Stalin it can water the Russian soil, and incidentally the soils of other lands. Controlled by the Federal Reserve, the Bank of England, and the big five it can bring a people to the brink of unutterable, unthinkable sorrow and woe. When you state that the “State is master" you state something with which neither Professor Cole nor Professor Soddy agree—something foreign to known personal experience.—Yours, etc., T. POWELL. Albury, January 26, 1943. Sir, —You assert that there is no case for the transfer of the function of credit creation from banking to the State because “the State is already the master.” Here is evidence against: “No respectable central bank would accept a policy from its government with which it differed fundamentally.”—J. A. C. Osborne, Deputy-Governor, Bank of Canada. “The money industry has actually undermined the authority of the State.”—Vincent C. Vickers, for 10 years director of the Bank of England. “It was only the banks, which, by limiting supplies, could curb the lavishness of governments.”—Sir Ronald' Munro Ferguson, director. Union Bank of Scotland. “The international bankers ~ . swept statesmen to one side and issued their orders with the Imperiousness of absolute monarchs.”— Lloyd George. “The money power .. . is a danger to good government everywhere.”—Lord Bryce. “The Government . . . was to leave the money power supreme and unquestioned.”— Gladstone. “We Governments are the puppets of the Commonwealth Bank Board.”—Mr Ogilvie, Premier of Tasmania.—Yours, etc., THE NAKED TRUTH. January 27, 1943.