THE MONEY CIRCLE.

Evening Star, Issue 22272, 25 February 1936, Page 11

THE MONEY CIRCLE.

TO THE EDITOR. Sir, —1 am afraid I have neither time nor inclination to dispute with Mr Moss, since his idea of settling tins matter is to reiterate what he thinks about the subject no matter what may be advanced in contradition. Even the fact that the statements advanced against his contentions are those of financial experts of undoubted authority avails nothing. He informed us that ho would, in response to my complaints regarding his evasions, deal with these authorities later, being quite unaware apparently' that they should come first with anyone who intended to reach finality. If the bankers’ statements are correct then the case which Mr Moss tries to make out in defence of the present, monetary system collapses, and one who is intent on. reaching the truth would _ hardly persist in repetitions of his ■ own opinions. When your correspondent can show, on some authority higher than himself, that the statements I advanced are not correct descriptions of the usual banking practise, I will be prepared to believe that my ideas need revision. Failing that, the first step toward clarity in this matter has been taken. Proceeding along the lines favoured by Mr Moss we will get nowhere. Will your correspondents oblige?—] am, etc., , February 22. A. [This letter has been abridged.—Ed E.S.] TO THE EDITOR. Sir, —Will you please open your' columns to the questions of an aspiring but perplexed student of the mephitic monetary metaphysics of Mr Moss? I dwelt lovingly over Saturday’s pronouncement that “ the value of all money is relative to the amount of labour it will exchange for or buy.” This leaves nothing for argument, of course, but am I right in deducing from it that a pound which will buy, say, eight hours’ _ labour is only half so good as one which will buy 16 hours labour? Further on Mr Moss stated that an easy and sound remedy for our trouble “ is to increase the value of the present legal tender.” The pound note at present will exchange for or buy, roughly, 16 hours of man labour, By increasing the value of the pound note it could be made worth, say, 32 hours of man labour. Would the master tell me whether this would be a good thing? ‘And, if so, for whom would it be a good thing—for the labourer, the union secretary, or for the authority, be it divine or mundane, who controls money? I was happy to see that Mr Moss thinks the spectacle of people going short of essentials is appalling, for I think that way, too. But after observing the large scale destruction of commodities and restriction of production which has been practised in the past few years, I must frankly confess to be attracted by Major Douglas’s idea of paying everybody a national dividend m addition to wages, so that people may buy, for example, the milk now poured down drains. Would Mr Moss please explain how the payment of a national dividend to me and every other New Zealander is going to damage me? In my simple untutored way, I have a sort of idea that a bit of extra income coming into the home would help things along very nicely. I am afraid I have not used any gold or platinum money, and the paper notes which occasionally come my way seem to be full of microbes. That is probably why I have not worried what value each paper note has in itself so much as what portion of my rent it will pay and how much food, clothing, or amusement it will get for me. Since studying Mr Moss’s letters I feel that this is an ignorant and selfish way of regarding money, and as I would greatly like to be considered an intelligent resident of one of the dominions Mr Moss may be kind enough to help me with an answer to the following questions:—(l) What is the monetary system for? (2) Is it doing its job efficiently?—l am, etc., Bluegum. February 23.