DOUGLAS PROPOSALS.

Evening Star, Issue 22379, 1 July 1936, Page 11

DOUGLAS PROPOSALS.

TO THE EDITOR, Sir, —When I read the last letter by Mr Moss it reminded me of the story you published as told by Mr Herring, M.P., at the mock Parliament, or how Methuselah had shrunk so that his bootlaces were getting in his eyes and interfered with his sight. Mr Moss also appears to have shrunk so much in progressive political thought that, I fear he cannot see clearly for the gold standard bootlaces which appear as specks before his eyes.- The fold standard suited Methuselah’s day ecause of the limited population and business then existing. Mr Moss now belatedly admits the countries that are on a managed currency have more gold under control than has ever existed before. The figures quoted by him which show an increase of gold since 1914 in the Bank of England are due to the present international situation benefiting Britain’s gold holding, because Britain went off the gold standard, and also suspended war debt payments to America, thus retaining the gold that poured in by not paying it out. Mr Moss says Douglas proposals are to create further tickets. If, as I suggested, they were confined to paying to the consumer only the difference between the price of the foreign-made article and the just price of the locally-made article it would mean less taxation, for the good and sufficient reason that such a payment would be made instead of tbe_ protective tax. By being made direct _to the consumer to purchase the article ii would enable him to buy the product that is.now often unsaleable because the protective tax makes it above his means.- It would create a demand for the goods at no greater taxation cost than Protection imposes, and achieve better results at less -administrative cost, because under Protection the finished product of one industry is the raw material often of another. This results in duplicating protection charges with resultant warehouse and retail charges. Douglas proposals applied to do what Protection is doing would minimise or abolish these duplicated costs, and therefore extend the benefits to the worker who cannot now buy the goods he needs. That is why I want to see every member of the Labour movement study Douglas Credit proposals, which contain the nucleus of a constructive idea to foster local industry. Protective taxes are viewed by foreign countries as hostile acts, and are regarded as the breeding ground of war. Douglas proposals, if used to enable impoverished consumers to buy local products, cannot cause hostility and will do the work of protecting industries cheaper and not necessarily with more tickets, as Mr Moss calls our paper money. Mr Moss says what is morally wrong is economically unsound. It is morally wrong to allow people to starve amidst plenty. Savage races never did that. They only starved when there was a famine; not when their labour yielded results. Only civilised men do such a foolish thing as to refrain from consuming goods the collective labour of man produced. That such a state of affairs is morally wrong is not only pointed out by the Douglas Social Credit propagandists, but by Bible precepts; therefore, in the_ words of Mr Moss, it must be economically unsound. Mr Moss’s contention that more tickets, as he calls paper money, mean higher exchange is not borne out by facts. On many previous occasions I quoted to show that when Australia raised her rate of exchange it was at a time when her paper money in circulation was contracted, and when her pound note had a greater internal purchasing power through the low price of primary products and by the dumping on her shores of surplus foreign goods. To reverse this position New Zealand followed Australia’s example of raising the exchange rate.. —I am, etc., * J. E. MacMantjs. June 30.