SOCIALISM AND FREEDOM

Evening Star, Issue 25495, 28 May 1945, Page 2

SOCIALISM AND FREEDOM

TO THE EDITOU. Sir, —" Student " advises me to read Douglas or Colbourne on Social Credit. 1 have read Douglas, hut not Colbourne, and also numerous " new eras," Hattersley and others too numerous to'mention. 1 have also read Hans Andersen's fairy tales, and tin.' latter has this advantage, that .1 am not asked to believe them. Being a. realist, 1 am incapable of allowing wishful thinking to land me in a maze of self-deception. Most Social Credit literature 1 have read 1 would describe as running round in circles, a sort of typographical balloon loop. If planning is anathema to Major Douglas, as an engineer, should he wish to construct a Queen Mary, why be surprised if the finished produce turns out a jeep or doll's pram:- 1 "Student" is very hard to diagnose; lie does not like laissez-faire, and he does not like planning. I would like " Student " to tell me how Socialism would restrict production. 1 rather think it was the U.S.S.R. that turned out more tractors than even the U.S.A., and lightened labour, raised wages, and shortened hours. The individual farmer cannot afford tractors, and that is whyeven Conservative parliamentarians speak of God's own country and in the next sentence complain of wives and children in the cow shed working by light of a'lantren. I have sailed through the Panama Canal zone, seen 1,500 tons of coal taken in in ono hour and a half, and no dust either; not- an order given, nothing harder than pushing buttons, and in this zone the only "dehumanising and enervating " sight 1 saw was an alligator, who, like Douglas. Credit followers, wanted to exist on the fat of the land and render' no service; .and all this was socially owned. What a dismal picture your correspondent paints of those in the service of the State. Let me assure '• Student" the young lady who delivers my mail is quite a charming person, and 1 firmly believe the gentleman who will sell mo the 2d stamp will not,' when I am. posting this letter, look like Bluebeard or Dr Crippcn. On the whole, I think your correspondent, at some time visiting the chamber of horrors at Madame Taussaud's, did not realise that it was nut a State institution, but entirely a product of private enterprise. "Student" speaks of filling in forms in tones of horror. 1 will have the pleasure to-morrow o£ filling in one for income tax, and if my moiety will help some war widow, orphan, or pensioner not being a Douglas Credit fan I shall be quite pleased. Like Shakespeare, I believe it is more blessed to give than to receive.—l am, etc., C. S. MacArthur. Mav 25.

TO TIIB KniTOK. Sir, —Like most people who subscribe to the Socialist-Communist ideology, Mr C. S. MacArthur resorts to abuse and ridicule. Mr MacArthur, the Labour gang, and their friends will never learn that the issue which has swept right down through the ages is the people versus the finance capitalist, and not the fprmer versus the producing or industrial capitalist. The producing capitalist—large and small—has produced goods and rendered service, and, given the money, can, aided by modern machinery and scientific knowledge,, raise'the rate of How of production to any, conceivable heights." The free initiative of the industrialist gave us the, pre-war age of plenty. Finance Capitalism caused the slump by withholding our monetary claims to it. Socialistic . war-time bureaucracy has already largely' destroyed it. Save for the fact "that it is starved of adequate unencumbered finance there is nothing wrong with production. ]f Mr MacArthur and his ilk weukl divorce themselves from " sound finance," they, perchance, would see a little more clearly. Until they do this, simple things such as the 'difference between real and financial wealth will to them remain a mystery. Social Crediters never at any time claimed that they would "... give the worker enough money to buy back tho whole of his production." A coal miner canurt eat or wear coal any more than a " wharfie " can live on his own services. A shareholder in any business is justly entitled to any dividend which a particular business may earn for him, but what Mr .MacArthur fails to observe is that under the present obsolete system if one business pays a dividend some other business or businesses somewhere in the country show a dead loss. This symptom alone proves the Social Credit assertion that there is an insufficiency of money tokens in existence. We are all shareholders in the nation's business, and are thus as much entitled to dividends, if available, as we are bound to pay taxes to make good any deficiency. Modern machinery aided by scientific knowledge, has disemployed thousands of men (now in the services), but who pays the wages of these men ? N"o wages are paid for the work done by these machines. Mr MacArthur's ill-considered gibe about drones is easily eclipsed, for .New Zealand to-day is overrun with them. They can be found everywhere—on boards and commissions, in almost every State department, in Parliament, in religious circles, in trade unions, in gaming circles, and other spheres too numerous to mention. Bureaucracy is everywhere.- Having vision of my own .1 do not require Major Douglas to stipulate who shall be the non-workers under the future Social Credit regime. Add to all those drawing a pittance from Social Security to-day, all those in the group up to the age of IS years and all those who have reached the ago of 40 years, and we would soon have a basis on which to work. The Socialists say: " To each according to his needs, from- each according to his ability to pay." Mr MacArthur has never informed us how they gauge the needs or ability of individuals in the Soviet slave State" Perhaps the O.G.P.U.—secret police—do it. As Goethe said, " None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely "believe they are free." New Zealanders do not want another depression. They desire to safely transfer this civilisation into the post-war era, to live a happy and contented life! and, as Professor Soddy says, " Science without Social Credit is sheer suicide"; they will demand Social Credit. The answer to Socialism, Communism, Federal Unionism, and all the other "isms .'•' is Economic- Democracy. —1 am, etc., Juoiter. May 2-7. _ P.S.—An increase" m purchasing power is not inflation unless accompanied and paralleled by a rise of prices.—J. TO THE EDITOR. Sir,—One of the few remaining genuine Socialists in New Zealand, 1 protest against a ghastly misuse of the word " socialism " in connection with an authoritarian and bureaucratic control never envisaged by such men as Ruskin and Owen. Scruples against profiteering occasionally trouble ordinary business—none troubles Government. Total taxation, apart from borrowing, is now more than the total

aggregate, not merely the net total, private income of all New Zealand a few years ago. This is not all that Government collects—\itiioss the dearest fee for the worst broadcasting—nor does it include all that Government inflicts—e.g., the many millions man hours per annum devoted to filing in forms, returns, and certificates. A - necessity of high, taxation is high wages, dividends, and profits, these being raised for national revenue production, regarless of what is on sale. Economic insanity is illustrated h.V an all-round jump of about 12 per cent, in wages that increases costs rfircctlv by more than 12 per cent, and that sales tax raises further and profit'; ycf more. To buy this pound"s worth raised to more than a pound's worth, each pound extra in wages is reduced half a- crown through security taxation and almost every pound has to provide at least 3s 4d in income taxation, so that a man or woman has about 14s 2d with which to meet a cost increased to 24s or 255. Truly, never in the history of New ealand were so many charged so much for so little, with an assurance that, since this is their own idea of Socialism, they are in for a better and brighter canse as the days go by. The Minister of Finance, who gets the extra sales tax, income tax, etc. is understandably interested in such Irishman's rises, and, of course, in " stabilisation " that puts goods, such as motor car tyres, out of tho reach of ordinary motorists. This problem in humour entitles trade unionism to special mention in any world history of practical joking. One State-manufactured item that is well on the way to universal supply —an item as unnecessary as it is undesirable—is general poverty, not in the least incompatible with high-money wages.—l am, etc., A. E. Robinson. Auckland, May 22.