CENTRAL BANKS.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LIII, Issue 243, 11 September 1933, Page 2

CENTRAL BANKS.

(To the Editor.) Sir, —In reference to the Reserve Bjink Bill which the Minister of Finance, Rt. Hon. J. G. Coates, says he is going to introduce during the coming session of Parliament, the following remarks may interest your readers : —■

Professor Soddy, a clever chemical engineer and keen student of econo- ; mics, says in reference to such as the above: “There cannot be any compro- ■ mise, it must be either the Governj ment or the banks.” And it may not Ibe generally known that tlie Bill, if j put into law, would hand this coun- ! try, bound and gagged, into the hands of the credit monopolists for 25 years. Rt. Hon. Reginald McKenna, a clever banker and keen student of economics, says: “They who control the credit of a nation shape the policies of Governments, and hold in the hollow of their hands the destinies of its. people.” I understand from one who has had some forty, years’ experience of politics that the recent article in the Press in reference to the Central Bank Bill could not have been put together by Mr Coates, but has evidently been sent to him by Sir Otto VNiemeyer and Professor Guggenheim Gregory. I have heard the suggestion that decentralisation is out of date, but so are many other things and there are other ways of controlling the people’s money than by a Central Bank, which would be one of a number as there are now 26 Central Banks in the world, in addition to the Bank of International Settlements at Basle, otherwise the Central Bank of the Central Banks. So far Canada and New Zealand have kept off the Central Bank idea, Australia having been saved by the introduction of the Commonwealth State Bank, which is empowered with the sole right of note issue and other powers entrusted to the Central or Reserve Bank elsewhere.

International co-operation would, no doubt, be a good thing, but I cannot see any evidence of the world being ready for it yet, and though such ideas as the International Institute of Agriculture, International Bureau of Education, International Bank for Business Credits, International Mortgage Banks are possibly good, if all countries were to consider more the improving of the lot of what is termed the common people and thought more in terms of humanity than they appear to do at present, they would get nearer tlie ideal of international co-operation and peace than they, are likely to do by the introduction of such schemes as’Central Banks. It is said that out of the international financiers’ attempt to gain world dominion by financial means through the setting up of some 26 Central Banks and tlie Bank of International Settlements, a prospective and appalling tyranny, thero will emerge the economic freedom of the British Commonweaftn or Nations and those countries closely allied to her, and if this does happen it will be by no means too soon.

Although tlie attention of the people of the city and districts around is centred on the Power Board controversy, which is, of course, vitally interesting, if I may be permitted to say so, the introduction of a Central Bank in this countfv would also affect them to an extent which some of us little realise, and I trust these few remarks will draw the people’s attention to what is going on nationally as well as locally.—Yours, etc.,

G. F. BECK. 10 Fitzroy Street, Palmerston North 10/9/33.