MONETARY REFORM

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXVI, 11 February 1933, Page 2

MONETARY REFORM

(To the Editor) Sir,—Up till just recently it lias been accepted that anyone in possession of £IOOO could invest it, and the capital sum named would sprout out annually about £SO in interest, itself remaining intact. Why should the £IOOO be expected to sprout? If 1000 sovereigns are buried in one’s garden and unearthed in 12 months’ time they still remain 1000. The extra 50 can only be got by investing the money, and it seems most unlikely that the world’s supply of metallic gold is added to at the rate of 5 per cent compound year after year. The extra £SO therefore appears to be on paper only, and is apparently available because goods have been produced or some security lias turned"up to warrant its existence. At first glance it seems that the fact the £IOOO sprouted so regularly proved that the capitalistic system _ was working well, but how about this item? During the last few generations the capitalistic system has received as an addition to its securities, and as an outlet for its energTes no less a reinforcement than the whole of the land and contents of Australia, New Zealand, Canada, United States of America, South America, Africa, India, and a host of other pieces of land, not one of which has had to be paid for. It would indeed be a poor farmer under any system of farming, who could not make ends meet after such a tonic. The Great War has been blamed for most of our troubles, but on the authority of no less a thinker than Plato, “The origin of war is the pudsuit of wealth,” and quite naturally, at what was possibly the peak point of capitalistic endeovours in this direction, we find the greatest war in history. Just as naturally, at the peak point of capitalist endeavours to lay hands on what is left after the wreckage of the war, we have the biggest slump in history. There is nothing remarkable about either occurrence, and if the system can patch up its wounds, and is allowed to go on in the old way, another war and another slump will follow inevitably.—l ant; etc., BETA. Nelson, 10th February.