QUESTION! AND AGAIN QUESTION!

NZ Truth, Issue 873, 19 August 1922, Page 12

QUESTION! AND AGAIN QUESTION!

Dear "Truth," — As there has been a discussion on "Banks and the Public" running through your paper I thought as a four years' gu.est at Pluto's blood-bath I might crave your permission to ask through your columns a few questions pertaining to the cause and remedy of the present distress. Is it not a fact that a big creative factor is the custom which has crept m of people being induced to traffic m land on the time payment sewing machine principle? In other words, trafficking m that shadowy deceiver Goodwill? Is not the issue of paper money another cause. of inflation, and, from an economic point of view, wrong m principle? If necessary, for the sake of convenience, should not the right of. issue be the monopoly of the community? Has not private banking crept* m m the same way as the land purchase on mortgage system and been accepted by the people as a matter of course through the average mortal's^ignorance of economics.? Is not company taxation strangling industry and unfair m its incidence to the small shareholder? Do not import tariffs defeat their own ends by tending to eliminate competition, thereby keeping up the cost of living, on which wages are, or should be, based according to an equitable arbitration system? Is not money, either m the, form of gold or paper, merely a medium for the exchange of commodities, and does it not, like water, as it is inflated or deflated, cause a rise and fall m the cost of living 1 ? Has New Zealand not always been a spendthrift

country/- living on -the bounty of Cohen and leaving Posterity to nurse the baby? Does not- exceasixe external borrowing lead to inflation of internal purchasing' power and so tend to m.- . crease the cost of- living? Is not the most' equitable form of taxation a direct graduated 1 tax on unearned income,- -gifts, -death duties, etc., with a sp.ec'ial Scale' "for absentees, and would not -collection of same be facilitated through the - establishment of State Banking, and are they not the only taxes, that cannot be passed on? Was not Germany's war debt all contracted internally, and could .not- New Zealand be financed' m the same way? Was not the issue of tax-free war bonds an economic blunder and playing into the hands of the profiteers? Is not business' merely a polite, form of robbery and is not civilisation founded on one word, — "Interest," otherwise "Mara,, mon?". Since leaving Jerry's firework display I have' acquired a decided leaning towards the philosophy of Aristophanes, who .mentioned; amongst other thihg-s, thit we are all dancing m a net. An . economic one I presume, so it's otily ' through ■ economic knowledge that : we can extricate ourselves. I didn't. run across?-. any of the Rothschilds m the pick and shovel trade m Europe, althovigh one. made the suprome ■ sacrifice m Palestine, so •'•• it seemed to me, as a 'casual observer, that the nation with no country arid no ;flag but quite. .^l. lot of brains had /it .well across- the world and made a prejtty,gpbd. move -when it denied its Creator as the Prince of Devils and journeyed West. As we are all more or less. -thieves 'or lunatics, . is not the spendthrift a better asset to the State than the man who hoards wealth and eventually spends- it . externally on a pleasure trip? So, is not the wowser who aid 3 and abets the thief and curtails the pleasures of the lunatic from an economic point of view the enemy within the gate? In ■ conclusion, do not politicians" when, speaking: of destruction of eapital -become confused with .the destruction of security or credits, which merely existed m- the imagination of the deluded speculator? If any unbiassed students of economics can answer any of these questions m the' negative I am prepared, to renounce pork, join the one -eyed, / Pussyfoot sisterhood, and drink .at the, creek with the wild asses and, angoras for the rest of my days. — I ' am, etc!,, .' - • "DISINTERESTED."