A PRACTICAL ISSUE

Otago Daily Times, Issue 21975, 9 June 1933, Page 12

A PRACTICAL ISSUE

" , TO THE EDITOR. Sir,— My apologies are due to your readers, “ Critic ” among them, in. that by unduly contracting the expression of my comments—out of consideration for your space—l may have given a wrong impression of my meaning in regard to the reasons for the Labour Party Committee’s rejection of the draft scheme for the mining, industry drawn up by Major Douglas and expounded by Mr Orage. Whatever the - alleged reason may have been, . the real reason was' as I have stated, and as I may now re-state in Major Douglas’s own ■ words, that “the official Labour.. Party has no fundamental difference of , opinion with the existing financial system ”—a statement oh which the subsequent history of the Labour Party in ' Britain may. serve as a most instructively corroborative commentary. We may add, with your permission, a further section from Major Douglas’s reply, to, the Labour Party Committee’s report;— Practically, the > report is devoted to maintaining that the formulas which connect cost and price in the present financial system are the formulas which should give the best results. That is very satisfactory for high finance. Also, that any little defects which may be noticed from time to time in the system are due to wicked employers making. undue profits. That is also satisfactory, because it keeps alive a bitter controversy, between employers and employed, throws the employers into the arms of finance for protection against the employed, and keeps both of them too busy to have time to get at the facts. Thirdly, it goes out of its way to state that whether sound or not, a scheme which would give the worker higher wages, cheaper living, real control of both policy and conditions, and incomparably wider outlook on life, and these both at once and progressively, is fundamentally opposed to the principles for which the Labour Party stands because these results would be achieved without freeing themselves from the annual tribute payable to the other shareholders.

I would like to point out further that “Critic” should have refrained from saying that Major i Douglas refused to come before the committee because “his experience with the Canadian bankers warned him to flee from the wrath to come,” The committee held its first meeting on May 24, 1921, from ; which meeting a letter was sent inviting Major Douglas and Mr Orage to attend the next meeting, to be held a week later on June 1. They replied that, owing to a prior engagement, they could not do so. In subsequent correspondence, having outlined the constitution of a committee such as: would or could be impartial and competent to deal with the matter, they said: “ In the event of such : a committee being constituted, we shall be entirely ait its disposal for the most complete investiga: tion of both the practical and the theoretical aspects of the scheme.” . “Critic” should note that this was In 1921, The Canadian, inquiry at. which Major Douglas; Was invited to_ give evidence was held in 1923. It might assist “Critic” to moderate hia tone in regard to Major Douglas if he read the following:—

(1) “Twelve years ago, I sat in Major Douglas’s chambers and followed his convincing reasoning. Every prophecy of his has come uncannily true. I heard economists and bankers confute him, but facts have belied them, and again and again they shift their ground and contradict one another.”—Dr Hewlett Johnson, Dean of Canterbury, in an address in Birmingham on. February 16, 1933.“ * (2) ; “ Whereunto shall I liken this generation?: It is like unto children sitting in the market and calling to one another . . . for John came neithereating nor drinking, and they say, He hath a devil. _ The Son of Man: came, eating and drinking, and they say, behold a man gluttonous arid £. wine-bibber, a friend of publicans and sinners. But wisdom is justified of her children.”: —I am, etc.. Truth. Dunedin, June 7.