“A PRACTICAL ISSUE”

Otago Daily Times, Issue 21978, 13 June 1933, Page 6

“A PRACTICAL ISSUE”

TO THE EDITOR. , Sir, —“ Truth ”in your issue of the 9th inst. unquestionably upsets my claim that the experience of Major Douglas before the Canadian bankers warned him when invited to give evidence before the Labour Party Committee to flee from the wrath to come. If 1921, as “ Truth ” states, was the year when the committee met —I had a firm impression it was 1924 —and if 1923 was the year when the major gave evidence in Canada, my presentation of, in any case, a somewhat unimportant point was faulty. This given in, however, it does not remove the impression that the personnel of the committee, well known to the major, filled him with misgiving. Mr J. A. Hobson, one of the clearest thinkers in the Empire, occupied a seat'thereon, and a former contact during discussion with that Socialistic economist was scarcely calculated to encourage Major Douglas to seek another. On December 7, 1920, at a meeting of the Sociological Society, Hobson was' chairman, and Douglas lectured on the “Mechanism of Consumer Control.” We learn from a Douglas supporter who was present: “The discussion after the lecture rambled aimlessly, and merited no record. Mr Hobson’s cold indifference expressed \ in scholarly Ruskinian phrases is the thing I chiefly remembered.” _ And again: “ Somewhat at the same time in a Fleet street attic I aud eight or nine mates of the S.D.F. executive saFon two benches and in came Douglafc. He gave us an eminently sensible talk on consumption credit, prices, etc., and I think all the listeners except me followed the haughty academic example of the Euskinian Hobson.’’ It is abundantly evident that when Hobson’s influence permeated the atmosphere the gallant major was perturbed, and this doubtless affords a for the curt intimation in the Labour Committee’s report, “He and Mr Orage. declined to give evidence.” “Truth” appears to attach importance to d statement by Major Douglas that “the Official Labour Party has no fundamental difference of opinion with the existing financial system.” In the Labour Committee’s report, No. 1 of_ its own proposals Teatfe: “The nationalisation of the joint stock banking > system and the substitution in the business of chequebankinpr and credit issue of a unified banking system publicly owned and controlled. This entranced obliviousness of established fact on the part of the major may safely be left to the explanatory apologists of the Douglas cult. The quotation given by “ TAith ” from the Dean of Canterbury is at any rate in this connection' quite unimpressive, not to say incredibly stupid. Other dignitaries of the Church with equal knowledge of sbcial credit have dismissed it as unworthy of serious consideration, and the consensus of opinion amongst able men fully capable of seriously discussing rival methods of banking and currency is overwhelmingly contemptuous. As to the second quotation taken from Holy. Writ, . I trust "Truth” will not be unduly annoyed if I say that a parallel drawn between the respective advents of the Son of Man and Major Douglas betokens an attitude of mind wholly unhelpful in this discussion. Meantime, it is puzzling in the extreme to understand why Scotland, a country peopled by clear thinkers eager at any i time to adopt methods calculated to enrich their pockets, stands stupidly aloof , whilst the Douglas cult, with drums beating and flags flying, offers a scheme which, to quote the major, would " abolish taxation, abolish poverty, increase leisure, increase the opportunitiea_ for education, and bring the economic millennium.” This ■ scheme for Scotland works this way; “Under the Scottish scheme, if the dividend were £125 per annum a wage earner receiving £IOO a year as wages would have his wage reduced 25 per cent., making it £75. The dividend would be additional, making the total income £2OO per year, each f of which, by reason of the 25 per cent, discount, would purchase £1 6s 8d worth of goods. In other words,, he wou’d have apurchasing power equivalent t« £266 13s 4d. . . . Since a dividend js to be granted to every man, woman, and child, if the wage earner should be married the members of his family would also receive their dividend quite irrespective of the total amount he received from dividend- and wages.” Time goes on, however, and all endeavours to coax and cajole the Scots to revel in the luxury tendered by Major Douglas and his lieutenant, the Marquis of Tavistock, would appear futile. In the last analysis it will, as Mr Lloyd Ross says of social credit in general, never be applied, as the final decision in the complex matters of banking and currency always lies with experts and not with the herd.— l am, etc., Critic.: Dunedin,' June 10. TO THE EDITOR. Sir, —In your issue of the 7th inst. appeared a letter signed "Critic,” who makes certain statements concerning Major Dogulas and 1 the ParliamentaryLabour Party’s Comlnittee, which was appointed to investigate a draft scheme for the mining industry. The report of the committee is important, not. as containing any contribution to the solution of the problems with which it purports to deal or as advancing any valid or competent criticism of the principles or details of social ’credit, but rather as a concrete instance of the defective working of Labour Party organisation—defective, that is, in the sense that the aims of the rank and file and the Central Executive have not so much in common as those of the Central Executive and its alleged adversary, the capitalist.— l am., etc., Douglasite. [Our correspondent has'set out in his letter the correspondence between the Labour Party’s Committee and Major Douglas respecting the invitation to the latter to appear before the committee, but it is not of sufficient interest to require publication.—Ep„ O.D.T.]