THE MONEY QUESTION

Otago Daily Times, Issue 23364, 2 December 1937, Page 21

THE MONEY QUESTION

TO THE EDITOR

Sir, —It is quite impossible to do as Mr James Begg asks in his further letter on Mr Lee. M.P., and Money, and only be interested in where Mr Lee's proposals would lead us. In the first place the v/hole of the banking mechanism is in ceaseless motion, recalling as well as issuing financial credit. Mr Lee certainly would “ monkey” with both aspects, but he concentrates on the issuing one, leaving the central bank with at least a considerable measure of freedom to increase the recall aspect by various means, and in effect showing that the Government, which Mr Begg called "rascally," is not necessarily a political one. In the second place, again, because of the recall aspect, Mr Lee’s proposals might be used without a rapid march to the inevitable misery. Indeed, up to the present the Government has succeeded quite well with actions that are similar to those which Mr Lee proposes. In the third place, the only alternative policy to that of Mr Lee’s is a deflationary one, and the misery from deflation is as great as, if not greater than that from inflation. Any intelligent discussion of the problem must lead to Douglas Credit, bank manipulation, etc. I should say that Mr Lee had many friends and supporters, ahd that their silence was due to their having more sense than to be rude to Douglas Credit, or to compete with Mr Begg and Mr Lee in that picturesque Sempleism which consists, when somebody does not conform to the Sempleite’s standard of conduct, in comparison with gangsterdom.—l am, etc., C. H. Chapman. Maori Hill, November 30.