MONEY AND ECONOMIC SECURITY

Otago Daily Times, Issue 25566, 20 June 1944, Page 6

MONEY AND ECONOMIC SECURITY

Sir, —I have to thank you for the right of reply to three letters appearing in Saturday’s issue of your paper. ” Matilda ” apparently has yet to learn that abuse is not argument, though often mistaken for such; but a mind so impervious to fact will probably have difficulty in perceiving anything but its own prejudices. Default on public debt, which has so roused “ Matilda ” in the case of Alberta is, as I have already pointed out, not peculiar to Alberta; nor is it a product or result of any Social Credit measures, biit simply the inevitable consequence of the present system, whereby all money is manufactured by the banks and issued as debt to whoever or whatever gets it, a debt on which interest is to be paid. Sometimes the debts are " written off ” as was the case with Saskatchewan; sometimes they are “ converted ” as with the £l7 millions about which Mr Nash negotiated with the Bank of England on behalf of New Zealand; and it has been more than hinted that but for pressure exercised by the British press, certain sections of which pointed out that New Zealand was at least as much entitled to cons.deration as Germany, Turkey, or other continental nations, the Bank of England might not have granted the opportunity or facilities to “ convert ” the loan. What would have been “ Matilda’s ” horror then, to find New Zealand among the defaulting? The points to be noted are (1) that we must either go on borrowing, if allowed to do so, or default, and perhaps be reduced as Newfoundland was to the status of a bankrupt under the dictatorship of a financial receiver: and (2) that the decision as to our fate lies with the banker. So while this is so. why talk about freedom or democracy? “ Notso Softski ” nobly proclaims that 1“ unlike the Douglas disciples, whose ambition is to extract ’the l.mit from the community, his would be to give the utmost, and thus incidentally benefit himself,” which, .when all is said and done, is just what the ordinary man in business is after, to give the community goods or services and thereby incidentally get some for himself. This correspondent is under the delusion that pr.vate ownership of the means of production is responsible for ’’ the deliberate programme of destruction and restriction ” which characterised the decade between 1929 and 1939. Does any sensible person believe that the owners of farms and factories, etc., would deliberately sabotage their means of livelihood —or if your correspondent prefers the terms, their sources of profit—because they owned them? It is forced upon them by the failure of the existing money system to distribute the product, and by the no doubt well-meant but disastrous interference of governments wh.ch think to cure the disease of poverty amidst plenty by destroying the plenty. “ Notso Softski ’’ is sure that the war would have been lost in Russia but for the “ collective and mechanised farms and the communal spirit of even the women and children.” He should not forget the very large measure of assistance given by Br.tain and America, or the sacrifices made to get the material into Russia. . , It would take too long to disentangle all the confusions into which “ 4/1530 ” has fallen, but one sentence may be selected as typical. “ The real thing exchanged there (i.e., in Russia) was labour power, which creates all goods." No doubt it enhances the sense of importance in adherents of Labour parties the world over to imagine that labour is the sole factor in production, but this is simply not true. We cannot even say with truth that the accumulated labour of past and present is the sole or even the chief factor to-day. So-called production is a process of conversion, involving the expenditure of energy, and to-day the chief source of this is not man, but Nature. In the last analysis the vastly preponderating contribution is solar energy in some form or other. The powers at the service of industry which can be thus described are more than twice the manpower of the whole population of the earth. Your correspondent is only about 200 years out of date. , As there is evident in these correspondents a lamentable inability or neglect to define their terms of discussion—the indispensable preliminary to any profitable debate—may I be permitted to lay down one or two definitions? First, “ Social Credit ” in the fundamental meaning of the term is the productive capacity of the community, the ability of people in an organised society to ■produce and deliver goods and services as when and' where required. It is something which comes into being as soon as men begin to associate for their common good. Its existence can no more be denied than that of the sun in the heavens. Financial credit is a device for putting This real “social credit” in motion, and it is sufficiently obvious that for the community to borrow financial credit from a section of itself is a disastrous farce. What ar.e known as the “ Social Credit Proposals,” and adopted as the “ Three Demands ” by the Social Credit Party in Great Britain, are methods of establishing, issuing, • and using the financial credit of the community. They include the National Credit Account, the National Dividend, and the National Price Discount. The community may be likened to the shipowner. He owns the vessel, and he decides where and for what purpose the voyage is to be made; but being perhaps ignorant of navigation, he entrusts the conduct of the voyage to the master mariner. Here is the true and proper function of the banker and financial expert—not to usurp the sovereign rights of the community and therefrom act as a secret government, a power behind parliaments and thrones) but to serve as trustee to carry out the policy not of any party, but of the people. This is not "unrestricted individualism,” it is true democracy.—l am, etc., Dunedin, June 17. „ Truth.

[This correspondence is now closed.— Ed. 0.D.T.1