THE BANKING SYSTEM

Otago Daily Times, Issue 25866, 9 June 1945, Page 3

THE BANKING SYSTEM

Sir,—lt is a pity to see ignorance and stupidity parading themselves so arrogantly as in the case of "British Freedom,” whose letter in to-day's Daily Times is a monument of both. It is not clear whether the writer is attacking monetary reform or the Labour Government, but he appears to think they are more or less in the same category—which is, to begin with, a cardinal error. He is at pains to describe the limitations of his own experience and intelligence—a somewhat unnecessary proceeding since they are plain for all to see. He Is equally unaware of the real grounds on which the banking system is open to criticism, and of the long list of eminent, able and experienced people who have put forward or upheld that criticism. I could recommend to him as enlightening reading some of the literature issued by the London Chamber of Commerce or the Economic Reform Club in London. Some of the numerous Social Credit pamphlets might also be helpful, but I fear the writings of Douglas himself would be too difficult for an intelligence of such confessedly low range and calibre. As a beginning, your correspondent might try to realise that the issue of nationalisation, the taking over and administration by the Government of any or all trading banks, is quite-different from the challenge put forward by Social Credit, that the banks have usurped the sovereign prerogative of the State in the creation of money, thus burying civilisation under mountains of debt' and taxation. He might then come to realise with Edmund Burke that “ unless the people possess mediately or immediately the power to issue its own money no shadow of liberty can subsist.”— I am, etc., Truth. Dunedin, June 7.