SOCIAL CREDIT.

Southland Times, Issue 25303, 5 June 1935, Page 2

SOCIAL CREDIT.

To the Editor. Sir—As one of a large number of your readers who sincerely desire enlightenment, permit me to thank your contributor “F.N.R.” for his attempt to set forth in simple language an outline of what is meant by the theory of what is usually called the Douglas Credit Proposals. Whether these proposals can be translated into action has, to my mind, not yet been clearly demonstrated. The information given by “F.N.R.,” however, will, X am sure, be welcomed by large numbers of your readers and will stimulate inquiry and reflection. ✓ . ~, • j To the writer of the letter signed “N.Z. Welfare League,” appearing in your issue of June 1, thanks are also due for setting out as it does the view held by those who at present control the financial institutions of New Zealand. A very great proportion of the population have only the most hazy ideas on the matters discussed by these two writers and both writers have contributed something to our very elementary knowledge. As a means of eliciting further information and a more explicit statement of the attitude adopted by the N.Z. Welfare League may I be permitted to ask the latter writer one or two questions. With his statement that we are all eager to learn how it is to be done I am in most cordial agreement.

When N.Z. Welfare League says: “The purchasing power of a community surely comes from the income derived from the production and sale of goods and services,” he should, I think, elaborate a little further. The goods and services are being produced in large measure and we have men and machinery capable of producing in much greater volume. Unfortunately the reward for the efforts put forth by a large percentage of the population, when translated into terms of money, is so small that this large section of the population is unable to purchase the goods and services. A little further on N.Z. Welfare League says in effect: Under “F.N.R.” proposals the producer will receive his payment for work done partly from the consumers and partly from the Treasury. This in effect is merely a gift, not an increase of purchasing power, but a redistribution. This is tantamount to paying a man for something he has not earned by his work out of the pockets of those who have.”. Further on he continues: “The object of the national dividend is apparently to provide for those who are without incomes and this must be remedied by a free issue of money or credit to those in need.” “This is a worthy objective, but our point is that this distribution of free money to those in need is either (a) a gift from the existing reservoir of purchasing power from those who have to those who have not, or (b) it is inflation. If it is (a) it does not need such complicated machinery as is proposed.” Will your correspondent “N.Z. Welfare League” be good enough to tell us how this apparently simple matter of transferring from those with a superabundance of purchasing power to those without purchasing power is to be effected?—l am, etc., ENQUIRER.