INVITATION TO DEBATE.

Timaru Herald, Volume CXXXVII, Issue 19330, 3 November 1932, Page 14

INVITATION TO DEBATE.

To the Editor of “ The Tlmaru Herald." Sir, —The grotesque effusion which Mr Koller has in your issue of to-day, is an insult to his own intelligence, and a grievous disappointment to his best friends, as Mr Koller himself will some day realise, when the clouds which now obscure his vision, have rolled away. Mr Koller’s knowledge of the Douglas plan is evidently as slight as that of Mr Lloyd Ross’s, for, like Mr Ross, he would have me expound and defend this plan in an hour, or two hours at the most, which is an utter impossibility. An hour's talk might easily exhaust all that either of these two gentlemen know of the subject; but, it would 'by no means exhaust all that there is to know about it. So, by feverishly urging such a debate, both Mr Koller and Mr Ross unwittingly apply a measure to their knowledge of Douglasism, which we see is a very short one, indeed. Mr Orage, of the “New Age,” and “The New English Magazine,” is one of the most brilliant men in England at the present moment, and he tells us that it took him a whole year to comprehend clearly the full significance of the Douglas equation, notwithstanding the fact that he enjoyed the benefit of frequent explanatory conversations with Major Douglas, its author or inventor. And, Professor Copeland, who had studied Douglasism “in his callow days,” recently admitted that he devoted ten days of concentrated effort to master the Douglas plan, and, even then, according to Sydney and Melbourne reports, he failed to do so. Yet, Mr Koller and Mr Ross, seem to know so little about the subjects that they imagine that a full and complete explanation of this plan could be conveyed from one mind to the minds of a promiscuous audience, in one hour. To debate the Douglas plan satisfactorily. would necessitate a debate on each of the following subjects, at least; “Money,” “the Gold Standard,” “Production, Distribution and Consumption, “The Just Cost” and the “Financial Cost,” “Costing Accountancy,” “The Economic Value of Our Cultural Heritage,” "National Dividends for All,” “Social Credit: What is it Really?” “How the Douglas System Might be Expected to Work,” “Would it end, at once, the Present Slump?” I am willing to debate any or all of these subjects with Mr Lloyd Ross or anyone else; but, as Major Douglas has said that, cost is the core of all economics, new and old, it might be well to begin with Costing Accountancy, especially if only one debate is to take place.—X am, etc., A. M. PATERSON. Timaru, November 2.