“FIRST THINGS FIRST.”

Timaru Herald, Volume CXL, Issue 20284, 6 December 1935, Page 10

“FIRST THINGS FIRST.”

“I am convinced,” declared Mr Harbert Hoover, some days ago, “that unless the Roosevelt ‘revolution’ be arrested, no later than next year the continuing deficits, inevitably as they always have, will produce an inflation iu some form that will impoverish all but tlie speculators who profit from such catastrophes.” The point the former President is endeavouring to make is that it is not necessary to close the doors of tiie trading banks or tlie post office savings banks, or commandeer their accumulated deposits to destroy the savings of the people. On the contrary the controlling authorities have only to manufacture money to meet enhanced payments by way of relief, and to provide the funds to pay for ambitious public works schemes, to substantially depreciate the people’s savings; in other Words, destroy values without the least interference. To Mr Hoover, as to all of his Quaker faith, “first things come first.” And the first thing, in his view, is to expose the evils of the New Deal, to awaken the people to the dangers ahead, and to mobilise the Republican party as the means of the country’s salvation. A searching analysis of the experiment is promised. Mr Hoover’s denunciation may be the same old attack on the “ins” by the “outs,” but the fact remains that the United States Treasury is suffering front a succession of heavy deficits, and the other day, for the first time in thb history of the country, the public debt passed the thirty-four billion mark.