CORRESPONDENCE

Timaru Herald, Volume CXLII, Issue 20513, 3 September 1936, Page 4

CORRESPONDENCE

MORTGAGE LEGISLATION To the Editor of " The Timaru Herald ’’ Sir, —The Right. Hon. the Prime Minister has Intimated that plenty of time would be allowed for the Rehabitation Bills proposals to be considered. What they are we do not at present know; what the old legislation was, and why, needs no explanation. I recall many forced clearing sales, my own amongst the number. I see a row of implements, “consumer”, “consumed” and “cconsumed producer goods” lined out for sale. As the terms imply "depreciation” covers the issue; and in varying “worth” or “worthlessness.” Some are fair, some bad, some better scrapped. They should not be there at all; ought to be sunk in 150 fathoms of water. Why are they there? Depreciation reaches the point of replacement. Assuredly as the Koran expresses it. I see the auctioneer (for whom my respect is big) representing the New Zealand Welfare League, personified as the Mortgage Corporation, receiver in bankruptcy for 75 per cent of the users of primary producer goods. The liabilities totalled £50,000,000! These bankrupts were incomeless, their assets of all kinds so worthless that in many cases they walked out; some in the night, like a thief, stealing, or who had stolen. The auctioneer’s hammer falls and someone who has been sharpening a pencil, writes a name and money sign in a book. 1 see the buyers; and as I see them I hear a voice saying: “And there was a dearth in the land; and the sons of the prophets were sitting before Elisha; and he said unto his servant: Set on the great pot, and set the pottage for the sons of the prophets! And one jvent out into the field to gather herbs, and found a wild vine, and gathered thereof wild gourds, his lap full, and came and shed them In the pot of pottage; for they knew them not. And they poured out for the men to eat. And it came to pas.- as they were eating of the pottage, that they cried out and said, ‘O! Thou man of God, there is poison (death) in the pot. And they could not eat thereof. And he said, ‘then bring meal.’ And he cast it into the pot; and he said: ‘Pour out for the people.’ And there was no harm in the pot.”

What an indictment of the debt system! What a justification of analysed social credit. What a sordid vindication of the A plus B. Will you permit that I amplify the text? John Strachey recommended the study of Keynes’s “Employment, Interest and Money.” Sorry, but I’ve not the time. We will, however, take his headings and so prove the Douglas analysis and remedy sound: The seething pot: Industrial products of all kinds which we ought to be able to buy.

A: Employment, gathering herbs. B: Interest; the chyluria of debt; a lap full of gourds: Resultant pottage poison (death) in the pot. Money: The meal, producible i dearth or “Thearung,” famine; virtually costless; the obedience to a definite command; "Then bring meal.” “And he cast it into the pot” “and the people did eat.” “There was no harm in the pot.” Soldier settler, Crown clients: Comrades. I see another picture. The Scottish Hall crowded with Crown clients in particular (under a virtual mortgage corporation), and Crown tenants generally. Why are they there? I hear two exponents of the New Zealand Welfare League type. One declares he has fought, the Arbitration Court for 30 years. The other with emphasis “Bleeding the countrj white." The president of the Sheepowners' Federation "the money is not there.” I turn to the classic economist, John Strachev, sterile as a piece of stag mutton, who I quotes an old Roman, but his name is not Plato: “For every hour of labour, however well intended and enthusiastic, which he spends for that which is hot bread, so much possibility of life is lost to him. Of all that he has laboured for, the eternal law of Heaven and Earth measures out to him for reward, to the utmost atom, that part which he ought to have laboured for, and withdraws (or enforces on him it may be) inexorably that part which he ought not to have laboured for. And that, sir, is exactly my understanding of the A plus B. —I am. etc., T. POWELL. Albury, August 28.