Monetary Commission.

Star (Christchurch), Volume LXIV, Issue 956, 28 December 1933, Page 8

Monetary Commission.

Dear Sir, —Qualified by a big “ if,” it is good news to learn that the Government is to appoint a commission to cousider monetary and currency reform. The “if ” concerns the personnel of that commission. If we are to have a collection of academic and financial “ experts ” who ar.e already known to be opposed to every reform so far suggested, and to these oracles are to be added discreetly selected members of Parliament who, with the “ experts.” are likely to have a bias coinciding with the Cabinet’s own complacent attitude to the present monetary system, then there will be unqualified disappointment, not to say a howl of resentment throughout the Dominion. The whole question will merely have been trifled with, and the commission will be seen to be merely a strategical gesture, 90 per cent bluff. If the Government clearly realises that the voting public is now wide awake to the part that our outworn economic system has played in the slump, and that the electors are earnestly devouring the mass of readable literature oo monetary matters now pouring from the press, and rapidly familiarising themselves with all the new monetary reform theories they can lav their hands on, it will be well advised to play the game with the interested public. It should be satisfied with nothing less than a set of unchallengeable men who are wholly untied to any system or any financial overlords behind the scenes. Such a commission would be in a. position to gather and sift carefully all the available evidence for and against the present and the new systems proposed, giving equal opportunity to all credentialled advocates to state their proposals and point out the defects of the present policy. So-called “experts” who have already committed themselves up to the hilt in a defence of measures based upon our present utterly futile system are obviously hopeless, and to expect a report in favour of anything but their own hide-bound professional beliefs would be optimism run wild. The London "Times” recently said: “ The professional authorities on these (monetary) questions have expressed so many conflicting opinions and have given such extraordinary advice that the best hope of success seems, indeed, to lie in a candid examination of the facts by men not professing to be experts, and consequently not hampered by preconceived theories.” * Nothing less will suffice. I believe that the members of a Royal Commission should be subject to “ challenge ” bv the most interested parties, as are the members of a jury, and, with a final unchallenged panel, some honest and ticable recommendations could be expecte Is the Government game?—l